Robert Trump, president’s younger brother, dies at 71
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump’s younger brother, Robert Trump, a businessman known for an even keel that seemed almost incompatible with the family name, died Saturday night after being hospitalized in New York, the president said in a statement. He was 71.
The president visited his brother at a New York City hospital Friday after White House officials said he had become seriously ill. Officials did not immediately release a cause of death.
“It is with heavy heart I share that my wonderful brother, Robert, peacefully passed away tonight,” Donald 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 youngest of the Trump siblings had remained close to the president, 74, and, as recently as June, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Trump family that unsuccessfully sought to stop publication of a tellall book by the president’s niece Mary.
Robert Trump had reportedly been hospitalized in the intensive care unit for several days that same month.
Both longtime businessmen, Robert and Donald had strikingly different personalities. Donald Trump once described his younger brother as “much quieter and easygoing than I am.”
Robert Trump began his career on Wall Street working in corporate finance but later managed real estate holdings as a top executive in the Trump Organization.