Tennis star Pam Shriver denies Mary Trump's claim that late husband Joe Shapiro took SAT for close friend Trump
One of the most explosive allegations made by Mary Trump in her new book is that President Donald J. Trump once hired a "brilliant friend" of his named Joe Shapiro to take the SAT test for him in order to increase his chances of transferring from Fordham University to the prestigious Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. However, Joe Shapiro's widow has refuted the claims saying that if the book is referring to her later husband, who was a friend of the former real estate mogul, the allegations are false.
"He always did the right thing, and that's why this hurts," Pam Shriver said of her late husband, an attorney and a former executive of the Walt Disney Company. Shapiro died in 1999 after a battle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Pam Shriver's late husband Joe Shapiro, an attorney and former executive at the Walt Disney Company, died in 1999 after a battle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Shriver, a former highly-ranked professional tennis player and currently an ESPN tennis analyst, told ABC News that Shapiro became friends with Trump only after the future president had transferred to Wharton for his junior year. At the time, Shapiro was an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania on the same campus.
"They shared a love of golf," Shriver recalled to the outlet, adding that Shapiro and Trump had kept in touch over the years and the couple had also visited him a few times at Trump Tower in New York City.
"When you put somebody's name in print in a book, you want to make sure the facts around it are correct, especially if they are not living because it's not like Joe is here and he would have known how to deal with this," Shriver said. "It feels unfair," she added.
Shriver, who recalled she had refuted the same allegation years ago, said she has seen Trump at a number of tennis events. According to her, every time the president greeted her, he always told her: "Joe Shapiro was the smartest man I ever met."
Mary Trump, who is the daughter of the president's late brother Fred Trump Jr, alleges in her book "Too Much and Never Enough, How my Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man" that Trump hired his "buddy" Joe Shapiro to write the SATs for him.
"To hedge his bets he enlisted Joe Shapiro, a smart kid with a reputation for being a good test taker, to take his SATs for him. That was much easier to pull off in the days before photo IDs and computerized records. Donald, who never lacked for funds, paid his buddy well," Mary Trump wrote, without offering any proof or attribution to corroborate her accusations.
Trump has often boasted about attending Wharton and has referred to it as the "best school in the world" that involves "super genius stuff".
"The absurd SAT allegation is completely false," the White House declared in a statement on Tuesday.
Publisher Simon & Schuster has pushed forward the release of Mary's book by two weeks to July 14 due to "high demand and extraordinary interest." However, it is still the subject of a legal dispute between Mary and the Trump family, who have claimed it is violating a non-disclosure argument that Mary signed 20 years ago to settle a dispute over the estate of Fred Trump Sr.
Asked about the book, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said it was a "book of falsehoods" and told reporters, "It's ridiculous, absurd allegations that have absolutely no bearing in truth. Have yet to see the book, but it is a book of falsehoods."