Media Moments Melania Trump Can Never Erase
Melania Trump performed a disappearing act after her White House exit, but she was frequently in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons during Donald Trump's presidency. The former first lady reportedly was not fond of the negative attention. "Melania publicly supports her husband but privately prefers a life with 100 percent privacy and no press scrutiny," a source told People.
Regarding her media coverage, Melania apparently wanted to have her cake and eat it, too. In her tell-all book "Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship With the First Lady," Melania's former senior adviser, Stephanie Winston-Wolkoff, claims that the ex-model was offered a Vogue profile but turned it down because she was given no assurance that she would get prime placement on the fashion mag's cover. After First Lady Dr. Jill Biden appeared on the cover, Melania told Fox News, "I have much more important things to do — and I did in the White House — than being on the cover of Vogue." One of those important things was supervising a photo shoot with White House rugs while the insurrection was happening, according to CNN. Some of the final negative stories about Melania during her time as First Lady referenced her delay in denouncing the insurrectionists — and her attempt to paint herself as a victim when she did release a statement about the Capitol riot. This is just one of many controversial media moments that Melania can't wipe from her history.
Melania Trump's stolen speech
Ahead of her 2016 Republican National Convention speech, Melania Trump boasted to former "Today" host Matt Lauer, "I wrote it with as little help as possible.” This turned out to be untrue, as she got a lot of help from the unlikeliest of sources: former first lady Michelle Obama. However, Obama was not a willing participant in Melania's speech-writing process.
On X, reporter Jarrett Hill first pointed out that passages from Melania's speech were plagiarized from Obama's 2008 Democratic National Convention speech. However, Donald Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort, tried to paint Hillary Clinton as the real villain in the situation, accusing her of being the one who brought the stolen words to the media's attention. He also insisted that Melania didn't plagiarize her predecessor. "This is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, she seeks out to demean her and take her down," he told CNN.
A Trump Organization employee, Meredith McIver, later took the blame for cribbing Obama's remarks. In a statement, she admitted that she had been tasked with penning Melania's RNC speech, and Melania apparently wanted to channel Obama. "Over the phone, she read me some passages from Mrs. Obama's speech as examples," McIver wrote, per NBC News. Unfortunately for Melania, late-night hosts had already gotten a few laughs at her expense. "She delivered her speech like a true First Lady. That First Lady being Michelle Obama," Jimmy Fallon joked on "The Tonight Show."
Her awkward body language around her husband
Some of Melania Trump's most viral moments during Donald Trump's presidency happened when the couple failed to pull off public displays of affection. On numerous occasions, Donald would reach for Melania's hand only to have his own swatted away. She flicked her fingers at him on a Tel Aviv tarmac in 2017, refusing to hold hands like the couple walking beside them, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara Netanyahu. "She can't stand him," was Joy Behar's verdict on "The View." A day later, Melania shut down Donald's hand-holding attempt in a less blatantly dismissive manner. When he grabbed for her as they were departing Air Force One, she reached up to swipe some hair out of her face.
Donald actually managed to get a grip on Melania's hand during the final 2020 presidential debate, only for her to yank it away. He took the awkward denial in stride, reaching up to touch her back instead. In her book "I'll Take Your Questions Now," Melania's former chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham, explains why her ex-boss was caught on camera swatting Donald's digits away so many times. "He often tried to hold her hand or messed with her hands on purpose in front of the cameras to irritate her," she writes (via Esquire). According to Grisham, the hand-holding was never about actual affection. "They are not that couple that holds hands just because," she told The Washington Post.
The careless coat choice
In 2018, the Trump administration caused an outpouring of outrage by enacting a policy that separated children from their parents after migrant families were detained. Melania Trump decided to visit some of the children who were victims of her husband's policy at a holding facility in Texas, and she made a controversial decision of her own when she departed. She was photographed wearing a military green Zara jacket with the words "I really don't care, do u?" emblazoned on the back in white letters. So, her insensitive wardrobe decision immediately overshadowed any good she hoped to accomplish by her trip.
Melania's communications director, Stephanie Grisham, defended the coat by insisting, "It's a jacket. There was no hidden message" (via The Washington Post). But her husband said otherwise. "'I REALLY DON'T CARE, DO U?' written on the back of Melania's jacket, refers to the Fake News Media," he tweeted. Melania later confirmed that her husband was telling the truth in a "20/20" interview. She also admitted to putting the jacket on again when she returned to the White House in response to the media's negative reaction to it. However, she contradicted this sartorial trolling by saying, "I would prefer that they would focus on what I do and on my initiatives than what I wear." If someone pointed out to her that her wearable message could be taken the wrong way, apparently, she really didn't care.
She called her husband's sexual assault boast 'boy talk'
Melania Trump defended her husband after The Washington Post shared that infamous video of Donald Trump — you know, the one where he tells former "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush that one perk of fame is sexually assaulting victims who don't fight back. "They let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab them by the p****," Donald boasts. He was married to Melania at the time, but upon seeing soap opera star Arianne Zucker, he also told Bush that he might start uncontrollably kissing the actor.
Melania gets fiercely defensive when Barron Trump is mentioned in a manner she views as negative, but she invoked her underage son when dismissing her husband's bad behavior as no big deal. "Sometimes I say I have two boys at home — I have my young son, and I have my husband. But I know how some men talk," she said in a 2016 CNN interview. Melania attempted to argue that the vulgar act Donald gleefully described to Bush wasn't sexual assault, and she tried to place some of the blame for what Donald said on Bush. "They were kind of boy talk[ing], and he was led on, like egg[ed] on, from the host to say dirty and bad stuff," she said. Her interview was parodied on "The Late Show" by Laura Benanti. In character as Melania, Benanti quipped, "Boys, men — it's the same. ... Secretly, they're all foul-mouthed, Billy-Bush-grabbing pigs."
She helped her husband spread the birtherism lie
When Donald Trump was toying with the idea of running for president against Barack Obama in 2011, Melania Trump appeared on "The Joy Behar Show" to support one of her husband's favorite conspiracy theories. Donald was one of the loudest promoters of the false claim that Barack wasn't born in the United States, which would have made him ineligible to serve as president. Because Barack was America's first Black POTUS, the conspiracy theory had racist undertones.
Donald would go on television and demand to see Barack's birth certificate, although he had already produced a certificate of live birth proving that he was born in Hawaii. Joy Behar tried to explain this to Melania, but she wasn't having it. "We feel it's different than [a] birth certificate," she argued. (What's that old saying about facts and feelings?)
Michelle Obama shared her thoughts about the Trumps' birtherism lie in her memoir "Becoming," writing, "The whole thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed. But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks." After enduring all of the stress and fear that the falsehood caused her family, it had to be extremely uncomfortable for Michelle to sit down and have tea with Melania after Donald won the 2016 presidential election. However, making a heartfelt apology would have been one way for Melania to break the ice.
Melania Trump's big bullying claim
Melania Trump employed one of her husband's favorite oratory devices during a 2018 ABC News interview: hyperbole. "I could say that I'm the most bullied person in the world," she said. This inspired Cosmopolitan to create a list of a dozen other people who have it had much worse than Melania. Barack Obama was included on the list as a victim of the Trumps' birtherism bullying.
Melania told ABC News that her personal experience with bullying was one of the reasons she decided to make an anti-bullying initiative her platform as first lady. However, experts argued that she was doing her Be Best campaign no favors by suggesting that the hardships of the children she was supposed to be advocating for paled in comparison to her own. "I think it belittles kids who are afraid to go to school, who are afraid to turn on Instagram because of [cyberbullying]," StopCyberbullying founder Parry Atab told the Daily Beast. "It's a misuse of a term that shouldn't be used by someone in power."
When Melania made that remark, perhaps she regretted a plea she had previously made to the American public. In her 2016 CNN interview with Anderson Cooper, she mocked those expressing sympathy for her and said, "Don't feel sorry for me. I can handle everything." If she were to emblazon her message on the back of a coat, perhaps it would read, "I really don't want u to care."