Melania Trump

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      Is Donald Trump the greatest grifter of them all? Melania is giving him a run for his money | Emma Brockes

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      There was something almost poignant about Donald Trump’s tweets in support of his wife, Melania, on the occasion of her memoir being published this week. On Tuesday, the former president posted on X that he was “very proud of Melania!”, who is characterised in the book’s publicity material as Trump’s “rock and foundation”. It’s wrong, I know, to ascribe regular human responses to either of the Trumps, but watching activity around the book this week, it was hard not to wonder whether the pair’s pantomime uxoriousness caused either one of them the tiniest pang of regret for faking a loving relationship.I mean, no, right? Then again, who knows? The comedy and drama of the rollout of Melania are not the revelations – there are none, aside from Melania’s presumably calculated reveal about her position on abortion – but rather the spectacle of watching the former first lady answer questions about a man we must assume she can’t stand. While US reviewers mocked the book’s focus on Melania’s various business ventures – the Washington Post pulled out “the Fluid Day Serum, the Luxe Night with Vitamins A and E, cleansing balm, and an exfoliating peel, all priced between $50 and $150” for particular mockery – and bitterness about her treatment by the “news media”, the author herself appeared on a series of Fox News shows to publicly support her husband’s bid for re-election.It was, it should be said, a very particular form of support, delivered in Melania’s stilted, blank-faced style, which only softened when she talked about her son Barron. When asked if she was worried about her husband’s safety, on the Fox panel show The Five, Melania said, “Of course I do”, with no further elaboration. This was before saying that one of her husband’s strengths is the fact that “he took care of the military and I loved visiting them around the world, even when I went to Iraq. And also when I visited the aircraft in the middle of the ocean.”Talking to Maria Bartiromo on a separate Fox show, Melania said, “It’s important to have a great success”, and referred viewers to her website, where you can buy, among other things, a lovely “Vote Freedom” necklace “which features the iconic Lady Liberty” for $175, or something from her Limited Edition Ornament series emblazoned with “Merry Christmas, AMERICA!” This sounds like the title of an episode of South Park but is in fact a series of Christmas decorations and “digital collectibles” that shine very brightly against the backdrop of Melania’s remark of 2019, when she was secretly recorded by an aide saying: “Who gives a fuck about Christmas stuff and decoration? But I have to do it.”It was, however, Melania’s interview on yet another Fox show with host Ainsley Earhardt that offered the most revealing insight into just how hard this publicity tour has been on her. Dutifully, Melania worked through her talking points about how her husband is “passionate to make America great again”. She complained about the “misinformation” around her and urged viewers to buy the book so they “can learn some things that were never discussed”. And she referred to the press release she issued shortly before the Republican national convention this year as the time “I wrote a beautiful letter to America”. (In it, she urged unity because “our gentle nation is tattered”.)It was when Earhardt asked Melania about the 13 July attempt on her husband’s life, however, that the former first lady appeared to suffer a serious malfunction. Questioned about how she responded to being informed that her husband had apparently been shot, Melania said: “I ran to the TV, and I rewind it, and … something I guess look over me so I didn’t really see ‘live, live’ but maybe a few minutes later. But when I saw it, it was only, nobody really knew yet. Because when you see him on the floor and you don’t know what really happened.”There was a pause while Earhardt tried to process these remarks and wait to see if there were more, which there weren’t. So after an even less satisfying back and forth about the second failed attempt on Trump’s life, she asked: “Does this make you more believe in a higher power?” To which Melania replied that the “country really needs him”, to which a by now thoroughly downcast-looking Earhardt mumbled: “Maybe God’s sparing his life.” Samuel Beckett himself could not have come up with a finer absurdist exchange.The effect of watching these interviews, meanwhile, was quietly chilling. Asked by a Fox interviewer what she wished Trump’s detractors knew about him, she said, bald-faced, smiling slightly, bold as brass in the prosecution of her naked self-interest, “that he is really a family man, he loves his family”.It was a spine-tingling moment that brings you to an interesting conclusion. If you watch enough Melania content you start to believe that she is, perhaps, even more of a grifter than her husband.

      Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

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      Harris embarks on media blitz and tries to edge out Trump in key swing states

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      Kamala Harris has embarked on a week-long media blitz, hurtling from TV studios and late-night shows to podcast interviews as she seeks to gain an edge over Donald Trump in the US election’s key battleground states that remain nail-bitingly close.The vice-president’s decision to face a raft of largely friendly media outlets came as the campaigns entered the final 30 days. More than 1.4 million Americans have already cast their ballots in early voting across 30 states.The Democratic nominee’s whirlwind media tour has been carefully crafted for maximum reach and minimum risk. Harris has talked to the CBS News show 60 Minutes, along with the popular podcast Call Her Daddy.On Tuesday she hits the media capital, New York, for appearances on ABC News’s daytime behemoth The View and the Howard Stern Show, followed by a recording with late-night host Stephen Colbert.The first of a flurry of comments from Harris was put out by 60 Minutes on Sunday before a full broadcast on Monday. Harris will appear alone, after Trump declined to be interviewed by the election special which has been a staple of US election coverage for more than half a century.In a short clip released by 60 Minutes, Harris was asked whether the Biden-Harris administration had any sway over the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu, the hardline prime minister of Israel who appears not to listen to Washington. Asked whether the US had a “real close ally” in Netanyahu, she replied: “With all due respect, the better question is: do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people? And the answer to that question is yes.”Since Harris’s meteoric propulsion as Democratic presidential nominee after Joe Biden stepped aside, her relative avoidance of press or TV interviews has become a point of contention on the campaign trail. Republican leaders and pundits on Fox News routinely accuse her of being media-shy.This week’s blitz is designed to counter that impression, while reaching large audiences focused on demographic groups which will be central to Harris’s chances of winning in November. Call Her Daddy is Spotify’s most-listened to podcast among women, while The View is the number one ranked daytime talk show with 2.5 million average viewers, again heavily weighted towards women.Meanwhile Colbert’s show on CBS is the highest rated late-night talk show attracting large numbers of younger viewers aged 18 to 49 – another critical demographic on Harris’s target list.Harris’s running mate, the Democratic governor of Minnesota Tim Walz, is also making his own media scramble which began on Sunday, with him entering less comfortable territory on Fox News Sunday. He was questioned about the pro-abortion law that he signed in his state, and also asked to clarify the occasions on which he has misrepresented his record.That included a comment that he had carried weapons in war when he had not, and his classifying the treatment that he and his wife received to have a child as IVF when it was in fact a different type of fertility treatment.At last week’s vice-presidential debate Walz recognised his missteps, calling himself a “knucklehead”.Walz told Fox News Sunday: “To be honest with you, I don’t think American people care whether I used IUI or IVF, what they understand is that Donald Trump would resist these things. I speak passionately … I will own up when I misspeak and when I make a mistake.”As the contest enters its final month, the Guardian’s latest tracker of opinion polls shows Harris up on Trump by three percentage points nationally. In the more telling test of the seven battleground states that will decide the outcome, though Harris is ahead in five of them, the margin remains essentially too close to call.Both candidates and their running mates are speeding up their frantic dash around the seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Harris and Walz will be in Arizona this weeks, where early voting begins on Wednesday.On Thursday, the Democratic ticket will gain extra ballast when former president and campaigning superstar Barack Obama kicks off a round of stump appearances in the all-important swing state, Pennsylvania. He will begin in Pittsburgh, and will then travel across the country on Harris’s behalf, campaign aides have said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump was scheduled to hold a rally in Juneau, Wisconsin, on Sunday afternoon, a day after he made a pointed return to the fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he came close to being assassinated on 13 July. Trump and his younger son Eric used the occasion to spread the baseless claim that the Democrats had been behind the attempt on his life.“They tried to kill him, it’s because the Democratic party can’t do anything right,” Eric Trump said. Billionaire Elon Musk also appeared on stage.On Sunday, Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the US House, was asked by ABC News’s This Week whether such comments were responsible amid mounting fears of political violence in the build up to the 5 November election. Johnson sidestepped the question, saying he had not heard the full speeches.The speaker also notably refused to answer whether Trump had lost the 2020 election, in the wake of Trump’s ongoing lies that he was the actual victor. “This is the game that is always played by the media with leading Republicans, it’s a gotcha game, and I’m not going to engage in it,” Johnson said.The former president’s wife, Melania Trump, sat down for an interview with the Fox News host Maria Bartiromo. She was asked given how close her husband had come to being shot in Butler whether she trusted the top officials of the FBI, CIA and other federal agencies who “appeared to be against President Trump and yourself from day one”.Melania Trump replied: “It’s hard to say who you really trust. You want to, but it’s always a question mark.”Melania Trump, who is promoting her book, Melania, also spoke about her pro-abortion stance which she revealed in the volume. She said her husband had always known her convictions.“He knew my position and my beliefs since the day we met, and I believe in individual freedom. I want to decide what I want to do with my body. I don’t want government in my personal business,” she said. More

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      What is Melania Trump’s game in suddenly defending abortion rights?

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      When news broke on Wednesday evening that Melania Trump supports abortion rights – and apparently has for her entire adult life – it was greeted with surprise and confusion.Melania’s husband, Donald Trump, is trying to rapidly recalibrate his approach to abortion as he races towards election day. Is his wife trying to help him? Hurt him? Or neither?In her forthcoming memoir, Melania Trump went into extensive detail about her support for the procedure.“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?” she wrote. “A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.”Shortly after the Guardian broke the news, Trump uploaded a black-and-white video of herself to social media, set to stirring music.“Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth,” she said. “Individual freedom. What does my body, my choice really mean?”The news of Melania Trump’s support for abortion rights comes at a time when her husband is striving to convince voters that he can be trusted to protect abortion rights.In the years since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, abortion has become Republicans’ achilles heel. It cost Republicans victories in the 2022 midterms, while abortion rights supporters have won a string of ballot measures even in states as red as Kentucky, Kansas and Ohio.Earlier on in his campaign, Trump attempted to be all-things-abortion to everybody, alternately bragging about his role in overturning Roe – by appointing three of the justices who voted for its demise – and grousing that hardline positions on abortion were costing the GOP elections. But since Kamala Harris, an extraordinarily effective messenger on abortion, became the Democratic nominee for president, he has abandoned that approach in favor of garbled support for abortion rights.“WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTH, CONFIDENT AND FREE!” Trump recently posted on Truth Social. “YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION, BECAUSE IT IS NOW WHERE IT ALWAYS HAD TO BE, WITH THE STATES.”Melania Trump’s revelation, then, could be intended to reassure undecided voters who are disinclined to vote for Harris but support abortion rights – as a majority of Americans do. But Tresa Undem, a pollster who has surveyed people on abortion for more than two decades, said the odds of such comments appealing to moderates or abortion-supporting conservatives were “fairly slim”.After all, regardless of her personal convictions, it seems unlikely that Melania Trump has any real sway over her tempestuous husband’s policies. Her pro-abortion rights beliefs did not stop Donald Trump from helping to demolish Roe. It also doesn’t help that Melania and Donald Trump’s relationship is, at least in public, far from cozy. (He recently indicated, despite having written the foreword, that he hasn’t read the book.)“Nothing Republicans say will distract the American people from the reality they see with their own eyes: story after story of victims of rape and incest being forced into pregnancy, doctors forced to turn away patients during miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies and women literally dying because of Trump’s abortion bans,” Emilia Rowland, Democratic national committee press secretary, said in a text.View image in fullscreenMelania Trump’s disagreement with her husband is also not as novel as it may seem. Betty Ford, the wife of the Republican president Gerald Ford, was an adamant supporter of abortion rights, said Mary Ziegler, a University of California Davis school of law professor who studies the legal history of reproduction. It didn’t end up making much of a difference in Gerald Ford’s campaign.“I think people understand that Melania and Donald Trump are very different people,” Ziegler said. “I could see independent and swing voters saying: ‘Wow. It’s bad that even Donald Trump’s wife doesn’t like Donald Trump’s position.’”What Melania Trump’s news seems to have done is anger the anti-abortion activists who have made up some of Trump’s most reliable supporters. These activists were already annoyed by Trump’s recent attempts to paint himself as an abortion rights champion.“Melania Trump’s support of abortion is anti-feminist and clearly outside the teaching of our Catholic faith. She is wrong,” Kristan Hawkins, president of the pro-life organization Students for Life of America, posted on X. “What a lost opportunity to inspire a generation of young women.”Melania Trump’s strategy, such as it is, may be much more straightforward than activists and politicos may think. She has never seemed particularly interested in being first lady, and she doesn’t appear to be invested in winning the job back, seeing as she has largely disappeared from the 2024 campaign trail.But Trump does seem interested in doing at least one thing: selling books. Suggesting that there is controversy within her memoir’s pages probably helps move copies.Or not. In her post, Hawkins added: “I won’t be buying Melania’s book.” More

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      Melania Trump’s abortion views baffle both sides: ‘Hard to follow the logic’

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      The revelation on Wednesday evening that Melania Trump’s forthcoming memoir includes a full-throated defense of abortion rights, an issue her husband Donald Trump has repeatedly flip-flopped on during his presidential campaign, left people on both sides of the issue less than impressed.“Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body,” Melania Trump wrote in her memoir. “I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”Melania Trump also defended the right to abortion later on in pregnancy – a procedure that her husband has repeatedly demonized. (Less than 1% of abortions occur at or past 21 weeks of gestation.)“Sadly for the women across America, Mrs. Trump’s husband firmly disagrees with her and is the reason that more than one in three American women live under a Trump abortion ban that threatens their health, their freedom and their lives,” Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in an email. “Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear: If he wins in November, he will ban abortion nationwide, punish women and restrict women’s access to reproductive health care.”Melania Trump’s remarks also took anti-abortion activists by surprise.“It’s hard to follow the logic of putting out the former First Lady’s book right before the election undercutting President Trump’s message to pro-life voters,” Kristan Hawkins, president of the powerful Students for Life of America, posted on Twitter/X on Wednesday night. “What a waste of momentum.”Over the last several weeks, anti-abortion activists have grown increasingly fed up with the former president, who has struggled, alongside the rest of the Republican party, to redefine his messaging on abortion rights amid outrage over the overturning of Roe v Wade.Earlier in his campaign, Trump bragged about appointing three of the US supreme court justices who voted to overturn Roe, branded himself the “most pro-life president ever”. After Kamala Harris became the presidential nominee, however, Trump has pledged that his administration “will be great for women and their reproductive rights” as well as vowed not to sign a national abortion ban – just weeks after refusing to say that he would veto one.Melania Trump’s comments may feel like a further insult to the anti-abortion voters who feel abandoned by Trump, said Republican campaign strategist Liz Mair, adding anti-abortion advocates run potent get-out-the-vote operations. Those advocates were key to Trump’s 2016 victory.“This might be just another thing that piles on to make pro-lifers think: ‘I just can’t with this guy.’ A lot of them were single-issue voters anyway,” Mair said. “He’s not really giving them much of an incentive to show up and do anything to his benefit.”When Tresa Undem, a pollster who has surveyed people about abortion for more than two decades, heard the comments, she immediately thought: “Wow”. Then she thought: “It’s a campaign move.”However, Undem is not sure who, exactly, the move is for – especially given the Trumps’ sometimes frosty relationship in public. Melania Trump has rarely aired her political views and has largely vanished from Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.The odds of Melania Trump’s comments comforting moderate or conservative voters who support abortion rights are “fairly slim”, Undem said.“These strong feelings – they did not suddenly appear this year, right? So she clearly has had no influence on him when it comes to policy related to abortion,” Undem said. “I don’t think she’s ever been positioned, or voters ever think of her, as having any kind of policy position or weight or influence on Trump.” More

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      Melania Trump passionately defends abortion rights in upcoming memoir

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      Melania Trump made an extraordinary declaration in an eagerly awaited memoir to be published a month from election day: she is a passionate supporter of a woman’s right to control her own body – including the right to abortion.“It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government,” the Republican nominee’s wife writes, amid a campaign in which Donald Trump’s threats to women’s reproductive rights have played a central role.“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.“Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body. I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”Melania Trump has rarely expressed political views in public. The book, which reveals the former first lady to be so firmly out of step with most of her own party, Melania, will be published in the US next Tuesday. The Guardian obtained a copy.View image in fullscreenHer decision to include a full-throated expression of support for abortion rights is remarkable not just given her proximity to a Republican candidate running on an anti-abortion platform, but also given the severe deterioration of women’s reproductive rights under Donald Trump and the GOP.In 2022, in the supreme court case Dobbs v Jackson, three justices installed when Donald Trump was president voted to strike down Roe v Wade, the ruling which had protected federal abortion rights since 1973. Republican-run states have since instituted draconian abortion bans.Donald Trump has tried to both take credit for the Dobbs decision – long the central aim of evangelical and conservative Catholic donors and voters – and avoid the fury it has stoked, saying abortion rights should be decided by the states.But Democrats have scored a succession of election wins by campaigning on the issue, even in conservative states, and threats to reproductive rights, among them threats to fertility treatments including IVF, are proving problematic for Republicans up and down this year’s ticket.Amid a blizzard of statements opponents deem misogynistic and regressive, JD Vance, Donald Trump’s pick for vice-president, has indicated he would support a national abortion ban – a move it seems his boss’s wife would be against.Donald Trump himself recently got into a tangle over whether he would vote in November to protect abortion rights in Florida, a ballot his wife will also cast given their residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. He eventually said he would vote no. Judging by her own words, Melania Trump appears likely to vote yes.Her memoir is slim, long on descriptions of her youth in Slovenia, life as a model in New York and love for the man whose third wife she became, correspondingly short on policy discussion. But Donald Trump provides a blurb, praising his wife’s “commitment to excellence … insightful perspective … [and] entrepreneurial achievements”.Before discussing abortion, Melania Trump says she disagreed with her husband on some aspects of immigration policy, not least as an immigrant herself.“Occasional political disagreements between me and my husband,” she says, are “part of our relationship, but I believed in addressing them privately rather than publicly challenging him.”And yet, later in her book, she states views on abortion and reproductive rights diametrically opposed to those of her husband and his party.“I have always believed it is critical for people to take care of themselves first,” Melania Trump writes of her support for abortion rights. “It’s a very straightforward concept; in fact, we are all born with a set of fundamental rights, including the right to enjoy our lives. We are all entitled to maintain a gratifying and dignified existence.“This common-sense approach applies to a woman’s natural right to make decisions about her own body and health.”Melania Trump says her beliefs about abortion rights spring from “a core set of principles”, at the heart of which sits “individual liberty” and “personal freedom”, on which there is “no room for negotiation”.After outlining her support on such grounds for abortion rights, she details “legitimate reasons for a woman to choose to have an abortion”, including danger to the life of the mother, rape or incest, often exceptions under state bans, and also “a congenital birth defect, plus severe medical conditions”.Saying “timing matters”, Melania Trump also defends the right to abortion later in pregnancy.She writes: “It is important to note that historically, most abortions conducted during the later stages of pregnancy were the result of severe fetal abnormalities that probably would have led to the death or stillbirth of the child. Perhaps even the death of the mother. These cases were extremely rare and typically occurred after several consultations between the woman and her doctor. As a community, we should embrace these common-sense standards. Again, timing matters.”More than 90% of US abortions occur at or before 13 weeks of gestation, according to data from the CDC. Less than 1% of abortions take place at or after 21 weeks.On the campaign trail, Republicans have blatantly mischaracterized Democrats’ positions on abortion. Last month, debating Kamala Harris, Donald Trump falsely said his Democratic opponent’s “vice-presidential pick … says that abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. [Tim Walz] also says: ‘Execution after birth’ – execution, no longer abortion because the baby is born – is OK.”He was factchecked: it is not legal in any state to kill a baby after birth.On the page, Melania Trump issues a distinctly un-Trumpian appeal for empathy.“Many women opt for abortions due to personal medical concerns,” she writes. “These situations with significant moral implications weigh heavily on the woman and her family and deserve our empathy. Consider, for example, the complexity inherent in the decision of whether the mother should risk her own life to give birth.”Recent reporting has highlighted cases of women who have died in states where abortion has been banned.She goes on to appeal for compassion.“When confronted with an unexpected pregnancy, young women frequently experience feelings of isolation and significant stress. I, like most Americans, am in favor of the requirement that juveniles obtain parental consent before undergoing an abortion. I realize this may not always be possible. Our next generation must be provided with knowledge, security, safety, and solace, and the cultural stigma associated with abortion must be lifted,” writes the former first lady.Finally, Melania Trump offers an expression of solidarity with protesters for reproductive rights.“The slogan ‘My Body, My Choice’ is typically associated with women activists and those who align with the pro-choice side of the debate,” she writes. “But if you really think about it, ‘My Body, My Choice’ applies to both sides – a woman’s right to make an independent decision involving her own body, including the right to choose life. Personal freedom.” More

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      Melania Trump has a memoir coming out – and she’s acting pretty strangely | Arwa Mahdawi

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      There’s something weird going on with Melania Trump. I know that’s an evergreen statement – but bear with me, OK, because we’ve got a bit of a mystery on our hands. The former first lady, you see, has a memoir coming out on 8 October. There’s nothing particularly surprising about this: every grifter who spent five minutes in the Trump White House seems to have written a tell-all book. It was inevitable she would put pen to paper at some point. After all, if there’s a dollar to be squeezed from something – be that Mother’s Day jewellery, Bibles, steaks or cryptocurrency – you can be sure to find a Trump with their hands out.What is surprising is how little fanfare there has been around this new book – which is simply titled Melania. Indeed, unless you keep a close eye on the Trumps, you may have missed news of the forthcoming memoir altogether. We’re only a few weeks away from the release date and there hasn’t been a big press tour. This seems bizarre. Presuming Melania wants to sell as many books as possible, you’d have thought she would have spent the last few months doing nonstop PR to drum up preorders. Then again, she may assume there is no need for marketing if the Republican National Committee does what it did with Donald Trump Jr’s “bestselling” book in 2019 and just bulk buys copies.I’m not saying there has been no PR, of course. There was a press release in July that described the book as “a powerful and inspiring story of a woman who has carved her own path, overcome adversity and defined personal excellence”. It also revealed the cover, which is about as basic as you can get: a black background with MELANIA in white type on it. Although, to be fair, the collector’s edition (a mere $150) is white with black type and comes with a digital collectible. So a little thought went into the design.Melania also tweeted a simple promotional video to go with the press release, saying, “May your experience reading my book be as enjoyable as the writing process was for me.” Which begs the question: what was her writing process? Did she stay up into the early hours like Rumaan Alam, who smashed out his first novel between 7pm and 2am? Did she emulate Haruki Murakami’s schedule and start writing at 4am every morning? Or is it possible – just throwing it out there – that she might have lounged by a pool and dictated a few stories to a ghostwriting minion? It’s a mystery we might never solve.The handful of cryptic promotional videos, which have a David Lynch-like quality to them, and brief quotes to Fox News that have followed haven’t shone much light on Melania’s writing process or the contents of the book, although there are a few intriguing titbits. In a 5 September video, for example, Melania says she feels “a responsibility to clarify the facts [and share] the truth”. Then, in a video posted on 10 September, she implies the July assassination attempt on Trump might have been a conspiracy and says: “There is definitely more to this story and we need to uncover the truth.” What she leaves out, alas, is whether her new book uncovers any of this “truth” or whether it’s just a bunch of photos of fancy rugs with fanciful captions. (During the riots on 6 January, Melania was reportedly in the middle of a photoshoot of decorative objects she had amassed at the White House for a rumoured coffee table book.)The ever hopeful mischief-making part of my mind would like to think that Melania’s memoir contains some exciting truths we haven’t heard before. Some insights into where the proverbial bodies are buried – and why Ivana Trump’s actual body is interred on the former president’s golf course. Perhaps Melania, who is rumoured to hate politics and her husband, has played the long game and her memoir contains an October surprise that will sink Trump’s election chances?You don’t need to tell me this is all wishful thinking. Rather than any bombshells, one imagines the book contains glossy photos of ugly and incredibly expensive knick-knacks interspersed with self-aggrandising drivel about her charity initiatives. The truth about Trump is out there but it’s not going to be in Melania’s memoir. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

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      Melania Trump boosts conspiracy theory online about rally shooting

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      Former first lady Melania Trump has raised questions around the law enforcement response to the attempted assassination of her husband, in a video she published on Tuesday to promote her new book.In the 34-second video posted to her X account, Melania begins by describing the attempted assassination on her husband as a “horrible, distressing experience”. And now, she says in the video, which is overlayed with dramatic instrumental music, “the silence around it feels heavy”.“I can’t help but wonder why didn’t law enforcement officials arrest the shooter before the speech?” she asks in the video. “There is definitely more to this story and we need to uncover the truth.”The video then cuts to black and then ends with an image of the cover to her new memoir, Melania, and a link to buy copies.Donald Trump himself has recently, without any evidence, blamed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for the assassination attempt and accused them of making it difficult for the Secret Service to have the staffing to protect him. Conspiracy theories around the shooting have spread in some Republican and rightwing circles.There has been no evidence that the US president or vice-president were directly involved in or interfered with the Secret Service’s arrangements, or that there was any wider plot to attack Trump beyond the lone shooter, who was killed moments after opening fire.On Melania’s website, it states her memoir, which she describes as “the powerful and inspiring story of a woman who has defined personal excellence, overcome adversity, and carved her own path” is available to pre-order for $40.A signed edition is also available for $75, and a collector’s edition, which includes a signature, bonus photographs and a “digital collectable”, is on sale for $250.Since the assassination attempt on the former president on 13 July in Pennsylvania, where 20-year-old Thomas Crooks opened fire on Trump as he spoke at a campaign rally, the FBI and Secret Service have come under intense scrutiny and criticism over security issues at the event.Trump survived the shooting but sustained an injury to his ear, and one rally attendee was killed in the attack and two others were injured. The gunman was shot dead by a Secret Service officer at the scene.The remarks by the former first lady on Tuesday come as investigations are under way looking into what happened that day, as well as the decisions and actions of personnel leading up to the event.New details have emerged in the last two months regarding the lead-up to 13 July, apparent security and communication failings by and between law enforcement agencies, as well as new details on the shooter himself, such as his search history and preparations for the attack, but FBI officials have not yet uncovered a motive for the attack.In late July, the director of the Secret Service resigned after a hearing where she was criticized by lawmakers over the apparent security failures around the shooting, and of failing to answer some specific questions about what went wrong. A day later, the House voted to form a taskforce to investigate the failings around the rally security and in late August, at least five US Secret Service agents were placed on leave in relation to the 13 July rally. More

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      Trump’s Republican convention speech: how to watch and what’s at stake

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      The biggest event of the Republican convention kicks off Thursday night, with Donald Trump’s address to thousands of party loyalists in attendance.Trump appeared at the opening night of the Republican national convention on Monday, when he was greeted with thunderous applause, marking his first public appearance since surviving an assassination attempt at his campaign rally. Earlier in the day, Trump announced JD Vance, the Ohio senator and once vocal critic of Trump, as his running mate.Vance formally accepted the Republican vice-presidential nomination on Wednesday, with a speech that presented the Republican party as a champion of working-class Americans while denouncing Democrats as out of touch and ineffective.Other speakers on the third day of the convention included Matt Gaetz, Newt Gingrich, Peter Navarro, Greg Abbott, Kellyanne Conway, Kimberly Guilfoyle and Donald Trump Jr.Notable speakers at the convention so far have also included Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, who both challenged Trump for the GOP nomination but backed him at the convention. Sean O’Brien, Ted Cruz, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Marco Rubio, Elise Stefanik, Ben Carson, Kristi Noem, Rick Scott, Tim Scott and Tom Cotton also spoke at the convention.When is Trump’s convention speech?Trump is expected to deliver remarks on Thursday evening, the final day of the Republican convention, as delegates officially vote to nominate him as the party’s presidential candidate. His speech is scheduled to begin at 9p.m.Earlier this week, Trump told the Washington Examiner that he rewrote his convention speech to focus on calls for national unity. “Honestly, it’s going to be a whole different speech now,” he told the paper.“This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together,” he said, adding that the speech will be “a lot different” from the original draft.What else to know?After surviving Saturday’s assassination attempt, Trump suggested he had been changed by the experience and wanted to project a message of unity during his convention speech. In an interview Sunday, Trump said he is reworking his remarks with speechwriter Ross Worthington. He had intended to deliver biting remarks against Joe Biden until the shooting at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, prompted him to throw it out.The test of whether Trump will lead the effort to promote a spirit of unity, or whether it was more of a directive aimed at his surrogates, will probably come when he delivers his speech on Thursday.Where can I watch it?The Guardian will have live coverage of the speech. All major networks will carry convention coverage, including CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, Fox News and C-SPAN. PBS said it will begin broadcasting each night at 6pm ET.A livestream of the convention is also available on the GOP Convention website.Will Melania be in the audience for Trump’s speech?Former first lady Melania Trump has made very few public appearances or statements since Trump left the White House. She did not attend the 27 June debate against Joe Biden, nor did she appear at any of Trump’s court appearances during the hush-money trial.Following Saturday’s assassination attempt against Trump, Melania released a statement condemning the man who authorities say tried to assassinate her husband. She described the shooter as “a monster who recognized my husband as an inhuman political machine”.Melania will attend the convention, according to Eric Trump, but she is not confirmed as a speaker.What about Ivanka Trump?Ivanka Trump has spent the last several years distancing herself from politics, having served as an advisor in her father’s White House. She and her husband Jared Kushner testified before the House committee investigating the January 6 attack.The eldest daughter of the former president was absent in November, 2022 as Trump announced his bid for re-election. “I do not plan to be involved in politics,” she said in a statement at the time.Eric Trump confirmed Ivanka will attend the convention; however unlike in 2016, she’s not confirmed as a speaker.Tiffany Trump is not on the list of confirmed speakers but was in the crowd Monday night. Barron Trump was invited, but will not attend “due to prior commitments”, according to a statement released by his mother, Melania.Trump’s eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump; Eric’s wife, Lara Trump; and Guilfoyle (Donald Jr’s finance) are listed as speakers. More