“Where’s Melania?” is a question that has been asked so frequently over the past several years—particularly in the weeks following Donald Trump’s indictment and arrest—that the former First Lady might as well be wearing a red-and-white striped sweater and bobble hat. All of which gave Laura Benanti’s Melania Trump a great excuse to make a triumphant return to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Monday night.
It’s been a while since “Melania” has paid a visit to The Late Show, but she assured Colbert that she has “never be best better,” which does sound like Melania. She also admitted that she’s relieved to no longer be living in the White House, as it has given her back the free time she was missing to do the things she enjoys most: “Spending time with my family, enjoying roped-off brunches at my live-in golf prison, and disposing of top secret documents.”
Her preferred method for handling that last task? Eating said classified documents. “You can really taste the national security,” Benanti says.
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Finally, Colbert got right to the point and asked Melania to share her thoughts on her husband’s arrest, which prompted some dry heaving on Melania’s part, because she really hates hearing the word “husband.” When Colbert asked if her absence in New York City when Trump was arrested was “a sign that you don’t support him,” Melania dubbed that “lies.”
She said that she was in attendance at Trump’s unhinged post-arrest speech at Mar-a-Lago, but the cameras never caught her because she was in the bathroom during all 30 minutes of his speech. “If he can spend half-an-hour spewing crap, then so can I,” she said.
But Melania says she will definitely be present on the 2024 campaign trail… just not necessarily standing hand-in-hand with her husband. “We will be going to all the battleground states: When he goes to Iowa, I go to New Hampshire. When he goes to New Hampshire, I go to Pennsylvania.”
“And if he goes to jail?,” Colbert asked.
“I go to Vegas, baby,” said the former FLOTUS. “Come on—mama needs a new pair of stilettos!”
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