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Melania Trump has revealed how she reacted when her husband Donald Trump first told her he was running for president in the 2016 election.
While being noticeably absent from Trump’s campaign trail this election cycle, the former first lady has started to emerge from the shadows again as she plugs her forthcoming tell-all memoir, Melania, which is set to hit shelves next week.
On Tuesday, she sat down for an interview with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity – a longtime close ally to Trump – the first part of which aired on Wednesday night.
In the interview, Melania spoke about the moment that Trump told her he was entering the 2016 race.
“So as soon as he announced that he’s running for president, everything changed,” she said.
“I saw it and I said, ‘You know, this will not be very pleasant,’ but I knew that he’s into it, what he’ll need to deal with.”
She said her husband had been talking about entering politics for years – but he decided 2016 was the “right time.”
Melania said she instantly had no doubt that he would win.
“I saw how people react to him. And he has a passion for this country,” she said. “And I think the country was ready for change.”
Melania continued: “And I saw it – in him as well – that he really wanted to do it at that time. He was talking for many, many years but he really felt 2016 was the right time.”
“You’re quoted as saying: ‘If you run you are going to win’. True story?” Hannity asked.
“True story,” Melania echoed with a smirk.
The 54-year-old former model said that she believed Trump’s entrepreneurial background would help him find favor with the electorate, who she felt wanted a candidate “who wasn’t in politics all the time”.
Melania went on to discuss the backlash Trump has faced since entering politics – largely blaming the media.
She condemned the media for its reporting of Trump’s 2019 impeachment, after the House passed two articles citing his alleged abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Melania actually expected her husband to be impeached sooner into his first term, she claimed, based on the headlines about him.
“I saw how they treat him, how the media was against him. I think they are afraid of his strength – he was leading this country with peace through strength,” she told the Fox News host.
“And as soon as they announced his presidency, and then when he won, they start already talking about impeachment… I always said to him, ‘What is next?’”
Making a segue to the present, Melania outlined the dangers that the US – and the world – faces today, before hinting at the recent attempts on her husband’s life.
“The world and the United States is more divided than ever before. And the threats we get. My husband, what he went through in the last few months,” she said.
“We are dealing with much more danger. Every event that happened, I’m thinking, ‘What is next? What are they trying to do? ’You always fear the worst, and that happened.”
The sitdown with Hannity marks Melania’s second interview in a week – after avoiding media interviews for the past two years – as she seeks to promote her new memoir.
In the book, Melania passionately voices her support for abortion rights in a marked departure from her husband and the Republican party’s backpedaling of rights, according to an excerpt of the book obtained by The Guardian.
“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?” she writes.
“A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.”
“Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body. I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life,” she reportedly writes elsewhere.
It marks one of the “political disagreements” Melania says she has with her husband, who has boasted about his pivotal role in the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade.
