Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former senior adviser to former first lady Melania Trump, predicted that Trump would not attend the ongoing hush money trial to prevent negative publicity.
“I don’t think Melania Trump will accompany Donald to court,” Wolkoff said in a CNN interview Tuesday, later adding: I think you can feel that humiliation without putting yourself in front of the camera. ”
“All of Melania’s actions are staged and everything is clearly articulated for her before she is interviewed. So, as I said, everything is very strategically planned. “She’s not going to put herself in a position where she’s going to give anyone the opportunity to say anything negative about her,” she added.
Trump’s hush money trial is underway in Manhattan, where he faces 34 counts of falsifying business records related to payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to former fixer Michael Cohen. There is.
President Trump’s son Eric Trump has appeared in court regularly in recent weeks, and his wife Lara Trump also appeared on Tuesday. Neither Melania Trump nor Trump’s other children have yet appeared.
The former first lady rarely participates in election campaigns with her husband, and those close to her expect this to remain so, as she is a private citizen who dislikes campaigning.
It is believed that Melania Trump is likely dissatisfied with the details revealed in the trial about the affair between President Trump, Daniels, and former Playboy model Karen McDougal during the early years of their marriage. There is also. President Trump has denied the extramarital affair allegations.
Asked about concerns President Trump may have had about Melania Trump’s reaction to the allegations, Wolkoff said he believed the couple was in a “transactional marriage.”
“There’s a strength inside her that’s unlike any other person I’ve ever met. She doesn’t care what other people think about her and she doesn’t need to actually explain something to the American people.” I don’t even think there was,” Wolkoff said.
“I believe this was a transactional marriage in so many ways, meaning they both got a lot out of that relationship. And you know, Melania, by marrying Donald, , she really got to be the Vogue cover model she always wanted to be, “that supermodel,” she continued. “And the rationalization was that by marrying Melania, Donald was trying to escape the whole playboy mentality that everyone wanted to characterize him with.”
During Monday’s testimony, Cohen said on the witness stand that 2016 campaign press secretary Hope Hicks noticed a tape showing Trump inappropriately grabbing women without their consent. He said he found out after receiving a phone call from.
Cohen, who spoke with Donald Trump and other campaign staffers shortly after learning of the tape’s existence, said Melania Trump came up with the “locker room talk” defense to put a “twist” on the tape reporting. He claimed to be Trump.
In an October 2016 interview after the “Access Hollywood” tape was first released, Melania Trump said: said in an interview with CNN She was surprised by the recorded words.
“I heard different things, like the boys’ conversations,” she said at the time. “Boys sometimes like to show girls things to each other in the way they talk when they’re grown up, like, ‘Oh, this and this.’ But of course I was surprised.”
Asked about Cohen’s testimony, Wolkoff said, “Melania is very strategic and plays a very large role in what’s going on with Donald as long as the dog is in the room.”
“She comes up with ways to get people to accept what’s going on around her, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she came up with it,” Wolkoff said. “She never said that to me, but at that lunch she forced me to explain that that was it. That was her message back and forth, and it was no big deal. To her, it was always ‘no big deal.’
“She told me many times, I know who I married. I won’t be like his other two wives. And she accepted the role. ” she added.
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