Robert Trump, younger brother of president, dead at 71

NEW YORK — Robert Trump, the youngest sibling of President Donald Trump, died Saturday night in a New York hospital. He was 71.

The White House did not provide a cause of death.

“He was not just my brother, he was my best friend,” the president said in a statement late Saturday night. “He will be greatly missed, but we will meet again.”

Robert Trump, who took blood thinners, had suffered recent brain bleeds, a close friend of the family told The New York Times. The president’s sibling had been in poor health since last month, the newspaper reported.

“It is with heavy heart I share that my wonderful brother, Robert, peacefully passed away tonight,” President Trump said in a 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.”

The president visited his brother at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan on Friday for about an hour.

Robert Stewart Trump was born in Queens, New York on Aug. 26, 1948, according to New York City birth records. He was the youngest of five children born to Fred Trump Sr. and his wife, the former Mary Anne MacLeod, The Washington Post reported.

Like his brother, Robert Trump was a New York real estate executive. He described himself as “gainfully retired” and lived in Millbrook, New York, in the Hudson Valley.

Robert Trump graduated from Boston University in 1970 and became an investment banker in real estate finance at Kidder, Peabody, the Post reported. He later worked at Shearson Loeb Rhoades.

In 1991, Robert Trump joined his father’s business, Trump Management, according to the Post. He was reportedly paid $500,000 a year, according to a 2018 story by the Times.

Former Trump Organization executive Jack O’Donnell told the Times that Robert Trump was a person who had a natural ease and good humor, two qualities his older brother lacked.

“He was dignified, he was quiet, he listened, he was good to work with,” O’Donnell told the newspaper. “He had zero sense of entitlement. Robert was very comfortable being Donald Trump’s brother and not being like him.”

Robert Trump’s first marriage to socialite Blaine Trump ended in a high-profile divorce. He was married to her from 1984 to 2008, and they did not have any children. Robert Trump married his longtime secretary, Ann Marie Pallan in March 2020.

Robert Trump attempted to block the tell-all book written by his niece, Mary Trump -- the daughter of Fred Trump Jr. -- about the president and the Trump family in her recently released book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.” Robert Trump sued his niece in Dutchess County Supreme Court to stop the book’s publication, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported. The courts ruled in Mary Trump’s favor, which allowed Simon & Schuster to publish the book.

“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,” Donald Trump wrote in his 1987 book, “The Art of the Deal.”

“Robert gets along with almost everyone, which is great for me since I sometimes have to be the bad guy,” Donald Trump added in the book.

Cox Media Group