MARY: He's always been this way. It is because of the power he unfortunately wields, and the exponentially greater number of people who listen to him. So the problem is that nobody is holding him to account. Why does he lie? Because he can. He lies when he doesn't appreciate the value of the truth, or when the truth doesn't benefit him. So lying serves the same purpose for him it always has. Unfortunately, it is having an impact on an increasingly large number of people. So I completely understand why people talk about the problem that Donald is, he is responsible for the death of hundreds, if not thousands of people every day. We cannot forget that. However, he has so much help that we need to start talking directly about the horror that the Republican Party is allowing him to inflict upon the rest of us.

MELBER: You mentioned accountability. That has been a big theme and concern in this era. When you were around the family, did you ever see anyone call him out on his penchant, as you put it, for lying, just within family dealings?

MARY: Never. Never. My grandfather treated Donald as somebody who could do no wrong, even though at some point he must have known that Donald was not particularly intelligent or he didn't have any particular business savvy, because my grandfather supported him with money, power, and connections every step of the way. But the rest us didn't know that. So Donald was put on a pedestal that he didn't deserve to be on, of course, but it trained him to believe that he was completely above the fray and beyond any reckoning.

MELBER: Did you ever hear Donald, as you put it, say or do anything that suggested an awareness or an insecurity about that?

MARY: No, never. And that is one of the interesting things about him. Deep, deep down, he's a very insecure person. He's very afraid.

MELBER: You're sure of that.

MARY: Yes. I'm absolutely sure of that and it explains in part the extreme degree to which he has to convince himself and other people he's always right and always great and always the best.

MELBER: It's really striking, especially given your proximity. As you know and our viewers know, we've been living through a racial reckoning this summer. The roots of it obviously pre date everyone alive right now including the president. Yet he is the leader at this time fomenting so much of it. The way Donald Trump has discussed these issues, police brutality and how they overlap with race.

(CLIPS)

MELBER: From your family time with him, why does he view the world this way?

MARY: It suits his purposes. First of all, he just is fundamentally a racist. He thinks he's better than the other. He grew up in a racist family with a racist father but beyond that, Donald thrives in chaos and division and he will, because he is so weak and incompetent, pick the lowest common denominator. And in this country, especially with someone with the access to power that he has, that means creating strife between Black Americans and White Americans and making his followers feel that they're superior because like him, you know, they don't have a lot going for them, I'm sorry to say. I don't understand why this is something that continues to surprise people. Donald has been showing his stripes since the early 70s. What did he in the 80's with the Central Park Five was so vile that he should have never been allowed in polite society after that.