Melania Trump’s promotional activities for her new book took a turn for the wackadoodle Tuesday with a video in which she raised the possibility that the attempt to assassinate her husband was actually some kind of conspiracy.
“The attempt to end my husband’s life was a horrible, distressing experience,” the former first lady says in the clip. “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 this story and we need to uncover the truth.”
The brief clip released on Melania’s X ends with a message encouraging viewers to pre-order her forthcoming book, Melania. The post also contained a link to her website, where a “Collector’s Edition” of the memoir is available to buy for $250.
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Precisely how the July 13 attempt to kill Donald Trump relates to the book isn’t clear. The tone of her video is markedly different from that which Melania took in the letter she released the day after the shooting, in which she thanked “the brave Secret Service agents and law enforcement officials who risked their own lives to protect my husband.”
At the time, she also called for Americans to “ascend above the hate, the vitriol, and the simple-minded ideas that ignite violence.” Melania was not at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire at the stage where her husband spoke, wounding the former president and several attendees, including one fatally.
Crooks was killed by countersnipers during the attack. An FBI investigation has yet to establish a motive for the incident.
In the wake of the attempt on Donald Trump’s life, questions were raised about how Crooks was able to get so close to killing the former president. Kimberly Cheatle resigned from her position as the director of the Secret Service after acknowledging her agency was responsible for lapses in security at the event.
By contrast, some of the Republican nominee’s most ardent supporters have interpreted the law enforcement failure to stop Crooks before he opened fire as evidence of a conspiracy. Donald Trump’s son, Eric, quickly blamed Democrats, as did Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) who baselessly claimed the party had “tried to murder President Trump” (Crooks was a registered Republican).
Despite being largely absent from her husband’s campaign trail this year, Melania’s remarks about the assassination attempt are the latest in a recent flurry of public comments to promote her book. Last week, she released a black-and-white video advertising the memoir, saying its composition had been a “deeply personal and reflective journey for me.”
“As a private person, who has often been the subject of personal scrutiny and misrepresentation, I feel a responsibility to clarify the facts,” she said in the clip.
Melania then dropped another clip on Sunday bemoaning the outcome of the 2020 election—seemingly contradicting her husband by acknowledging Joe Biden’s victory. “It impacted our quality of life, cost of food, gasoline, safety and even the geopolitical landscape,” the billionaire’s wife said in the video.
She went on to say that “America is more divided today than ever before” and claimed there are “significant challenges to free speech as demonstrated by the efforts to silence my husband.”
