Melania Trump derides media focus on "gossip" and criticizes "opportunists"
First lady Melania Trump, in a rare interview, said Wednesday that she welcomes the idea of a second term because her husband "is doing an incredible job," and the country is doing the "best ever," and she wants the country to "continue to do well." But there are drawbacks she said, notably, the media's "focus on the gossip" and what she referred to as the "opportunists."
The interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity took place on a day when the president's former fixer, Michael Cohen, was sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion and campaign finance violations, among other charges. Cohen arranged hush money payments for two women who claimed they had sexual affairs with Mr. Trump years before he was president but while he was married to Melania Trump.
In the segment that aired on "Hannity" Wednesday, the Fox News host did not ask her about that, but he did ask about the media speculation about her, her family, and her marriage to Mr. Trump. She said the media likes "to focus on the gossip, and I would like to focus on the substance and what we do, not just about nonsense."
One day before the interview, her husband had an unusually public argument with Democratic leaders Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer over border wall funding, during a photo op before TV cameras. Hannity asked if asked her husband should tone down the rhetoric. She conceded that sometimes she doesn't agree with her husband and tells him so. "I don't think you need to tweet that out," she said she sometimes tells Mr. Trump, a prolific tweeter. He doesn't always listen, but she said he understands the consequences.
The most difficult thing about being in the White House, Melania Trump said, are "the opportunists who are using my name or my family name to advance themselves -- from comedians to journalists to performers, book writers."
The first lady spoke with Hannity during a visit to the USS George H.W. Bush, where she spent time with military families and service members.
"It's very important that we support them," she told Hannity. "Holidays are coming," Melania Trump said, and many service members would not be spending the holidays with their families, "so for me it's very important to show them that the president and I and the country, we are behind them."