April 26, 2024

Trump’s Happy Birthday Message for Melania Is a Gift for His Haters

The former president, who is on trial for falsifying business records related to an alleged affair, complained that he couldn’t be with his wife.

A close-up black-and-white portrait of Melania Trump. Reflected on the lenses of her sunglasses is Donald Trump, who is speaking, with arms outstretched, to a gathering of reporters.

Mother Jones; Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

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The first criminal trial of a former US president is underway, with Donald Trump facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush-money payments allegedly made in 2016 to cover up an affair he had with adult film star Stormy Daniels. Here’s the latest—the key updates and absurd moments—from the historic trial.

Public birthday wishes are a tricky art. Some are cute! Others give the ick. But on the 54th birthday of Melania Trump, a new entry into the canon of birthday messages has emerged—and it defies neat categorization.

“I want to start by wishing my wife Melania a very happy birthday,” Donald Trump told reporters on Friday. “It would be nice to be with her but I’m at a courthouse for a rigged trial.”

Trump is correct in that he is legally restricted from being anywhere but the Manhattan courthouse where he faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to an alleged affair he had with adult film star, Stormy Daniels. The trial, however, is not rigged and is instead the direct result of an alleged extramarital relationship, which reportedly involved spanking and hours of watching Shark Week together, carried out just months after Melania had given birth.

So how does Melania feel about her name being invoked this morning before dozens of cameras, especially for a birthday message that mostly served as a template to rail against prosecutors? The former first lady remains largely sequestered in Mar-a-Lago and has not accompanied her husband at his many court appearances (nor has any Trump family member for that matter). So I doubt we’ll hear from her.

As Trump’s lawyers argue, rather needlessly and hazardously, that Trump never had sex with Daniels or the other two women allegedly involved in potential cover-up payments, Melania’s silence should not be lost on any of us. I interpret it as the only sensible response to the humiliation of marrying Donald J. Trump.

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