**DISCLAIMER: This article was first published in July of 2024**
According to a deeply disturbing new op-ed published with Time by Donald Trump’s own nephew, Fred Trump III, the scandal-plagued and felony-convicted now-former president once told his nephew to let his disabled son “just die” and “move down to Florida” after the younger Trump approached his uncle in desperate need of financial help to cover his son’s exorbitant medical costs.
As he prepares to officially release his new tell-all memoir, All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got to Be This Way, Fred III begins his op-ed with his recollection of the time that he visited the Trump White House with several of his fellow disability advocates in an effort to garner some national support for caregivers through his uncle’s presidency.
Fred describes Trump as seemingly flighty, as usual, jumping from topic to topic during the meeting, but overall engaged and appeared to be genuinely interested in helping his nephew’s cause.
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But that spark of hope for Fred III was extremely short-lived, as he goes on to write that after the meeting was over, his uncle pulled him to the side and told his nephew, who is the father to a disabled son, “Those people… The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.”
“I truly did not know what to say. He was talking about expenses. We were talking about human lives,” the younger Fred Trump writes in his op-ed. “For Donald, I think it really was about the expenses, even though we were there to talk about efficiencies, smarter investments, and human dignity.”
But, believe it or not, that was not Fred’s first brush with his uncle’s apparent nihilistic views on disabled people and, particularly, his nephew’s own son.
Fred III goes on to recall the summer of 2018 when his then 19-year-old son William became extremely sick with “a serious case of life-threatening pneumonia.” William eventually was able to come home, but his medical needs had only increased and it was difficult to afford.
The Trump family set up a trust for expenses related to William’s care, but as the years went on, more and more family members became reluctant to contribute towards it, until eventually, Donald was the only one left who was putting any money in and the bills were stacking up while the money was running very low.
Finally, Fred III approached his then-presidential uncle to ask him about contributing more funds to the trust.
“Donald took a second as if he was thinking about the whole situation,” the younger Trump writes before recalling his uncle saying: “I don’t know. He doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.”
Wait! What did he just say? That my son doesn’t recognize me? That I should just let him die?
Did he really just say that? That I should let my son die . . . so I could move down to Florida?
Really?”
“I’m usually pretty good at getting my head around things that other people say,” Fred writes, “even when I don’t agree with them. But this was a tough one. This was my son.”
You can find Fred Trump III’s full op-ed with Time here.
Featured image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore, under Creative Commons license 2.0
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