Melania Trump Wanted to “Humiliate” Her Husband After the Stormy Daniels Hush Money Deal Came to Light: Report

Last March, shortly before Donald Trump was criminally charged for his hush money deal with Stormy Daniels, we learned that Melania Trump was still angry with her husband over the alleged affair and didn’t care if he ended up going to prison for it. So it’s pretty unsurprising to learn that when the allegations first came out that he’d paid a porn star six figures to keep quiet about cheating on his spouse, Melania was extra pissed about it and feeling pretty ungenerous toward the then president.

In American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, From Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden, New York Times reporter Katie Rogers reports that after the allegations went public in 2018, Melania refused to join Trump on a trip abroad and headed to Mar-a-Lago without him. “[FLOTUS press secretary Stephanie] Grisham, who traveled with her on that jaunt, said that the first lady had wanted to communicate her anger to the president,” Rogers writes, according to People. Melania, Grisham told Rogers, “was pissed at Trump and wanted him to be a little humiliated that she took off.”

Four years later, Melania appeared to “communicate” a similar message when she didn’t show up for Trump’s speech at Mar-a-Lago (a.k.a. her home), following his arraignment by the Manhattan district attorney on 34 felony charges stemming from the hush money deal. (He pleaded not guilty and has denied the affair.) At the time, reporter Linda Marx revealed that the former first lady did not “sympathize with Donald’s plight.” A source familiar with the matter said, “Despite what happens to Donald, she will be fine.”

The hush money trial—Trump’s first but not last criminal one—is scheduled to kick off on March 25. Prosecutors in the case have already requested a gag order preventing him from attacking known or likely witnesses, court staff, the DA’s staff and their families, and any potential jurors.