Melania’s Holding All the Cards, This Is How She’ll Play Them

As you heard earlier today, Michael Cohen testified that Donald Trump said that if his wife, Melania, decided to split up with him over the Stormy Daniels debacle that he wasn’t really worried. “How long do you think I’ll be on the market?” That creates a distinct impression that Trump could take it or leave it if Melania split. No biggy either way. That’s pretty unusual. In the normal world, if two spouses have reached the place where they (or at least one of them) doesn’t really care if the other one is around or not, people get a divorce.

But this case is different, because there’s no marriage. Yes, there is a legal marriage on the books, as legal as anybody’s else’s that’s on file. But what Donald and Melania have is a modeling and appearance contract, far more than a marriage. Melania got the benefit of her bargain starting early in the game. Trump got her her immigration visa, she married him and had her anchor baby, and they have a prenup in place, with who knows how many revisions.

So yes, Trump told Cohen the truth, he wouldn’t be on the market for long because he could put somebody else under contract in a New York minute if need be. No question about that. But how did that kind of a wisecrack play before a jury? This panel doesn’t think that Melania’s absence and Trump’s comment are playing out at all well.

That pretty well settles it. Melania has a great deal of power. If she wanted to make Trump look good, she could come out and do so. She could get up there and call Stormy Daniels a “porn hooker” in public, not just to her friend Stephanie Winston-Wolkoff. I wish she would. Stormy would let Melania have it. She could claim that she knew of her husband’s innocence. She could say all kinds of things but so far she has said precisely nothing on this topic.

So you’re probably thinking the same thing I am, “How much is Trump going to need to pay her to save his bacon?” And I would be very surprised if they hadn’t discussed that at great length already.

Here’s what’s going on: Melania knows she’s in the catbird seat. She’s got a lot of leverage. So, she could *save* Trump now and make a spectacle of herself doing it, or she can just stay removed and let all this play out without her. I think she’s going to do nothing and I’ll tell you why.

We saw a key piece of strategy go awry a few days ago. Barron was chosen as one of the at-large delegates from Florida for July’s GOP convention. A big story ran in the Daily Mail about it, and about how like his father Barron was, and how he was ready to follow his father’s footsteps into politics. Less than 48 hours later the story was walked back. Now, we are told, Barron has prior commitments to honor, and those commitments apparently supersede getting his father nominated for president of these United States.

I think that spells the situation out to you, that something substantial happened at Mar-a-Lago. I think this is what happened:

1. Trump offered Melania a deal if she and Barron would unite behind him;
2. Something was agreed to;
3. The Daily Mail story broke;
4. Melania saw the Twitter threads addressed to Barron saying, “Fine, bro. Welcome to the arena. All’s fair in love and war and politics is war.”
5. She “came to her senses” (as Mary Trump characterized it) and pulled the plug on the project.

Admittedly this is all speculation. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Melania will show up in court tomorrow. Maybe Barron’s withdrawal from politics will be rescinded and then he’ll be back in play as a delegate. Anything is possible, because this is Trump world where anything goes. Not only are the laws of political science suspended, common sense has a hard time faring as well. But if I had to lay odds right now I would say that this is the operating principle: Melania has declared herself and Barron as a unit. That’s the unit she’s going to preserve and protect not the contractual relationship she has with her husband. And Donald can solve his own problems or not solve them.

I think that that was made clear by last week’s snub of Trump. Melania’s sitting pretty. She’s got money stashed away, I’m sure. Her expenses are paid. And she was even going to sell her first born son to Trumpelstiltsken, but now he’s not getting it.

I’ll tell you why I’m right about this. Melania is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. And if she goes into the arena and let’s Barron go into the arena, they’re both going to get eaten alive. I think she finally realized that. She’s not going to be credible doing a stand by your man number and Barron has no defense against the shitstorm that would fly at him.

Melania probably listened to Trump give her a tremendous line of bull about how it was all going to go, but then when the trial started and she saw how credible Stormy was (and today, how credible Michael Cohen was) she got cold feet. I think her feet are going to stay cold and she’s going to remain in Florida.