The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s television show has as its guest this week a provocative and fascinating figure with an inside scoop on the current president, since she happens to be his niece.
Mary L. Trump has written two books about growing up in the extended family of Donald Trump, including the bestseller “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” which sold nearly a million copies on its first day of sales. She followed that with a book in 2021, “The Reckoning: Our Nation’s Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal,” about the failure to address the scourge of white racism. Last year, her haunting family memoir called “Who Could Ever Love You” came out. Mary Trump has a literature degree from Tufts, has earned a master’s in English Lit from Columbia, and is a trained clinical psychologist who holds a Ph.D. from the Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies. FFRF is delighted that she will be accepting its Emperor Has No Clothes award, reserved for individuals who tell it like it is about religion, at its mid-October national conference in South Carolina.
“When I was 16, my dad became quite ill,” Mary Trump explains to “Freethought Matters” co-hosts Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor how she lost her religion. “But nobody in my family told me that he was ill, and I went to boarding school not knowing. Then about two weeks after school started, I got a phone call telling me that he had died. For me, this was very unexpected. And because of the circumstances of his life and because of the way my family treated him, and then subsequently, me and the rest of my family, I just could not reconcile the existence of a higher power with the abject cruelty with which my dad was treated and with, honestly, just the horrific circumstances of his later life.”
You can watch the entire interview on FFRF’s YouTube channel now. New shows go up every Thursday.
- Chicago, WPWR-CW (Ch. 50), Sundays at 9 a.m.
- Los Angeles, KCOP-MY (Ch. 13), Sundays at 8:30 a.m.
- Madison, Wis., WISC-TV (Ch. 3), Sundays at 11 p.m.
- New York City, WPIX-IND (Ch. 11), Sundays at 10 a.m.
- San Francisco, KTVU/KICU-IND (on broadcast Ch. 36 and Cable 6), Sundays at 10 a.m.
- Washington, D.C., WDCW-CW (Ch. 50 or Ch. 23 or Ch. 3), Sundays at 8 a.m.
Upcoming shows include an interview with New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie, who will also speak at FFRF’s annual convention in the fall. You can catch interviews from earlier this season and from previous seasons here, including with Gloria Steinem, Ron Reagan, author John Irving, actor John “Q” de Lancie and award-winning columnist Katha Pollitt.
Please tune in to “Freethought Matters” . . . because freethought matters. And spread the word to freethinking friends, family or colleagues about a TV show, finally, that is dedicated to providing programming for freethinkers — your antidote to religion on Sunday morning!
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