Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Chip Somodevilla
Throughout his political career, Donald Trump has been notorious for his offensive and aggressive personality, often making remarks that sound mean and hurtful. Despite the controversies, his wife, Melania Trump, remained mostly silent, neither supporting nor defending him. However, in one interview, she excused Trump’s statements on immigrants.
Melania, who is an immigrant herself, sat down with MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski on Morning Joe in 2016. Despite her absence from her husband’s campaign trails, she stood by him “100%.” When asked to comment on Trump’s claim that the Mexican government sends rapists and murderers across the United States border, she defended him.
“I don’t feel that he insulted the Mexicans,” said Melania. “He said the ‘illegal immigrants.’ He didn’t talk about everybody. He talked about ‘illegal immigrants.’ And after [a] few weeks, like after two weeks, giving him a hard time and bashing him in the media, they turned around. They said, ‘You know what? He’s right. He’s right [about] what he’s talking about.’ And he opened [a] conversation that nobody did.”
Brzezinski pointed out that Melania is also an immigrant from Slovenia, asking, “But you are an immigrant. Do you ever think he’s gone too far?” The former First Lady responded, “I follow the law. I follow the law the way it’s supposed to be. I never thought of staying here without papers. I had a visa, I traveled every few months back to the country to Slovenia to stamp the visa.”
She further explained, “I came back, I applied for the green card, I applied for the citizenship later on after many years of green card. So I went by [the] system, I went by the law. And you should do that, you should not just say let me stay here and whatever happens, happens.”
Melania’s immigrant status has been under media scrutiny. Although she maintained that she crossed the US border legally, claiming she first came to America on a short-term visa, it didn’t authorize her to work as a model. Based on her account, she came to New York in 1996, but her nude photoshoot showed her in the States in 1995, echoing a biography published by Slovenian journalists, as per Politico.
After Politico published its article, Melania issued an official statement on X, formerly Twitter, clarifying her immigrant status: “Let me set the record straight: I have at all times been in full compliance with the immigration laws of this country. Period. Any allegation to the contrary is simply untrue. In July 2006, I proudly became a US citizen.”
The former president and Melania first met in 1998 at a party thrown by their mutual friend Paolo Zampolli. Before becoming Trump, she was Melania Knauss, a model from Slovenia. After dating for a few years, they married in 2005 and have a son named Barron Trump.
