Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.
Did Melania Trump laugh off efforts to get her on the 2024 campaign trail in support of her husband?
Author Michael Wolff makes this claim in his upcoming book about the 2024 election, titled All or Nothing, according to excerpts published by Newsweek.
Wolff, who has authored several books critical of President Donald Trump over the years, has been accused of fabricating stories that appeared in his various behind-the-scenes looks at Trumpworld.
In the new book, writing about the now-first lady’s absence from the 2024 campaign, Wolff writes:
“Since the first indictment in New York, when Melania had simply laughed at the campaign’s effort to get her to accompany her husband (‘Nice try’), it had been clear that she wasn’t going to show up. During the past year, she had yet to make a single campaign appearance. In only one instance in 2023 did she even appear on the plane—and then only hitching a ride. Magically, the Melania issue had not, in the White House years nor the mar-a-lago-0″>Mar-a-Lago years—with both staffers and press quite aware of the Trumps’ nontraditional living arrangements and their careful distance from each other— become an issue.”
Another passage about the rise of “Where’s Melania?” articles in the media, reads:
“Melania continued to be an additional freak-out, absolutely refusing every entreaty to speak or even to appear side by side with her husband. He had never faced point-blank questions from the media about their relationship. But what if ‘Where’s Melania?’ started now in earnest? But that was all before the shooting…now the attempt on Trump’s life not only made him again incontrovertibly the central figure of the moment, if not the age, giving him a maximum hero’s electoral mantle, but it also repositioned his convention as the joyous and abject coronation of which he dreamed.”
Following the attempt on her husband’s life, Melania attended the Republican National Convention and was present on election night for his victory appearance.
In the flurry of activity surrounding the inauguration, she stood dutifully by her husband throughout the various events of the day in an especially memorable hat. The following day, she attended church with the rest of the family, Vice President JD Vance, and Second Lady Usha Vance.
She also released an official portrait and, with the president, inspected recovery efforts from devastating floods in North Carolina and the sites of wildfires in suburban Los Angeles.
That was January 24, and since then, the first lady has not been seen until Saturday evening (February 22), when she returned to the public eye at a reception and dinner for the National Governors Association in the East Room of the White House.
Numerous people have questioned Wolff’s credibility, including Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, formerly White House press secretary, who said his previous book contained “mistake after mistake after mistake.”
Communications director Steven Cheung told Newsweek today that Wolff is “a lying sack of s*** and has been proven to be a fraud” who “fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination” as a result of his “severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”
Other people who have denied quotes or events featured in Wolff’s books include Tony Blair, Sean Hannity, Anna Wintour, Tom Barrack, and Alan Dershowitz.
All or Nothing is released on February 25.