President Trump traveled to New York on Friday to visit his brother Robert Trump, who is said to be very ill, in the hospital.
The president entered New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan in the afternoon wearing a face mask around 4:15 p.m. and stayed about 45 minutes.
“I hope he’s okay,”Trump said shortly before arriving at the hospital. “He’s having a tough time.” The hospital visit came ahead of Trump’s scheduled weekend trip to his private golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
A senior administration official said Friday that the president “has a very good relationship with his brother and his brother is very special to him.”
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The president’s brother reportedly was hospitalized in the intensive care unit at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York for more than a week earlier this summer.
The White House did not immediately release details about why Robert Trump, who is 72, had been hospitalized, but officials said that he was seriously ill.
Robert Trump last month filed a lawsuit seeking to block publication of their niece Mary Trump’s tell-all book, titled “Too Much and Never Enough.”
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Robert Trump, at the time, said he was “deeply disappointed” in his niece’s decision to write the memoir and that he and the “entire family” were “so proud of my wonderful brother, the president.”
Robert Trump had previously worked for his older brother as a top executive at the Trump Organization. Once a regular bold face name in Manhattan’s social pages, he has kept a lower profile in recent years. He married his longtime girlfriend, Ann Marie Pallan, in March, according to the New York Post. He divorced his first wife, Blaine Trump, more than a decade ago.
Fox News' Kristina Biddle contributed to this report. The Associated Press contributed to this report.