‘I see traits with Donald that are unfortunate’: Donald Trump’s nephew describes a severely ‘disoriented’ man who is expected to become ‘most important person in the world’

Donald Trump’s nephew, Fred C. Trump III, has warned of the implications of a second Trump presidency while drawing parallels to his grandfather’s declining health. 

Fred — who in 2024 published the book All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way — spoke of his uncle’s physical and mental health in a recent interview, saying his grandfather’s cognitive decline in the years prior to his death is reminiscent of Trump’s recent behavior. 

“Like anyone else, I’ve seen [Trump’s] decline,” Fred told People in an exclusive interview, “but I see it in parallel with the way my grandfather’s decline was.” Fred — the son of Trump’s older brother, Fred Trump Jr. — said Trump’s decline is a cause for concern in light of the Trump family’s history with dementia, adding that any notion that the disease does not run in the family is “just not true.”

Fred went on to cite the struggling health of his grandfather — Trump’s father, Frederick Christ Trump Sr. — as reflective of what he has witnessed with the Republican presidential nominee. Frederick was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in the years before his death, and his grandson recalled instances in which the symptoms would show, and how this decline became normalized in the Trump family. 

“When his limousine would stop, he would just get out of the car and start walking away,” Fred recalled of his grandfather. “You know, things that you almost say, ‘Oh, there goes grandpa again.’ ” Fred recalled the agitation that grew as his grandfather’s condition worsened, saying Frederick would “scream” at their grandmother to the point where doctors suggested that she “shouldn’t be staying in the same bedroom with him at night.” 

Fred clarified that things never got physical between his grandparents, but that Frederick’s Alzheimer’s had caused him to become “agitated in his language, and vicious.” According to Fred, the Trump patriarch was one of multiple Trump family members to show symptoms of dementia, with the former president’s brother, John Walter, being diagnosed with the disease and his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, showing signs before her death last year. 

The Trump family’s medical history proved to be a concern for Fred, who noted witnessing similar symptoms from Trump when he saw him at Mar-A-Lago last year. “[Trump] just looked disoriented, and he kept repeating something to me time and time again when I had met him,” Fred said. “He kept repeating things, and he just looked different. He looked tired.”

Fred also spoke to the agitation that Trump seems to be displaying, noting how his uncle has “no inhibitions about cursing in front of anybody” and describing his recent rhetoric as “outright nastiness.” Fred, who joined Mary L. Trump, as a member of the family who backed Trump’s Democratic opponent, said his uncle has been unwilling to accept the family’s history of dementia, and has told him that the disease is “not [in] our genes.”

“He can never admit that there is any mental or physical flaw with anybody in the family,” Fred said. “If he admitted that my grandfather had dementia, well, that’s almost admitting that he has the possibility of having dementia.” What’s particularly concerning for Fred, more so than for his grandfather, is Trump’s closeness to the presidency, and the implications his health could have on the world. 

“My grandfather didn’t have any decision-making that was going to have world implications,” Fred warned, adding that his uncle could “potentially [be] the most important person in the world.” It comes a few weeks after Kamala Harris shared her medical records and criticized Trump for not doing the same, as the country awaits the verdict of the presidential election later this week.