US President Donald Trump's younger brother was hospitalised in the intensive care unit at a New York hospital in June.
President Donald Trump’s younger brother Robert Trump has died. The president announced the death of his brother late Saturday. “It is with a heavy heart, I share that my wonderful brother, Robert, peacefully passed away tonight,” he 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.”
He was 71 years old, according to The Associated Press. Donald Trump reflected on the relationship he had with his brother, who is only two years younger, at a briefing on Friday.
“I have a wonderful brother, we’ve had a great relationship for a long time, from day one,” he said. “It’s a long time ago. And he’s in the hospital right now. And hopefully, he’ll be all right, but he is pretty — he’s having a hard time.” Robert worked as a real estate developer and executive for the Trump Organization.
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The president was expected to attend the funeral, an aide said. He has a busy travel schedule in coming days with plans to visit four battleground states as part of his re-election campaign.
The cause of death was not revealed. Trump told reporters on Friday that his brother was “having a hard time” with an undisclosed illness. A source familiar with the situation said the brother had been on blood thinners.
ABC News reported that Robert Trump was hospitalised in the intensive care unit at Mount Sinai hospital in New York for more than a week in June.
That same month, Robert Trump won a temporary restraining order against his and the president’s niece, Mary Trump, to stop her from publishing a tell-all book that offered an unflattering look of the US president and his family.
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A state supreme court judge in Poughkeepsie, New York later denied a request to stop publication and cancelled the temporary restraining order.
Robert Trump had said the book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, would violate a confidentiality agreement tied to the estate of his father Fred Trump Sr, who died in 1999.
