When does she plan to leave him?
As soon as the President’s infidelities became national news, the press became relentless. Every third question to the President’s wife was, “When do you plan to leave him?” No sooner had she brushed off the question or replied in the negative, the press developed amnesia, locked, loaded and chambered another round: “When do you plan to leave him?”
Oh, I forgot to mention. I’m not talking about Melania Trump here. I’m not talking about the media’s hounding of Melania Trump for a reaction to her husband’s numerous infidelities, including his most famous infidelity with Stormy Daniels. I’m talking about Hillary Clinton. You remember, when it was discovered that Bill had had yet another extramarital affair, this time with White House intern Monica Lewinsky? I’m talking about the “But Her Emails” lady and how the press relentlessly hounded her about Bill. Melania Trump? They pretty much leave her alone.
Not that they get much chance to talk to Melania these days. But when a rare opportunity to ask her about her feelings about Donald’s screwing a porn star back after she had just given birth to Barron, the press remains largely silent. If I didn’t know better I’d think some kind of double standard was at work here.
Meanwhile, where is Trump’s, ahem, devoted wife, anyway? Nowhere to be found. Even the dregs of the MAGA Congress showed up for a photo op at the first of Trump’s four criminal trials to show some support. Melania couldn’t be bothered. Maybe she had to have her nails done that month.
In a recent social media thread, a former senior adviser to Melania Trump claimed that the former first lady’s marriage to convicted felon Donald Trump was a fraud from the beginning, just like so many other things Trump does. In fact, she says it was a MIRAGE from the very beginning, if not created then at least encouraged by Trump’s producers at his reality TV show, “The Apprentice.”
In a recently unearthed, cringeworthy clip from the 2007 season of The Apprentice, Melania walks down the steps of a palm tree-lined home carrying newborn Barron. “Daddy’s coming home,” Melania says as she walks over to greet her husband, who rolls up in a convertible. “Hi honey,” Trump says in a muted tone. He then whips off his sunglasses before leaning over to kiss his wife and their baby. The clip then cuts to Trump promoting the new season of his new hit show.
“What catapulted Donald J. Trump ‘businessman’ and his ‘supermodel’ wife to the White House was a MIRAGE created by Survivor producer Mark Burnett and NBC boss Jeff Zucker,” one of Melania Trump’s former confidants, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, sniped on Sunday. “Millions of Americans watched the Apprentice,” she continued. “Donald was a household name. He needed a woman who looked & played the part & let him be the star. Marrying Melania & making her a Vogue Cover model — legitimized them both.”
Now that Melania is no longer needed for propaganda purposes, and the press is content to cooperate and not ask the convicted felon about her, she is safe to retreat into miserable obscurity. If I didn’t know better, I’d guess that Melania hates her husband. I can’t think of many better ways for her to passive-aggressively express that hatred than her actions now. She seems completely indifferent to her convicted felon husband’s ordeals. And they say that indifference, more than anger, is the true barometer of contempt.
Wherever she is and whatever she’s doing, you can bet the press will never ask her the one question uppermost on my mind, and uppermost on the minds of many Americans. When the hell does she plan to leave the son-of-a-bitch? And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.