Melania Trump is a woman of few words, at least in public. While her husband’s logorrhea has invaded every inch of public space for the last 16 months, she has remained mostly silent, shunning the campaign trail. Following a release of a 2005 recording of Trump bragging about taking advantage of his fame to kiss and “grab women by the p*ssy,” as well as sexual assault allegations against him, Melania Trump has now joined the not-so-exclusive club of the wives of American male politicians who have had to go through the humiliation of “standing by their men.”
Throughout her interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, she remained in the exact same position apart from the occasional hand gesture. This could be interpreted in a number of ways, but her behavior is of lesser importance in this situation. Her words, however, are problematic. She spent the majority of the interview defending her husband’s shameful actions by employing an entire myriad of excuses and answers. And at one point, she even pulled the “groping women is a legitimate way of flirting in my country” card. What’s even more worrying is that she refused to acknowledge her husband’s actions altogether.
“It is very difficult for me to talk about this, because you are referring to a time when I didn’t even know him,” she told Cooper. “And I am not trying to say that he was a different person then than he is now, but I can tell you I’ve never heard him use profanity of any kind when he’s with me, or when we’re both in a larger group of people. So, yes – I’ve heard the tape and I’m certain that’s his voice, but what do you want me to say? That I’m going to get a divorce because of it? I know that’s something many women are hoping for, but I’m going to have to disappoint them.”
“Besides, I couldn’t be against him even if I wanted to, because where I come from, that’s a completely legitimate way of flirting with a woman,” she continued. “I left there young so I never had a situation where a cute boy would grope me and thus let me know he fancies me; but I know of many stories where that has happened and nobody freaked out about it. And while we’re on the subject – believe it or not, where I’m from, some of the longest lasting marriages between people have started off with a grope. So I’m sorry, but I really don’t see the harm in it.”
“You Americans complicate the whole dating thing too much. Here a guy is expected to flirt with a woman, buy her flowers, take her out to dinners, romance her, and only then hope he’s done a good enough job to earn himself some nooky. In the rest of the world, all that goes much simpler – and that’s what my husband was trying to establish here. As a good businessman, he was attempting to start a tradition that wouldn’t only have been lucrative, but also would have made life significantly easier for men wanting to engage with women. And you can crucify me for saying it, but I think he was doing a good job,” she concluded.
