Trump’s Happy Birthday Message for Melania Is a Gift for His Haters

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The guardrails protecting democracy may have buckled, but they are not broken. Autocratic forces are ascendant in America, but the story isn’t fully written. Truth-telling independent media is one remaining bulwark against Trump’s unrestrained exercise of power. He rails against the press as the “enemy of the people,” because he hates the scrutiny that comes from fearless investigative reporting. Our nonprofit newsroom is built for the chaos ahead. Please stand with us.

A close-up black-and-white portrait of Melania Trump. Reflected on the lenses of her sunglasses is Donald Trump, who is speaking, with arms outstretched, to a gathering of reporters.

Mother Jones; Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

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The first criminal trial of a former US president is underway, with Donald Trump facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush-money payments allegedly made in 2016 to cover up an affair he had with adult film star Stormy Daniels. Here’s the latest—the key updates and absurd moments—from the historic trial.

Public birthday wishes are a tricky art. Some are cute! Others give the ick. But on the 54th birthday of Melania Trump, a new entry into the canon of birthday messages has emerged—and it defies neat categorization.

“I want to start by wishing my wife Melania a very happy birthday,” Donald Trump told reporters on Friday. “It would be nice to be with her but I’m at a courthouse for a rigged trial.”

Trump begins today's rant by wishing Melania a happy birthday while simultaneously whining about his case pic.twitter.com/qgAkHA2voJ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2024

Trump is correct in that he is legally restricted from being anywhere but the Manhattan courthouse where he faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to an alleged affair he had with adult film star, Stormy Daniels. The trial, however, is not rigged and is instead the direct result of an alleged extramarital relationship, which reportedly involved spanking and hours of watching Shark Week together, carried out just months after Melania had given birth.

So how does Melania feel about her name being invoked this morning before dozens of cameras, especially for a birthday message that mostly served as a template to rail against prosecutors? The former first lady remains largely sequestered in Mar-a-Lago and has not accompanied her husband at his many court appearances (nor has any Trump family member for that matter). So I doubt we’ll hear from her.

As Trump’s lawyers argue, rather needlessly and hazardously, that Trump never had sex with Daniels or the other two women allegedly involved in potential cover-up payments, Melania’s silence should not be lost on any of us. I interpret it as the only sensible response to the humiliation of marrying Donald J. Trump.