godanddonaldtrump.com/ CHAPTER 8 THE ROLE OF FAMILY ★★★★★ WHEN I INTERVIEWED Donald Trump before the election, one of my questions was, “What is the most important thing in your life?” In a split second he said it was his family, adding that religion was also important. So knowing what he be- lieves about his family—including the family he grew up in—is important to understanding this very complex man. Many noticed the admirable qualities of Donald Trump’s children during his campaign, and I’ll touch on some of that in this chapter. In the second presi- dential debate even his staunch rival Hillary Clinton said that one thing she ad- mired about Trump was his children. “His children are incredibly able and de- voted, and I think that says a lot about Donald.”¹ So who are the members of Donald Trump’s family tree? He has been married three times and has five children and eight grandchildren. Before starting such a big family of his own, Trump came from a large family himself as one of the five
children born to Fred and Mary Trump in Queens. In his 1987 best-selling book The Art of the Deal Donald Trump writes, “The most important influence on me, growing up, was my father, Fred Trump. I learned a lot from him.” But he quickly adds, “At the same time, I learned very early on that I didn’t want to be in the business my father was in.”² Frederick Christ Trump—whose middle name comes from his German-born mother’s maiden name, pronounced with a soft i—was a real estate developer who built and managed thousands of apartments in Queens and Brooklyn. It was a profitable business, but it required a lot of hands-on interaction with builders, suppliers, and tenants who didn’t always pay their bills on time.³ Born in New York in 1905, Fred discovered very early that he had a talent for construction. He loved building things, learned to read architectural plans, and spent hours in the workshop learning to use carpentry tools.⁴ He was just thir- teen when his father died, leaving behind a wife and three children. His father had been a boardinghouse owner in Seattle, Washington, starting in the 1890s, rent- ing rooms to Yukon gold miners. But when the gold boom trailed off around the turn of the century, the elder Trump relocated to the borough of Queens, New
York, where he made a comfortable living investing in real estate.⁵ Although the family wasn’t left penniless, Fred knew he would have to find a way to help his mother, Elizabeth, and his two siblings. Two years later he and his mother decided to open a small construction company. Since he was still a minor, Fred couldn’t do business under his own name, so they filled out the offi- cial documents under his mother’s name, calling the business E. Trump & Son. Eventually the name would be changed to Trump Management Company.⁶ Automobiles were a new luxury in the 1920s, and homes didn’t come equipped with garages. Drawing on his carpentry skills and his entrepreneurial aptitude, Fred designed and built a simple carport for a neighbor, for which he charged fifty dollars. When other neighbors saw it, they lined up to have Fred build them carports of their own. By the time he graduated from high school, Fred was al- ready a successful businessman. Before long he was building small homes and duplexes and handling the financing himself.⁷ As the business expanded during the 1930s and 1940s, he was able to secure government contracts for Navy barracks and apartments for military families dur- ing the Second World War. After the war he began building large housing blocks
for returning soldiers and their families in Brooklyn, restoring bankrupt prop- erties, and acquiring apartments and other buildings in foreclosure. By the time of his death in 1999 the family-owned business had more than twenty-seven thousand apartment units under management.⁸ DONALD TRUMP’S SCOTTISH MOTHER Fred met his future wife in the 1930s, as the family legend goes, at a dance. Mary Anne MacLeod had grown up speaking Scots Gaelic in her native Scotland, and Fred was enchanted by her accent. She had made at least two trips to the United States before finally gaining resident status in the early 1930s. Her older sister, Catherine, who had arrived in New York a few years earlier, invited Mary to come for a visit in 1928, and not long after her arrival Catherine found Mary a job as a nanny for a wealthy family in the New York suburbs.⁹ Unfortunately the job didn’t last long. Her employers lost most of their fortune in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and new positions were hard to come by. Mary returned to Scotland before finding a permanent position, but by 1934 when the Depression was beginning to ease, she was back in New York where she met “the
most eligible bachelor in New York.” After a lengthy engagement, Fred and Mary were married in 1936.¹⁰ “Looking back,” Donald Trump has said, “I realize now that I got some of my sense of showmanship from my mother. She always had a flair for the dramatic and the grand. She was a very traditional housewife, but she also had a sense of the world beyond her. I still remember my mother, who is Scottish by birth, sit- ting in front of the television set to watch Queen Elizabeth’s coronation and not budging for an entire day. She was just enthralled by the pomp and circumstance, the whole idea of royalty and glamour.”¹¹ Mary Trump’s love of royal pageantry, the Queen, and all things British was only natural. She had been born in 1912 in the tiny fishing village of Tong on the island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, where her father worked as both fisherman and postmaster. She was brought up a devout Presbyterian by her Gaelic-speaking parents, who belonged to the Reformed “free church” movement within the Church of Scotland known as the “Wee Frees.”¹² We don’t know how religious Fred Trump’s German ancestors may have been or how faithfully he followed the teachings of the churches his family attended in
New York, but Fred attended church regularly throughout his life and maintained a friendship with Dr. Norman Vincent Peale until Peale’s death in 1993. Fred and Mary were supporters of their church and several Christian organizations, and Mrs. Trump was well known for her charity work and philanthropy until her death in 2000 at age eighty-eight. Much of her philanthropy was centered in Queens, where the family lived. She supported the Women’s Auxiliary of Jamaica Hospital and the Jamaica Day Nursery, and there was plenty of money to give. At the time of his death in 1999 Fred’s net worth was estimated to be more than three hun- dred million dollars.¹³ The island of Lewis, where Mary Trump grew up, holds a place of renown and important in church history because of the Holy Spirit revival that broke out there in the late 1940s. From 1949 to 1953 the island of Lewis, the Hebrides islands, and other parts of the United Kingdom were powerfully touched by an evange- listic fire known as the Hebrides Revival, and thousands of men and women in Scotland and the western isles were brought into the body of Christ through those events.¹⁴ All this transpired more than a decade after Mary MacLeod had emigrated to the United States, but it’s safe to say that the depth of devotion that
was awakened later was there in some measure during her childhood. Donald Trump’s mother was serious about her faith and would often say to her children, “Trust in God and be true to yourself.”¹⁵ Donald John Trump was the fourth of five children born to Fred and Mary Trump. By the time Donald was born, on June 14, 1946, Fred was quite wealthy and the most successful real estate developer in Queens. In addition to the thou- sands of homes he had built and sold during his career, he was able to build an elegant mansion for his family in the upscale Jamaica Estates section of Queens. Thanks to several expansions and renovations, the home would eventually grow to twenty-three rooms.¹⁶ Donald Trump told one of his biographers that he grew up in a warm, close- knit household, but it was a highly charged, competitive home and his father was often away on business. If he and his brothers, Fred Jr. and Bob, wanted to spend time with their dad, they would have to go with him to the job site. During sum- mer vacations the boys would work for their father collecting rents or grabbing a hammer and joining the carpentry crew on one of Fred’s projects. Unfortunately Fred Jr. (known as Freddy) could never live up to his father’s expectations, and
the two men had a rocky relationship.¹⁷ To escape his father’s criticism and disappointment, Freddy decided to opt out of the family business and become a commercial airline pilot, flying for TWA. The future president had been close to his brother, but he could see that Freddy didn’t have a head for business. “I think Freddy became discouraged,” Trump said in his book, “and he started to drink, and that led to a downward spiral.” He has often said that Freddy was really the best one. He was handsome and out- going. He had a warm personality and a zest for life, but his demons never let him relax.¹⁸ Freddy smoked and drank heavily but warned Trump to stay away from those habits, and he took the advice to heart. Trump could see what those addictions were doing to his brother, and Trump has been a nonsmoking teetotaler his whole life. “At the age of forty-three, [Freddy] died. It’s very sad, because he was a wonderful guy who never quite found himself,” Trump wrote years later. “In many ways he had it all, but the pressures of our particular family were not for him.” He added, “I was devastated when he died.”¹⁹ A POSITIVE TRANSFORMATION
Donald Trump’s younger brother, Robert, followed him into the real estate business and later became supervisor of Fred Sr.’s real estate portfolio at the end of his life. Their sister Maryanne Trump Barry earned degrees from Mount Holyoke and Columbia and a law degree from Hofstra University and became a federal judge. Another sister, Elizabeth, went to work for Chase Bank.²⁰ Donald’s sisters don’t hesitate to say that he was always a handful. “He was a brat,” Maryanne told one of Trump’s biographers, and that behavior ended up with Donald being shipped off to the New York Military Academy (NYMA) at age thir- teen to have the rough edges knocked off.²¹ “I was very bad,” Trump admitted. “I was rebellious. Not violent or anything, but I wasn’t exactly well behaved.” Military school transformed the spoiled rich kid in remarkable ways, thanks mainly to the strong discipline he received from his coach and instructor, Ted Dobias. Trump remembers that “those guys were rough. If a guy did today what they did then they’d have them in jail for twenty-five years.” His coaches and teachers weren’t afraid to lay down the law and to use corporal punishment as needed. “They’d get into fights with you,” he said.²² Dobias was a tough coach, counselor, and teacher, but after a rough start
Trump responded to his discipline and went on to become the top cadet, a top athlete who was scouted by the pros, and cadet commander of his senior class.²³ He is pictured in an iconic photo in full military uniform marching before the NYMA band in New York City’s Veterans Day Parade.²⁴ After military school Trump became more focused academically and professionally. He attended Ford- ham University for two years before transferring to the Wharton School of Fi- nance at the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania during the tumultuous 1960s, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business. He has said that the time at Wharton transformed him.²⁵ Trump lived in Queens until he was twenty-five, in 1971, when he moved into Manhattan for the first time. He said, “I used to stand on the other side of the East River and look at Manhattan.” He was eager to take the next step in his life and career, so he rented a one-room apartment on East 75th Street near Third Av- enue and commuted to Brooklyn, where he helped manage his father’s business affairs.²⁶ Trump grew up in the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA) and still says he’s a Presbyterian.²⁷ When asked about his participation in worship services, he is said
to have shown people copies of his childhood confirmation photo and said the Bible is the best book ever written.²⁸ In January 2017 he released a video that showed him holding the Trump family Bible. “It’s just very special to me,” he said, showing his mother’s worn Bible to the camera. On one of the early pages she had written a personal inscription. “In fact, it’s her writing, right here,” he said. “She wrote the name and my address, and it’s just very special to me.”²⁹ Donald Trump was twenty-eight years old when his parents transferred their membership from First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens, to Marble Colle- giate Church, pastored by Norman Vincent Peale. He never transferred his mem- bership but attended church there with his family and used the services of the church for baptisms, marriages, and funerals. Trump was especially attracted to Peale’s message that faith in Christ was beneficial not just spiritually but psycho- logically and could contribute to success in life.³⁰ Of the forty books Peale authored, The Power of Positive Thinking was by far the most successful and one of the best-selling books of all time. In fact, Peale’s own title for the book had been The Power of Faith, but his publisher thought that was a bit too pious and chose a title with a more commercial spin.³¹ From a business
standpoint, it was a smart decision, and today there are more than five million copies of the book in print.³² I’ve long admired Peale and have read several of his books. He was mentor to my late mentor Len LeSourd, whom Peale hired as editor of Guideposts magazine when it was fledgling. He built it to the several-million-circulation publication it is today.³³ Len used to tell me stories when I was just starting Charisma about those early days working with Peale. I met Peale only once at a Christian Booksellers Convention with his wife, Ruth Stafford Peale. I remember how gracious they both were and how much energy they had even though they were both over eighty years old. I knew Peale’s story because it was background for his many books. He wrote that he had once been a shy and insecure young man. But one of his college pro- fessors took him aside and told him he needed to start thinking of himself in a better way. He assured Peale he was as intelligent and capable as any of his stu- dents, but he was too withdrawn. He could accomplish a great deal more in life, he was told, if he could stop being so shy. What he needed was a positive atti- tude. Those words were hurtful, Peale said, but the more he thought about it, he
realized the professor was probably right, so he began speaking up and doing things that would have intimidated him before. That was the beginning of his transformation.³⁴ Donald Trump has never needed much encouragement to feel good about himself, but he took Peale’s message to heart, and the two men remained good friends for many years. In his autobiography Peale made a remarkable assess- ment of the qualities of Donald Trump. He said, “Positive thinkers are bound to be positive doers. They are achievers and winners, and I have noted that they also have non-irritating though strong personalities. . . . I had an opportunity to be in on some church negotiations in which Donald was firm but polite and consid- erate in pursuing the goals he had set. In his quiet, somewhat low-key, but persis- tent, way he attained for the church one of the greatest assurances of long-term financial stability in its history.³⁵ “Characteristically Fred Trump, his father, acclaimed this contribution to the ongoing welfare of the church by saying, ‘Donald knows how to do it.’ And Don- ald said, ‘All I know, Father taught me,’ adding his usual admiring remark, ‘My fa- ther is a very great gentleman.’” Peale then mentioned several of Donald Trump’s
business successes and concluded, “Donald Trump’s career has only just begun, but what a beginning. Surely he is one of America’s top positive thinkers and positive doers.”³⁶ THE TRUMP FAMILY PORTRAIT Throughout his campaign Donald Trump emphasized his close relationship with his children, and that’s when many of us got our first look at the future first family. I recently spoke with Frank Amedia, whom I mention throughout this book. He knows the family, especially Eric, and I asked him to share any insights he has on Trump’s children. He said the first thing we need to understand is that there’s a “myth” of the Trump family that sometimes is a little too critical of them. “They are a typical family,” he said, “albeit a family that has enjoyed wealth. They’ve had to learn how to stick together as a family in spite of some of the dif- ferent criticisms throughout their life together. But this is a family that you can see from the moment you’re with them is very tight-knit, very close. They truly, genuinely love one another, respect one another, and there is no doubt that the head of that family, the patriarch, is Donald Trump.”³⁷
We all know that Donald Trump has two sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, and a daughter, Ivanka, with his first wife, Ivana Zelnickova, a former model, whom he married in 1977. He has a daughter, Tiffany, with his second wife, Marla Maples, whom he married in 1993, and a son, Barron, with his current wife, the former Melania Knauss. Like many people, I was struck by the character and values he seems to have instilled in each of his children, and I wanted to highlight some things about them in this chapter. In addition to being his namesake, Donald Jr., born in 1977, has followed in his dad’s footsteps in a number of ways: he married a former model, is the father of five children, earned a degree in finance and real estate from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and joined his father’s business as executive vice president.³⁸ He is a huge outdoorsman who hunts deer with a bow and arrow. He says his love for hunting is what kept him on the straight and narrow in his younger days, leaving him little time to get into trouble.³⁹ Don Jr. was twelve when his parents divorced and old enough to understand the circumstances of his father’s affair with Marla Maples, whom he later
married, but the family remained close.⁴⁰ Even after his parents divorced, the chil- dren continued to live in Trump Tower with their mother, so his father was never more than an elevator ride away.⁴¹ Don Jr. was also close to his maternal grandfather, Milos, who lived with the family for a number of years, and he named one of his sons Tristan Milos after him. Don Jr. spent his childhood summers in Prague and is fluent in Czech.⁴² His wife is the former Vanessa Haydon, whom he reportedly met when his fa- ther set them up. They married in 2005 at Trump’s Mar-aLago estate, and they have two daughters, Kai (2007) and Chloe (2014), and three sons, Donald III (2009), Tristan (2011), and Spencer (2012).⁴³ Ivanka, born in 1981, is Donald Trump’s second child with Ivana, and she grew up in the spotlight like her brothers, Eric and Don Jr. She’s the most famous of the Trump offspring and is considered in some ways to be the most successful, having worked as a runway model, launched her own jewelry and fashion line, and written a New York Times best-selling book, in addition to serving as exec- utive vice president of The Trump Organization.⁴⁴ She credits her dad’s influence as the reason she avoided alcohol and other
vices. “I’ve never been interested in being a wild party girl,” Ivanka has said. “My dad feels very adamantly about no drugs, no drinking, no smoking, because his brother died of alcoholism, which is a horrible, horrible thing.”⁴⁵ She’s an informal adviser to her father in his role as president, but she’s said to have been her father’s confidant for a long time. In many ways she seems to know him best and have the greatest access to him. She traces their tight bond back to her parents’ divorce. “Bizarrely,” she said in a 2004 interview, “it made us closer to Dad. . . . We didn’t take his presence for granted anymore.”⁴⁶ Ivanka is also a Wharton grad, and she served as a judge on her father’s TV show, The Apprentice, as did her brothers. I find it interesting that she’s friends with Chelsea Clinton, and that friendship stayed intact throughout the election.⁴⁷ Ivanka has three children, Arabella (2011), Joseph (2013), and Theodore (2016), with her husband, Jared Kushner, a Jewish real estate developer and now Pres- ident Trump’s senior adviser, whom she married in 2009.⁴⁸ Eric Trump, born in 1984, is the third child of Donald and Ivana, and he says he prefers to “fly under the radar” when it comes to recognition and celebrity. At six-foot-five, he’s often been media shy and says that Don Jr. and Ivanka were
both big influences on him growing up. He and Ivanka are especially close, and he told New York magazine that Ivanka was like a second mother to him.⁴⁹ In 2012 Eric proposed to his wife, Lara Yunaska, with a ring from Ivanka’s fine jewelry collection, and they were married at Mar-a-Lago at a ceremony officiated by his brother-in-law, Jared Kushner.⁵⁰ They had their first child in September 2017. Eric “Luke” is Donald Trump’s ninth grandchild.⁵¹ My friend Frank Amedia knows Eric best of all the Trumps. Of his time with Eric he recalls, “I found Eric to be very deliberate, discerning, and thoughtful. He would listen. He would ask very few questions, but they were very good ques- tions. And he was always polite, always gentle, and always very respectful of the office of the pastor.”⁵² Reportedly named after the famous jewelry store on Fifth Avenue, Tiffany Trump, born in 1993 shortly before her parents’ wedding, is Donald’s only child with actress Marla Maples, but she didn’t grow up in Manhattan like her half- siblings. Instead, her mother raised her near Los Angeles after divorcing Donald Trump in 1999 when Tiffany was six years old.⁵³ Older sister Ivanka used her connections in the fashion world to help Tiffany
land an internship at Vogue, and she dabbled in the fashion and music industries before graduating from the University of Pennsylvania. She plans to attend Georgetown Law School in Washington, DC.⁵⁴ Barron Trump, Donald’s youngest son and only child with wife and First Lady Melania, might be the most like his father of all the Trump children. Melania once told reporters, “He loves to build something and tear it down and build some- thing else. . . . Sometimes I call him little Donald.”⁵⁵ The nickname “Mini- Donald” appears to have stuck, possibly because Barron is said to prefer suits and ties to sweatpants and he enjoys golfing frequently with his dad.⁵⁶ Frank Amedia recalled a recent period when he got to spend time with Melania and Barron. “I call him little Barron, but I shouldn’t because this young boy, who just turned eleven, has got to be five-foot-eight, I believe . . . and because he’s so big [for his age], I think the news media’s been very harsh in trying to figure him out. And we need to remember that this is just a little boy that’s been thrown into the spotlight.”⁵⁷ Amedia went on to say, “He has the same personality as his father and [Eric]. . . . He would bow his head. He was very humble and very well behaved. He listened
well, and when he spoke, he was articulate. He said exactly what he wanted to say and didn’t mince any words.” Amedia said that afterward he was so impressed by Barron that he looked at his wife and said, “Look at what has been done with this young man by his parents.”⁵⁸ Barron finished his school year in New York before moving to the White House where he’ll be the first son in residence since John F. Kennedy Jr.⁵⁹ He is fluent in Slovene like his mother, Melania, who is of Slovenian descent.⁶⁰ Melania is also a former model who worked in Milan and Paris before moving to New York in 1996. She met Donald Trump two years later, and they were mar- ried in 2005. Baron was born in 2006, the same year Melania became a US citizen.⁶¹ Frank Amedia says that “Melania is extremely intelligent. She speaks five lan- guages. She has piercing eyes, and she gets the grip of what’s going on right away.” He said he has no doubt that she’s a compelling force behind the presi- dency, and from everything he can tell, she is very moved by the things of faith, adding, “She is first and foremost a committed wife and mother.”⁶² THE BEST ENDORSEMENT
During my interview with Donald Trump, I had asked him about his child- rearing priorities, his secret of having such a close relationship with his children, and their obvious respect for him. He told me he worked hard to rear them right including telling them, “No Drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes.” As I’ve mentioned, throughout the course of the election campaign many people commented that the best endorsement of Donald Trump as president was the character of his chil- dren, who supported their father every step of the way. His oldest son, Donald Jr., was an especially articulate spokesman. He spoke on behalf of his father’s candi- dacy and defended him against unfounded charges by the media. He was a very capable speaker, and on several occasions he stumped for his father and made a strong impression when he spoke to Christian groups.⁶³ Two days before the election, Don Jr. spoke at two Virginia churches, address- ing issues of faith and values and speaking about his family’s commitment to America. At the Ekklesia USA Hispanic church in Reston, Virginia, he said, “What we hold most dear in our country is in jeopardy—our faith, our freedom, our dreams, our families. I am here to reiterate how important this moment in Amer- ican history is—and both parties are responsible for the mess we’re in.”⁶⁴
Thanks mainly to the candidate’s very intentional outreach to evangelical and charismatic pastors, Trump and his advisers understood the concerns of conser- vative Christians who feel they have been marginalized by the left-leaning secular culture, and Trump’s son spoke to those concerns. “We as Christians shouldn’t be afraid to express our faith, or say ‘Merry Christmas,’ or stand for our right to free exercise of our religious rights,” he said. “These sacred rights are in jeopardy now by politicians who defended the status quo of decline for decades.”⁶⁵ After Don Jr.’s remarks at Heritage Baptist Church in Woodbridge, Virginia, delivered on the same day, pastor Mike Edwards told a reporter, “I felt like seeing him in person lets you know just how genuine a young man he is and tells me that his father was just as genuine in the way that he raised him.” If Trump and his wife were able to instill such admirable character and strong moral values in their son, Edwards said, that ought to let people know what Donald Trump is all about. Seeing how his children turned out says a lot about how President Trump would deal with the critical concerns of the nation.⁶⁶ “That kind of genuine character doesn’t come from just anywhere,” Edwards said. “It comes from both a mom and a dad who invest themselves in him. If
[Donald Trump] is as real as his son is, then I think he could be well-trusted.” When asked if he thought Christians would turn out to support Trump at the polls, the minister said, “What I can be sure of is that the principles that he is es- pousing for his administration are the principles consistent with what I believe our country needs. So if you’re not comfortable voting for a person—vote for principles.”⁶⁷ In the next chapter I quote my interview with Trump. I knew I wouldn’t have time to rehash what other media were asking him, so I focused on the concerns of conservative Christians, and we talked about the role of faith and family. Trump made it clear that faith was important to him, saying, “Our religion is a very important part of me, and I also think it’s a very important part of the coun- try.” But then he added that family, for him, is always “number one.”⁶⁸ Since little has been written about where Donald Trump stands spiritually, we must look at what he says and does to show the importance of faith in his life. As documented elsewhere in this book, his lifestyle until the past decade was secular and not what evangelical Christians look for in a leader. But I believe as he began to think about life and what he has to accomplish with the time he has left, he
gravitated to Christian leaders whom he watched on television, such as Paula White Cain, and as he began to campaign, he surrounded himself with godly counselors and began to articulate a more conservative Christian approach to is- sues such as protecting the unborn.⁶⁹ Evangelical preachers love to use the quote* “Preach the gospel and if necessary use words.” With this quote they emphasize that a Christian’s actions are all important and, I might add, provide an authentic way to look at what’s in a person’s heart even if he or she doesn’t verbalize it. In this chapter I’ve tried to show that Trump’s children are a reflec- tion of his core values. Next we will examine what Trump believes on numerous issues. ____________________ * This quote is wrongly attributed to Francis of Assisi, “FactChecker: Misquoting Francis of Assisi,” The Gospel Coalition, July 10, 2012, accessed September 8, 2017,