President Trump said a book that his niece plans to publish about their family life would violate a nondisclosure agreement she signed with her father’s estate that bars her from publishing anything regarding her relationship with the president or other family members.
In an interview with Axios published Sunday evening, the president said Mary Trump is “not allowed” to publish a book about him and indicated that his team was caught off guard by the news.
“She’s not allowed to write a book,” President Trump said in the interview. “You know, when we settled with her and her brother, who I do have a good relationship with — she’s got a brother, Fred [Trump], who I do have a good relationship with, but when we settled, she has a total … signed a nondisclosure.”
“I have a brother, Robert, very good guy, and he’s — he’s very angry about it,” the president added. “But she signed a nondisclosure agreement and she’s obviously not honoring it if she writes a book. It’s too bad.”
News of Mary Trump’s plans to publish the book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” was first reported earlier this month by the Daily Beast, which said Mary Trump was under a nondisclosure agreement with the estate of Fred Trump.
The publisher, Simon and Schuster, declined when contacted with a request for comment.
Mary Trump is expected to declare in the book that she was the source for a major New York Times investigation into the president’s taxes that found the Trump Organization had lost around $1.2 billion over nine years and was involved in tax schemes during the 1980s.
The book also reportedly contains an interview with Maryanne Trump Barry, the president’s eldest sister, a retired federal judge who has largely declined to comment on her brother’s political career.
The book is scheduled for release in August.
President Trump recently lost a court battle to prevent publication of another book, “The Room Where It Happened,” a White House memoir written by former national security adviser John Bolton.
A federal judge ruled over the weekend that Bolton’s book could go ahead with its planned release on Tuesday. The White House had sought to block the book’s release, arguing it contained classified information; Bolton countered that such material had been removed.
Bolton’s book is also published by Simon and Schuster.
Updated at 10:41 a.m.