Donald Trump’s younger brother Robert dies

US President Donald Trump's brother Robert has died. He was 71, reports USA Today. 

"It is with heavy heart I share that my wonderful brother, Robert, peacefully passed away tonight," the president said in a statement issued late Saturday. "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 White House announced Friday that Robert Trump had been hospitalized with an undisclosed illness. The president visited him Friday afternoon at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan.

Robert Trump, born two years after Donald Trump, made news recently for suing to block publication of a book critical of the president by Mary Trump, the president’s niece.

The youngest of the Trump siblings, Robert Trump reportedly was hospitalized in the intensive care unit for several days in June

Donald Trump once described his younger brother as “much quieter and easygoing than I am,” and “the only guy in my life whom I ever call ‘honey.’”

Robert Trump began his career on Wall Street working in corporate finance but later joined the family business, managing real estate holdings as a top executive in the Trump Organization.

Before divorcing his first wife, Blaine Trump, more than a decade ago, Robert Trump had been active on Manhattan’s Upper East Side charity circuit.

He avoided the limelight during his elder brother’s presidency, having retired to the Hudson Valley. But he described himself as a big supporter of the White House run in a 2016 interview with the New York Post.

“I support Donald one thousand percent,” Robert Trump said.

In early March of 2020, he married his longtime girlfriend, Ann Marie Pallan.