November 9, 2016, Republican president-elect Donald Trump (front)
hugs his brother Robert Trump after delivering his acceptance
speech in New York City.
Donald Trump has announced the death of his younger
brother, Robert Trump who died in a hospital on Saturday
night.
The younger brother of the American President died after being
hospitalised for an undisclosed illness.
“It is with a heavy heart I share that my wonderful brother,
Robert, peacefully passed away tonight,” Trump said in a White
House statement.
“He was not just my brother, he was my best friend. He will be
greatly missed, but we will meet again. His memory will live on in
my heart forever. Robert, I love you. Rest in peace.”
brother
The 74-year-old president had visited his brother on Friday at a
hospital in New York, staying for about 45 minutes.
US media reports had said Robert Trump was seriously ill,
although there were no details.
Donald Trump, who was stopping in New York on the way to his
golf club in nearby Bedminster, New Jersey for the weekend, told
reporters Friday only that “he’s having a hard time.”
He has previously called his brother Robert “wonderful” and said
they have “had a great relationship for a long time, from day
one.”
Media reports said Robert was 71.
“Uncle Robert, we love you. You are in our hearts and prayers,
always,” Donald Trump’s daughter and adviser Ivanka said on
Twitter.
Her brother Eric said Robert Trump would be “deeply missed by
our entire family.”
“Robert Trump was an incredible man — strong, kind and loyal to
the core. Anyone who encountered him felt his warmth immediately,”
he said on Twitter.
Born in 1948 and the youngest of the five Trump siblings, Robert
worked on Wall Street before joining the family real estate
business.
Quieter and less famous than Donald, Robert nevertheless became
an integral part of the Trump Organization and was fiercely loyal
to his older brother.
“I support Donald one thousand percent,” Robert told the New
York Post in January 2016 as Donald was making his bid for the
White House.
“I think he’s doing a great job. I think he’s got a great
message.”
The New York Times however said the two had been estranged for
years before Donald’s run for president.
– ‘Great relationship’ – The brothers were very
different, and the brash Donald once descri bed Robert as
“soft-spoken and easygoing.”
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“I think it must be hard to have me for a brother, but he’s
never said anything about it and we’re very close. He is definitely
the only guy in my life whom I ever call ‘honey.’,” Donald said in
his 1987 bestseller “The Art of the Deal.”
While usually avoiding the limelight, earlier this year Robert
unsuccessfully tried to block publication of a book by his niece
Mary Trump, arguing that she was violating a non-disclosure
agreement signed in 2001 after the settlement of her grandfather’s
estate.
The book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the
World’s Most Dangerous Man,” paints Donald Trump as the product of
a “toxic” family.
“Her attempt to sensationalize and mischaracterize our family
relationship after all of these years for her own financial gain is
both a travesty and injustice to the memory of my late brother,
Fred, and our beloved parents,” Robert said in a statement to the
New York Times.
“I and the rest of my entire family are so proud of my wonderful
brother, the president, and feel that Mary’s actions are truly a
disgrace.”
Although a temporary restraining order was applied, a judge
lifted it in July, allowing publication.
Mary was the daughter of the eldest Trump brother Fred Trump Jr,
who died of alcoholism in 1981.
Robert divorced his long-time wife Blaine in 2009 and in March
this year married Ann Marie Pallan, a Trump Organization employee,
the New York Post reported.
Before Robert’s death, the couple had been living a quiet life
at their home in Millbrook, in the Hudson Valley, media reports
said.
Paying tribute to Robert, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani,
now the president’s personal lawyer, said he had “a big heart.”
“As a former Mayor, I know how much he did to help New Yorkers
in need. We have lost a really good man. My love, prayers, and
condolences to the Trump family,” he tweeted.
Read more https://swordpress.com.ng/2020/08/16/trumps-younger-brother-dies-at-71/