Your support helps us to tell the story
Hillary Clinton said that Melania Trump reminded her of a “little kid” during an awkward meeting last year at former first lady Rosalynn Carter’s memorial service.
In her new book Something Lost, Something Gained, released on Tuesday, the former secretary of state wrote that she “never quite knew what to make of the third Mrs Trump.”
The two former first ladies had met once before when Clinton wrote that she attended the Trumps’s 2005 wedding at their Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida “out of curiosity.”
“I was going to be in Florida anyway and thought it would be entertaining to see what a Donald Trump wedding was like,” Clinton said. “It was the first time I met Melania, and I just remember that she was young, very beautiful, and very tall.”
Melania “didn’t talk much,” Clinton added. “At least to me.”
The pair crossed paths again 18 years later – and eight years after Clinton lost to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election – at the November memorial service in Georgia for Jimmy Carter’s wife, who died aged 96.
“Rosalynn’s grandson Jason said it had been her wish that all the first ladies would come together for her memorial in a show of unity in these divisive times,” Clinton wrote.
The 76-year-old Democrat said that neither her husband, former president Bill Clinton, the White House nor the Secret Service had informed her that Melania had planned to attend the ceremony.
Then, Clinton spotted the 54-year-old ex-model standing alone near Laura Bush, the wife of former president George W Bush, when the entourage of first ladies waltzed into the memorial.
“Melania had a look on her face – very smiley but uncertain – that reminded me of the little kid at the birthday party who doesn’t know anyone and is waiting at the edge of the circle, hoping people are going to be nice,” Clinton wrote.
The huddle of first ladies approached Melania along with President Joe Biden, she added. Melania first received an air-kiss from First Lady Jill Biden, before Michelle Obama swooped in to give “one of her signature big hugs,” the former New York senator recalled.
Clinton noted that Melania was likely wary about what reception she would get from her fellow first ladies given that her husband had thrown a barrage of insults at their own husbands.
“I can appreciate how awkward it must have been,” she wrote.
The Independent has contacted a Melania Trump spokesperson for comment.
