WASHINGTON — When she first saw reports that her husband had paid off a porn actor in January 2018, Melania Trump was furious. She left for Palm Beach, Florida, leaving the president to languish in Washington. She eventually returned, but took a separate car with her Donald Trump‘s first State of the Union address.
A criminal trial against Trump began on Monday on charges that he falsified data to cover up that sex scandal Stormy Daniels, Melania Trump did not appear. She has long privately described the case involving Daniels as “his problem” and not hers.
But the former first lady shares his view that the process itself is unfair, according to several people familiar with her thinking.
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Privately, she has called the proceedings “a disgrace,” amounting to election interference, according to a person with direct knowledge of her comments who could not speak publicly for fear of jeopardizing the personal relationship with the Trumps.
She may support her husband, but Trump will undoubtedly see headlines about Donald Trump and Daniels potentially reopening old wounds. On Monday, Judge Juan M. Merchan, the judge presiding over the case, also said that Melania Trump could be among the potential witnesses when the trial starts.
All this could put Donald Trump on shaky ground with his wife, who has defended him at some critical moments — including when he went on tape bragging about grabbing women by their genitals — and withheld her public support from others, such as when she didn’t. appearing alongside him as he scored victories on Super Tuesday.
“Ultimately, she could make or break his candidacy,” said Stephanie Grisham, Melania Trump’s former press secretary who resigned on January 6, 2021 and subsequently wrote a memoir. “And in the end, she could probably make or break him.”
Some of the more personally damaging details of Donald Trump’s behavior may not come up in court. On Monday, Merchan banned some testimony regarding the timing of a reported affair between Trump and a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal. The National Enquirer, which has long had ties to Trump, bought the rights to McDougal’s story for $150,000 and then never published it — a practice known as “catch and kill.”
Jurors will be allowed to hear about Trump and McDougal’s relationship, Merchan ruled — but not that the affair continued while Melania Trump was pregnant with their son Barron. (If the legal proceedings bring up Barron, whose privacy his mother fiercely guards, Grisham said, Trump will likely be “not happy” with her husband “all over again.”)
Nevertheless, the trial will almost certainly explore a timeline that Trump would prefer not to revisit. Donald Trump and Daniels met at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006, at a time when the Trumps had been married for a year and Melania Trump had recently given birth to Barron.
Donald Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels. But prosecutors say that when Daniels tried to sell her story a decade later, Trump ordered Michael Cohen, his lawyer and fixer at the time, to pay Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet. The reports of a payout blindsided Melania Trump, who responded to the initial reports by leaving town.
She canceled a trip with her husband to Davos, Switzerland, made an impromptu visit to the Holocaust Memorial Museum and then headed to Mar-a-Lago, the Trumps’ beach fortress in Palm Beach, where she spent part of her time. travel relax in the spa. She eventually reappeared, but took a separate car to Donald Trump’s State of the Union address and appeared on the arm of a male military aide.
Meanwhile, Trump allies say, Melania Trump has lumped the lawsuit in with all the other legal troubles her husband is facing and is more steely than before.
Last month, she appeared alongside Donald Trump to welcome Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary, during a visit to Mar-a-Lago. Weeks later, she voted with her husband in Florida, where, when asked if she would campaign more often, she responded with a cryptic “stay tuned.”
Supporters have praised her planned appearance at a fundraising event for the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of LGBTQ+ conservatives, as evidence that she is ready to be more involved on the campaign trail.
The event, scheduled for Saturday, will draw attendees who paid at least $10,000 for a chance to interact with her, according to a person familiar with the planning who was not authorized to describe it in detail.
The event will be designed as a cocktail reception, and she is expected to make remarks about her time as first lady and reiterate her support for her husband.
But there’s one catch: the event won’t take place on a battlefield or in any other location on a traditional campaign trail. It will be held in a reception room at Mar-a-Lago, just steps from Melania Trump’s suite.
The Log Cabin Republicans have previously been a source of income for Trump. Trump received a $250,000 payment from the group in December 2022, according to a financial disclosure last year. Charles Moran, a representative of the group, said in an email that Trump did not accept compensation from the Log Cabin Republicans for its appearance.
A spokesperson for Melania Trump did not respond to a request for comment for this article, nor did a representative for the Trump campaign.
Trump’s allies say she will likely reappear as the campaign continues — a sign, they say, that she realizes there is a real chance she could become first lady again — but that she will likely be selective with her time.
For now, she’s focusing on Barron’s high school graduation later this spring and preparing him for college. Donald Trump repeatedly complained on social media Monday that he might miss his son’s graduation ceremony because of the trial. Barron will attend a private school near Mar-a-Lago and is expected to graduate in May.
Melania Trump’s allies say other personal issues could keep her off the campaign trail. She is said to still be mourning the death of her mother, Amalija Knavs, who died in January and was one of the few people in her world who enjoyed her absolute trust. Her sister, Ines Knauss, is another confidante, but Knauss lives in New York City.
Another person Trump trusts is Kellyanne Conway, who served as an adviser to Donald Trump in the White House; Melania Trump is pushing for Conway to return to Donald Trump’s job in a formal capacity, a development first reported by the news site Puck. Conway, who was a confidante to both Trumps when they were in the White House, has said that Donald Trump values his wife’s opinion very much — and in some cases he may even fear it.
“He listens to many of us,” she told a congressional committee in 2022, “but he saves fear for one person, Melania Trump.”
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