“First lady Melania Trump will not appear at any campaign events in the final days leading up to the Nov. 6 midterm elections,” ABC News reports.
“This comes as President Donald Trump plans to hold at least 10 campaign rallies leading up to Election Day as he and the Republican Party seek to keep Democrats from taking control of Congress.”
First lady Melania Trump is brushing aside allegations of infidelity on her husband’s part, telling ABC News that she has no time for what she calls media speculation and gossip.
Said Trump: “”I’m a mother and a first lady, and I have much more important things to think about and to do.”
First lady Melania Trump told ABC News that she has told her husband there have been people in his administration she didn’t trust who worked for him.
Said Trump: “It’s harder to govern. You always need to watch your back.”
“First lady Melania Trump will attend a reception for Gold Star families Monday, her first public appearance since being hospitalized for several days last month,” USA Today reports.
New York Times: “At a Republican fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year, Mr. Cohen went so far as to approach the first lady, Melania Trump, to try to apologize for the pain he caused her with the payment to Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress who has claimed to have had the sexual encounter with Mr. Trump.”
Melania Trump, whose husband is known for the barbs he hurls on Twitter, said that adults should be “encouraging positive habits on social media” as an example for children, The Hill reports.
The Daily Mail reports Melania Trump “has spent a number of nights at a posh D.C. hotel away from President Trump following allegations of a fling with porn star Stormy Daniels.”
First lady Melania Trump’s spokeswoman assailed Ivana Trump, the president’s first wife, “as a bitter ex following a television interview in which the first Mrs. Trump quipped she was the real First Lady since she was the president’s first wife,” NBC News reports.
Said Ivana: “I have the direct number to White House. But I’m not really going to call him there because Melania is there, and I don’t want to cause any kind of jealousy or something like that, because I’m basically first Trump wife, OK? I’m first lady, OK?”
“Melania Trump’s aide took Ivana to task for the quip, calling her an attention-seeking ‘ex’ trying to sell books.”
“President Trump’s White House residence — where an increasingly isolated figure under siege conducts his late-night phone klatches and early morning tweetstorms — is about to get a little less lonely,” Politico reports.
“With the school year over, first lady Melania Trump and the couple’s son Barron are expected to finally make their official move to Washington on June 14, according to people familiar with the planning.”
“The long-anticipated move — Trump is the first first lady in modern history to delay her arrival — is expected to lend some degree of normalcy to a presidency defined by its abnormality in substance and style.”
Vanity Fair: “Woefully pliant as Melania may be, even she may have a breaking point. Over the course of reporting this story, for which her close friends declined to talk, an uneasy picture has emerged of their marital union. Melania’s unhappiness and the couple’s apparent lack of closeness are becoming more noticeable.”
“Despite assurances from her spokesperson, Stephanie Grisham, that Melania is embracing the role of First Lady, most signs point to a distinct lack of interest. And while Grisham says Mrs. Trump plans to move to the White House once their son, Barron, ‘finishes out the school year,’ there have been indications that she is in no particular rush.”
“The Daily Mail and Mail Online will pay damages to settle a libel claim brought against them by the U.S. first lady, Melania Trump, over false claims about her work as a professional model,” the Guardian reports.
The statement said the article published in a double page spread and online last summer included “false and defamatory claims” about Mrs. Trump which “questioned the nature of her work as a professional model and republished allegations that she provided services beyond simply modelling.”
The amount of damages were not disclosed in court, although Sky News understands the total payment of damages and costs is believed to come to less than $3 million.
Melania Trump filed her third defamation suit against the Mail Online over an August 2016 article that accused her of having once been a prostitute, arguing for the first time that it ruined her “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to cash in on the presidency, the New York Post reports.
From the lawsuit: “Plaintiff had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known person…to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multi-million dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world.”
“President Trump and his wife, Melania, have not been seen together in public since the inauguration nearly two weeks ago – indeed, there are doubts the two have been together in private since then — reviving speculation about the first lady’s role,” RealClearPolitics reports.
“There were no public sightings of Melania Trump at the White House last weekend – although a pool report noted an Ivanka Trump appearance then in the West Wing. White House staff didn’t respond to repeated inquiries from RealClearPolitics as to when the couple were last together.”
“It was late July when voters last heard from the potential first lady of the United States. Melania Trump delivered her speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, and then later stood with her husband, balloons dropping, waving to the crowd in what is starting to feel like a premature farewell to the campaign trail,” the Washington Post reports.
“Since then, she has not spoken publicly and has largely vanished from view, leaving a trail of questions and voids in her personal biography.”
“Melania Trump filed a libel lawsuit Thursday against the publisher of the Daily Mail, contending that it published an article that contained ‘false and defamatory statements,’ including that she was once an escort,” the New York Times reports.
The Daily Mail published a retraction and apology after the lawsuit was filed.
“Melania Trump has started legal action against the Daily Mail and other outlets for what she claims is a defamatory article about her past,” Politico reports.
“Charles Harder, an attorney for Trump, said in an email that the legal action goes beyond just the Daily Mail and is not limited to the United Kingdom, where the Daily Mail is headquartered… Harder was in the news recently for representing Hulk Hogan in his successful bid to sue Gawker, bankrolled by Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, who spoke at the Republican National Convention in July.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Wonk Wire, Political Job Hunt and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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