Melania Trump on Thursday released a video speaking out on women’s right to access abortion while another leaked passage from her upcoming memoir confirmed she once told her husband to drop a notoriously brutal immigration policy.
Former President Donald Trump has bragged about his role in ending the constitutional right to abortion and says he is happy to allow the states to decide whether residents should be able to access locally a full range of women’s healthcare.
His wife apparently wants to make it clear that she sees things very differently—and right before the election. “Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard,” the former first lady says in a brief clip posted on social media. “Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth. Individual freedom. What does my body, my choice really mean?”
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The video ends with a plug for her memoir, Melania, which is set to be released next week. A report from late Wednesday at The Guardian, which obtained a copy of the book, confirmed that Melania passionately supports a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, including the right to abortion, and has chosen to go public with her views right before the presidential election.
“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes,” she writes in one excerpt quoted by the Guardian.
“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes,” the former first lady writes. “Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body. I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”
That report came after Donald Trump denied an accusation made by Vice President Kamala Harris during their debate that, if re-elected, the Republican would sign a national abortion ban. Donald Trump said at the time that was a “lie” and then made an even firmer commitment to “veto” any such proposal on Tuesday—though he has previously taken credit for being “able to kill” Roe v. Wade after “50 years of failure” by others trying to do so. He appointed three Supreme Court justices essential to the decision being overturned in 2022.
His running mate, JD Vance, claimed during his vice presidential debate against Tim Walz Tuesday that he’d “never supported a national ban” on abortion, despite previously saying he’d like abortion to “be illegal nationally” and describing himself as “100 percent pro-life” on his website as recently as July when Trump announced him as his VP pick, according to Vanity Fair,
On Thursday, The Guardian published more excerpts from Melania Trump’s book detailing how she also once told Donald to end an immigration policy which separated migrant children from their parents.
“This has to stop,” she reportedly writes that she told her husband, “emphasizing the trauma it was causing these families.” The report says she saw Donald quickly comply with her demand, with the policy ultimately scrapped in June 2018.
She writes that she “thoroughly educated” herself before discussing the “border crisis” with her husband and “felt strongly that the situation demanded urgent attention and action.”
“I am sympathetic to all who wish to find a better life in this country,” the former first lady writes. “As an immigrant myself, I intimately understand the necessary if arduous process of legally becoming an American.”
Trump goes on to say she supports “strong borders,” but “what was going on at the border was simply unacceptable.” “As a mother myself, I stressed: ‘The government should not be taking children away from their parents,’” she says she told her husband. “I communicated with great clarity… ‘This has to stop.’”
