Mary Trump says Donald Trump will 'stop protecting' Ivanka and 'throw anybody under the bus' if he thinks it will benefit him

• Mary Trump, Donald Trump's niece, says he will "stop protecting" Ivanka Trump if it no longer benefits him.
• Trump said the former president will "throw anybody under the bus" if necessary.

Former President Donald Trump's niece, author Mary Trump, said her uncle would "stop protecting" his daughter Ivanka if he thinks it is in his best interest.

Speaking to MSNBC host Alex Witt on Sunday, Mary Trump said it was unlikely that Donald Trump would take any heat to shield his children.

"Donald isn't playing the card that she's his child to protect her. He's doing that to protect himself because he knows she may indeed have potentially damning information," Mary Trump said.

She added that she thought her cousin Ivanka was likely making a "calculation" at this point about what will "help her in the long run."

"(Ivanka) knows she has to come down on the right side of things. Or, she'll continue to stay her father's ally, and have to see how that plays out," Mary Trump said. "She's in a very bad situation because she must understand that if Donald feels it's necessary, he will stop protecting her."

"Donald will throw anybody under the bus if he believes it's in his best interest to do so. If he believes it'll help play out the clock, if he believes that it will help him avoid accountability, that's all he cares about," Mary Trump said.

Mary Trump also said that Ivanka Trump has information that the American people "deserve" and should voluntarily cooperate with the January 6 panel.

"She worked for the American people, not for her father," Mary Trump said. "This is an adult human being. She's 40 years old. She has children of her own. So the whole 'she should be protected because she's his child' is absurd on its face. She owes the committee truthfulness about what happened that day."

Last week, the House Select Committee on January 6 asked Ivanka to voluntarily cooperate with its investigation into the Capitol riot. Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee's chair, said in a letter that Ivanka Trump had direct contact with her father during the insurrection.

After the letter's release, Trump blasted the January 6 committee for what he claimed was "vicious" targeting of his adult children.

Separately, New York Attorney General Letitia James took legal action last week to compel Trump, Ivanka, and Donald Jr. to answer subpoenas related to an investigation into the Trump Organization.

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen said during a January 22 interview on MSNBC that there was no chance that Trump would try to protect his adult children from probes into the Trump organization or the January 6 riot at his own expense.

"Donald cares only about Donald, more than he would care about his children," Cohen said.

However, Cohen added that Trump once told him that if one of the Trump children had to go to prison, to make sure it was Donald Trump Jr., his oldest son, and not Ivanka, because Don Jr. "would be able to handle it."