A Fox News anchor accidentally mixed up former President Donald Trump's assistant for his wife, former First Lady Melania Trump, while awaiting Trump's highly-publicized arraignment in Miami.
During a Tuesday report, anchor John Roberts clarified that the woman he had previously identified as Melania was actually Margo Martin, a former White House aide who followed Trump to Mar-a-Lago after he left office. Martin currently works for the former president's 2024 campaign.
"With a day like today, with so many comings and goings, it's easy, from a distance, to mistake two people," Roberts said.
Earlier, the anchor had identified a close-up angle of Martin as Melania. It is unclear whether or not the former first lady accompanied her husband to the arraignment at the federal courthouse in Miami.
On Tuesday, Trump was arraigned on federal charges after he was indicted on 37 criminal counts, including 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information. He pleaded not guilty.
Roberts isn't the only one who sees similarities between Martin and Melania.
"Fox, that's Margo Martin. Sometimes referred to as 'fake Melania,'" attorney Ron Filipkowski tweeted.
The "fake Melania" conspiracy theory refers to speculations that Trump uses a body double to stand in for his wife, who allegedly refused to attend events with her husband. The theory first surfaced after Trump was accompanied by a woman who looked like Melania during a visit to the Secret Service training center in Maryland in October 2017. Trump has denounced those claims as "fake news."
"Damn. So good to see Fake Melania again. I've been missing her," one Twitter user responded to Filipkowski's observation on Tuesday.
"FAKE MELANIA! She DOES hate him. She really hates him🤣🍾" another tweeted.
Although Melania has been silent about her husband's latest indictment, Trump said that his wife was "hurt" by the federal criminal charges during an appearance on his friend Roger Stone's radio show.
"How does she take it? She's hurt when the family's hurt," Trump told Stone on Sunday.
Speaking of his wife on the show, Trump described Melania as "terrific" and said she has "an attitude that is amazing."
On Tuesday, Trump spokesperson Alina Habba argued that there is context missing from the indictment and that once Americans hear Trump's side of things, the public perception would shift.
"An indictment is one-sided: it is the prosecutors bringing in who they want, asking the question as they want without their lawyers present, and then putting together a story for the American people, unfortunately, to see in a manner they want," Habba told CBS News outside of the courtroom. "So, now it's our turn."
