Why Melania Won’t Be On the Campaign Trail

The more I find out about the Marriage From Hell that Donald and Melania Trump have the more I roll my eyes. But I shouldn’t. This is unquestionably the way of the uber wealthy where spouses are purchased very much like cars. First you figure out how much the car is to actually buy, then you figure out its maintenance, insurance, depreciation, all that. It’s a combination investment and business expense, what the Trumps have going. It’s not a marriage as you and I understand that term.

It’s just a bit jarring because in the cases of other presidents and their wives, there are frequently beautiful love stories attached. Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter is one example, Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln had an intense relationship which had its tragic side, Jack and Jackie Kennedy were the undisputed perfect power couple of their era, and Joe and Jill Biden have been compared to a couple of teenagers in love, and that comparison has been made for decades. So in the midst of all this historical precedent, along come the Trumps, trash with cash, and this is how First Lady Melania comported herself when not creating nightmarish Halloween decor or spray painting fuckeeeng Creesmuss trees. Politico:

Regarding the reporting about Melania and Donald negotiating the legal agreement between them early in the Trump presidency, what did you discover about that?

So Mary Jordan, she’s a journalist for the Washington Post, first reported this in her book on Melania Trump, which is that part of the delay in Melania Trump coming to Washington was she was reorganizing her pre- and post-nuptial agreements with Donald Trump, which her office denied at the time.

I did some reporting for my book and years had passed and people had left the Trump administration and were willing to speak on the record about what they knew and what they had seen. Stephanie Grisham, who is Melania Trump’s former communications director, former White House press secretary, she’s written a tell-all about her time. She talked to me separately for this and said much of [Melania’s] time was indeed focused on post-nuptial agreements and money she had in the bank.

Melania Trump’s office didn’t outright deny this. They just said to me, “She’s a businesswoman and has her own business interests to uphold.” And that was in the context of me asking about “Did she spend a lot of time in the White House meeting with her lawyers?” Yes. She did.

Again, it’s my naivete which is the problem here. It’s like in 50’s Hollywood, two of the biggest stars in Hollywood, Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter were depicted as looking for love and marriage and they were both gay. Hudson finally was pressured into marrying his agent’s secretary when he was 29 to keep up appearances.

This is who the Trumps are and their marriage is about greenbacks. I seriously doubt if Donald Trump ever has had a real relationship in his entire life. I doubt if he’s ever been in love. It’s always been transactional. That being the case, he is indeed the poorest of men because the old cliche is true, the best things in life are free.

You may not get them, but if you do get them, they won’t cost you a dime. And you can’t buy them for all the money in the world, I’m talking about friendship, respect, love. You can only buy the superficial representation of them, the physical presence of the person. Speaking of which, don’t expect a lot of that this campaign season from Melania and don’t even expect her to move back to D.C.

And on January 6th, she was not exactly a moderating influence on him, was she?

I don’t think she was any sort of influence. Toward the end of her time there, she was in the residence almost all the time. And when she wasn’t, she was summoning a photographer to take photos of the aesthetic changes she had made to the White House, which are culturally relevant. I don’t mean to disparage a first lady’s interest in improving the White House complex, but during an unfolding of such violence — it was stunning — as things unfolded that day, she was asked by Grisham whether she wanted to say anything to encourage an end to the violence. And she just flat out said “no.” She was busy having photographs of a rug taken that day. So that’s what she was up to while Trump was in the dining room off the Oval watching the proceedings.

I must say, of all of Melania’s tone deafness, next to the pea coat with I Really Don’t Care, Do U? this January 6 obliviousness I found almost unbelievable. But I guess when you have a pea sized brain and zero social consciousness, of course you’re going to put your photo op with the rug above the riot taking place outside, which your insane husband has just incited — while he watches it on TV.

What’s your sense of her complete lack of a public role in the Trump campaign? And if you had to predict, what do you think her role will be this year?

You know that it’s terrible to predict things, but I’m going to go ahead and do it.

Knowing what I know and what my reporting on Melania Trump shows, she likes being first lady. But my reporting does not show that she enjoys campaigning. My reporting does not show that she enjoys defending her husband, as she has been called to do numerous times. And my reporting doesn’t show that she has an interest in returning to Washington full time.

So, I guess taken together, if Trump wins, we could expect a first lady who embraces the role, but possibly, because she was such a norm-breaking figure, takes her time coming to Washington, goes back and forth — that seems possible to me.

People who know her say that she would absolutely do it over again, but they’re less clear on the details of what that would look like. And in terms of being a campaigner, she’s somebody who has no interest in doing that. I know Trump has said that she will be out there in the near future, but I don’t know. I think I would be surprised to see her out anytime soon on the trail.

I think where the Trumps are at now is that the minimum is the maximum, meaning that Melania will show up only when absolutely required to do so — and at a price. If she was meeting with her lawyers when she was in the White House and the subject was her money, then she’s getting paid like a movie star to play the role of Trump’s wife. That’s the long and the short of it. She’s a paid model/actor, not a wife. Let’s just call a spade a shovel.

At least there’s some honesty about the situation this time around. Don’t expect her to do too much of a job. Not unless Donald can find a really deep pocket and in that instance, then she’ll make bank against the inevitable day when Donald croaks and/or she decides she’s had enough and flees the charade.

Just another wonderful insight into the crook who would be king, and 47th president and his equally money grubbing consort. God help us all.