Former first woman Melania Trump has a memoir popping out on Tuesday. Her writer hilariously describes it as a “compelling and inspirational memoir that offers a glimpse into the life of a remarkable woman who has navigated challenges with grace and determination.” Certain, no matter.
The quilt is only a clean black slab with “Melania” within the center in a totally pedestrian all-cap font. The writer is Skyhorse Publishing, and also you’re forgiven in case you’ve by no means heard of them. Their different new releases embody such sizzling numbers as “Y’all Fired: A Southern Belle’s Guide to Restoring Federalism and Draining the Swamp;” “Emergency Home Preparedness: The Ultimate Guide for Bugging In During Natural Disasters, Pandemics, Civil Unrest, and More;” and “The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” which even includes a ahead by Steve Bannon.
The writer’s “About Us” web page has blurbs from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tucker Carlson, and Alan Dershowitz. In different phrases, it’s a dumping floor for right-wingers who can’t get a significant writer to select up their guide. Oh, and the writer demanded a $250,000 licensing charge from CNN to interview Melania concerning the guide, which they later walked again, declaring it an “internal miscommunication.”
The Guardian, which actually ought to know higher, printed unique excerpts of Melania’s pro-choice musings, together with such imprecise statements as “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.”
She additionally declared that “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.”
So, she’s carried this perception endlessly, however in some way that is the primary time she’s ever talked about her deep and abiding perception in the proper to an abortion. Apart from the truth that this huge reveal is conveniently timed to juice gross sales for her guide, which is already, distressingly, the #2 vendor on Amazon behind failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, it additionally comes at a time when her husband is desperately making an attempt to obscure his hardline anti-choice stance.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump stands on stage with former first woman Melania Trump throughout the ultimate day of the Republican Nationwide Conference on the Fiserv Discussion board, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee.
In the meantime, Trump biographer and New York Occasions author Maggie Haberman went on “The Daily” to reward Donald Trump and protect her personal entry ought to he be elected in 2024. Haberman stated Trump “would welcome” Melania’s pro-choice stance and it could “make him happy.” That is, to place it charitably, nonsense.
Trump has bragged about nominating the three Supreme Court docket justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. He was the primary sitting president to attend the March for Life, an annual rally and march in opposition to the legality of abortion. There, he spoke about how, since his first day in workplace, he has labored to “protect the unborn” and “would veto any legislation that weakens pro-life policies or that encourages the destruction of human life.”
Even when one pretends that Melania is honest right here, her timing is approach off. She had a whole 4 years to talk her reality on this or to attempt to cease Trump from gutting reproductive rights. Even Haberman was pressured to confess that “It is not something that former White House advisers remember her talking about in either direction, pro or con.” Think about that.
US First Woman Melania Trump departs Andrews Air Rorce Base in Maryland June 21, 2018 carrying a jacket emblazoned with the phrases “I really don’t care, do you?” following her shock go to with youngster migrants on the US-Mexico border.
Certainly, it’s arduous to recollect exactly what Melania was doing whereas Trump was in workplace. There was “Be Best,” her imprecise youngsters’s points initiative, which CNN described as current “without specific policy or legislation goals.” There was the “I really don’t care, do you?” jacket she wore to go to a migrant facility housing youngsters separated from their dad and mom. There was her horrible revamp of the Rose Backyard.
Her initiatives pale compared to different first women. Hillary Clinton creating a complete well being care plan this was not. Even Laura Bush’s literacy efforts have been extra, properly, effortful. No matter it was she was doing, it actually wasn’t advocating on behalf of pro-choice efforts.
As journalist Dan Savage identified on X, this type of factor has been a behavior for Republican wives, who’re routinely trotted out to say vaguely pro-choice issues whereas their husbands dismantle reproductive rights. Solely considered one of them—Betty Ford—was ever keen to face up for abortion rights whereas within the White Home. In any other case, very like Melania, GOP wives stored their pro-choice ideas to themselves, revealing it solely after it was too late for them to have any actual affect.
None of these previous statements, nonetheless, have been as cynical because the Trump marketing campaign deploying Melania to offset the virulently anti-choice stance of the Trump/Vance ticket.
The underside line is that Trump is just like the canine who caught the automobile; he succeeded in eliminating the constitutional proper to abortion, and now he has no concept what to do. He’s incapable of really altering his stance as a result of he’d lose the help of his base.
So as a substitute, we get Melania, who has been largely absent from the marketing campaign path except she’s paid to indicate up, pretending that she’s a champion for alternative. Nobody can cease her from mendacity about this, however nobody ought to fall for it. And with abortion entry solely getting extra restricted, we don’t have time for these silly distractions.
