In a new book, Donald Trump’s nephew Fred C. Trump III says that the former president told him that people like his son, who has intellectual and developmental disabilities, “should just die.”

The claim comes in Fred Trump’s memoir “All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got to Be This Way” that is set to be released next week. An excerpt was published by Time on Wednesday.

Fred Trump, the son of Donald Trump’s late brother Fred Trump Jr., said that he saw his uncle being in the White House as an opportunity to advocate for housing support and other needs of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities like his son William, 25.

In the book, Fred Trump describes bringing a group of advocates to the White House in May 2020 to meet with top officials including then-U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and then-President Donald Trump.

“Donald seemed engaged, especially when several people in our group spoke about the heart-wrenching and expensive efforts they’d made to care for their profoundly disabled family members, who were constantly in and out of the hospital and living with complex arrays of challenges,” Fred Trump wrote.

After the 45-minute Oval Office meeting concluded, Fred Trump said his uncle asked to see him.

“I thought he had been touched by what the doctor and advocates in the meeting had just shared about their journey with their patients and their own family members. But I was wrong,” Fred Trump wrote.

“Those people,” Fred Trump said his uncle told him, “the shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.”

Not knowing what to say, Fred Trump said he “turned and walked away.”

On another occasion, Fred Trump said he reached out to his uncle to ask for help with a medical fund that the family had set up for his son that was running low. After explaining the situation, Fred Trump recounts that the former president told him “I don’t know,” then let out a sigh and said, “He doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.”

Fred Trump said he clarified to his uncle that his son does recognize him. He described feeling hurt, but said that it reinforced his commitment to advocacy and raising awareness about what it’s like to raise a child with disabilities.

“William deserves a life just like anyone else, and to that end, I knew I had to advocate for him in every way possible,” Fred Trump wrote. “I might never change Donald’s mind or change the mind of anyone who lacked love and compassion for those whose voices couldn’t be heard and whose lives were fully dependent on others. But I knew what I could do. I could offer my voice, my experience, and my strength to push forward for those who needed it.”

Maria Town, president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities, called the alleged comments from the current Republican nominee for president “extremely concerning” and “an insult to the disabled voters who will be deciding this election,” noting that a quarter of Americans have a disability.

“Being president of the United States means directing the executive branch to create policies and programs that improve the lives of the American people, including disabled Americans. Policies that treat people with disabilities as disposable or leave us to die are the very antithesis of this goal,” she said. “Candidates for office in every party, in every race, from president to mayor, should be meaningfully engaging with disabled voters and providing us with ways to shape and inform their policy platforms.”

The former president also faced criticism in 2015 for appearing to mock a reporter with a disability during one of his campaign rallies, an allegation he denied.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Disability Scoop about Fred Trump’s claims. Time also said that it asked the former president to respond and received no reply.

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