First Lady Melania Trump, who has kept a low profile since the Wall Street Journal reported Donald Trump’s alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, has opted to not accompany him on his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
East Wing communications director Stephanie Grisham told CNN that the first lady’s decision to skip the trip was based on “scheduling and logistical issues.”
That’s a switch from last week when Grisham told CNN the First Lady wanted to accompany the president to show her support for him at the annual meeting of global financial leaders and business titans. But as CNN notes, Trump’s own plans with regard to the forum had been in flux because of the government shutdown which was resolved Monday.
Melania Trump hasn’t been seen much in public since January 12, when the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen had arranged a $130,000 payout to the porn star in exchange for her silence on an alleged affair that started at a Lake Tahoe celebrity golf tournament in July 2006.
When Trump and Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, met, Trump and Melania had been married for about 18 months and were parents to their new baby boy Barron.
The Journal story opened the proverbial floodgates of reports from other outlets that had interviewed Clifford and others close to her prior to the alleged payout, which occurred in the month before the 2016 election.
Publications like the Daily Beast, Slate and In Touch, citing interviews with Clifford or with a porn star friend of hers Alana Evans, shared salacious details about their alleged encounters with Trump in 2006. The details included Trump’s reported desire for a threesome and his comparison of Clifford to his daughter Ivanka Trump. Mother Jones also reported that Clifford, while considering a possible political campaign in 2009, had told operatives that Trump once asked her to spank him with a copy of Forbes magazine that likely featured a cover photo of him with his adult children Donald Jr. and Ivanka.
On January 12, a Friday, Melania Trump left with the president to go to Mar-a-Lago for the long holiday weekend. However, she was not seen with him during two dinners hosted by Trump at his Palm Beach resort, CNN said. One dinner was with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and another was with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
The First Lady issued a statement on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the form of a tweet. But as People reported, the perhaps well-intentioned tweet commemorating the holiday backfired.
The Slovenian-born former model tweeted about the honor of being First Lady “of a nation that continually strives for equality & justice for all.”
Today we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. & his service to this great country. I am honored to be First Lady of a nation that continually strives for equality & justice for all. #MLKDay
— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) January 15, 2018
But her tweet came days after her husband reportedly disparaged Haiti, El Salvador and some African nations as “s-hole” countries in an immigration meeting with lawmakers.
While some people praised the first lady’s MLK Day tweet, others suggested she was tone-deaf or an enabler of what they called her husband’s bigotry.
On Saturday, the First Lady marked the one-year anniversary of her husband’s inauguration by tweeting an image to mark the occasion. But as other reports noted, the image did not include a photo of the president. It just showed herself with a military escort.
This has been a year filled with many wonderful moments. I’ve enjoyed the people I’ve been lucky enough to meet throughout our great country & the world! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/MMRi72ENd0
— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) January 20, 2018
Melania Trump said that the past year had been filled with “many wonderful moments,” but she did not mention her husband by name.
