Former first lady Melania Trump is questioning how the attempted assassination of former President Trump came to pass...while also trying to hawk her forthcoming memoir.Annabelle Gordon/CNP/Zuma
Melania Trump broke her months-long silence on the assassination attempt against her husband with a video that amplified unproven conspiracy theories about the July shooting before swiftly turning to promote her forthcoming memoir.
The video—which, in my opinion, resembles a deep fake overlaid with a Kris Jenner filter— was posted to X on Tuesday morning, and featured Melania standing before a black backdrop while ominous music plays in the background. “The attempt to end my husband’s life was a horrible, distressing experience,” she says, addressing the camera. “Now, the silence around it feels heavy. I can’t help but wonder, why didn’t law enforcement officials arrest the shooter before the speech?”
“There is definitely more to the story,” she adds, “and we need to uncover the truth.” A visual of the cover of her eponymous book then flashes on the screen, along with a message encouraging followers to order the book at her website. It’s unclear what, if any, connection the memoir, slated for release in early October according to the publisher, will have to her husband’s shooting. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to questions.
The rare video appearance makes Melania now one of many people in Trump’s orbit who has conspiratorially suggested that nefarious forces enabled the shooting. As my colleague Mark Follman has covered, two of Trump’s sons, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), and Republicans in Congress have cast blame on Democrats for the shooting—all without evidence. (As Mark reported, the motive of the shooter—who was a registered Republican—remains unknown.) Trump himself has also taken part in the narrative, telling television psychologist Dr. Phil in a late August interview, “I think to a certain extent it’s Biden’s fault and Harris’ fault. And I’m the opponent. Look, they were weaponizing government against me, they brought in the whole DOJ to try and get me. They weren’t too interested in my health and safety.”
“They’re saying I’m a threat to democracy,” Trump added in that interview. “They would say that, that was [a] standard line, just keep saying it, and you know that can get assassins or potential assassins going…Maybe that bullet is because of their rhetoric.”
Experts warn that such unfounded allegations can give rise to retaliatory violence from Trump-loving extremists.
This continuing vilification adds to what law enforcement and threat assessment sources have told me is a paramount risk headed toward the election: potential bloodshed stemming from Donald Trump’s long-running campaign of incitement, including his message that he is supposedly the victim of a sweeping conspiracy by his political opponents. That core Trump narrative has now been supercharged by the assassination attempt, in which three attendees also were shot, one fatally.
As Melania mentions in her video, questions do remain about the catastrophic security failures that allowed the shooter to scale a roof without law enforcement intervening sooner. But those questions are the subjects of ongoing federal investigations—which will not be led or solved by Melania or anyone else in MAGA-world.
