Report: If Trump Runs in 2024, Melania Will Be by His Side, Despising Him as Usual

One of the great myths of Donald Trump’s presidency is that Melania Trump was some kind of victim who deserved our sympathy. In reality, the first lady was just as horrible a person as her husband; the woman peddled his racist birtherism conspiracy theory about Barack Obama, sported a jacket that read “I Really Don’t Care. Do U?” to visit the victims of his family-separation policy, and, as we learned earlier this week, gave even less of a f–k about the violent insurrection that took place last January than previously thought.

The one thing that does appear to be true about Melania, though, is that she seems to despise her husband just as much as the rest of us. While she clearly decided some time ago that the trade-offs she got from marrying the guy were worth it, she quite obviously loathes him and, in the words of writer Dan Amira, is “waiting for [him] to die.” And while we also know she detested her time in the White House, a new report suggests she’ll begrudgingly go along with the whole thing should Trump decide to run again in 2024, which he has been threatening to do. Per Politico:

As former president Donald Trump crisscrosses the country to push his MAGA brand, his wife, Melania Trump, has shown little sign that she harbors enthusiasm to dive back into politics. But those close to the family say the former first lady would support her husband should he make another run at the White House. “If [Trump] runs, she will be right there. She’s not going to have her own rallies,” an adviser said. “But did she ever?”

That’s not to say she’d be happy to return to Washington, given, again, how much she appeared to absolutely hate being first lady and all the responsibilities that came with it. In fact, according to her ex-chief of staff’s new book, she couldn’t even be bothered to stay conscious the night of the 2020 election.

The ending of her husband’s term underscored her discomfort with the national political stage. According to her former chief of staff Stephanie Grisham, Melania Trump spent part of election night 2020 asleep as her husband fretted over vote counting and network coverage while huddled with advisers at the White House. “I knocked a few times, quietly at first but louder at each attempt,” wrote Grisham, according to new material from her forthcoming book titled I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House. “I finally opened the bedroom door only to find that Melania Trump was sound asleep.”

Melania Trump and Grisham had been at former president Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club the night before. They had been up late to prepare for election night and up early to vote and then flew back to Washington, D.C. But Grisham was still surprised that she went to bed. “I knew by now how much sleep meant to her, but still, I couldn’t imagine being asleep at a time like that,” she wrote. “Maybe she thought that someone would wake her up if Trump won.”

On Monday, in response to the first excerpt from Grisham’s book, which detailed Melania’s refusal to condemn the January 6 violence, the former first lady’s office issued a statement saying Grisham was trying “to redeem herself after a poor performance as press secretary, failed personal relationships, and unprofessional behavior in the White House.” The mention of allegedly “failed personal relationships” apparently struck many as f–ked up, considering Grisham’s two divorces—which Donald Trump would know a little something about!—and a previous relationship with a former Trump aide who allegedly “pushed her against a wall and slapped her in the face.” (The aide denied this.) As Politico notes, “it is unprecedented for former first ladies to get into public fights with their former top aides.” Clearly, her husband has rubbed off on her.

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