Robert Stuart Trump

Robert Stewart Trump (August 26, 1948 – August 15, 2020) was an American businessman, real estate developer, and investor, and the younger brother of U.S. President Donald Trump. He was the youngest of five children born to Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod.

Trump attended Boston University, where he earned a degree in economics, played soccer, and served as team captain and MVP in 1969. He began his career in finance before joining the family real estate business. He managed the Trump Organization’s real estate holdings outside Manhattan and served as president of Trump Management, a company owned by the Trump siblings.

In 1990, Donald Trump appointed Robert to oversee the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, where he faced significant operational challenges. From 1999 until his death, he served on the board of directors and was an investor in ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, a role partly intended to provide political insulation following concerns about violent video games after the Columbine High School massacre.

Trump was married twice: first to Blaine Beard from 1984 until their divorce in 2009, during which he helped raise her son, Christopher Trump-Retchin ; and then to Ann Marie Pallan, a Trump Organization employee, whom he married in January 2020. He lived in Millbrook, New York, and was described as having retired from the spotlight while remaining a loyal and vocal supporter of his brother’s political career.

In June 2020, he filed a lawsuit attempting to block the publication of his niece Mary L. Trump’s memoir, Too Much and Never Enough, citing a confidentiality agreement, but the effort was unsuccessful. He was hospitalized multiple times in the months before his death, and died at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital on August 15, 2020, at age 71, from complications following an intracerebral hemorrhage after a fall.

President Donald Trump announced his brother’s death, calling him his best friend and stating, “He was not just my brother, he was my best friend”. A private funeral was held in the East Room of the White House on August 21, 2020, attended by 150 guests, marking the first time in nearly a century a sitting president hosted a funeral in that room. Trump was remembered for his philanthropy, supporting causes such as Angels of Light and Patriots and Ponies, and for living a life away from public attention, focused on family and the outdoors.