2024-04-28 08:14:57
She has been disappearing from the face of the earth for months: Melania Trump. She also remained silent on her birthday on Friday – but her husband did not.
Congratulations of a bizarre kind: Donald Trump congratulated his wife Melania on her 54th birthday from the court in New York. The former US president is being tried there in connection with hush money payments to a porn star – and of all places the 77-year-old used this stage to greet his wife on her birthday.
“First of all, I want to wish my wife Melania a happy birthday,” Trump told reporters outside the courtroom on Friday. “It would be nice to be with her,” said Trump, who then made one of his mantra-like repeated accusations: “But I’m in the courthouse for a rigged trial.”
“This birthday will be difficult for her”
Trump added that Melania was celebrating her birthday in the state of Florida, where he would also fly after the meeting. The 77-year-old said nothing about why his wife has not yet accompanied him in the trial. Even in his efforts to run again as the Republican presidential candidate in November, Melania has hardly publicly supported her husband. A few months ago, she simply responded to a similar question with: “Stay tuned”, so “stay tuned”.
An insider told the US magazine “People” that Melania’s 54th birthday is likely to be quieter because the former first lady continues to mourn her mother, who died in January. “This birthday will be difficult for her,” the site quoted the unnamed source as saying. “She will celebrate with her family in peace.”
“Another day in an ice cold dish”
Donald Trump has been in court in Manhattan since April 15th. The 77-year-old is accused of falsifying business documents in 34 cases. At the center of the allegations is, among other things, an alleged hush money payment to the porn actress Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had an affair with Trump. The politician is said to have transferred the equivalent of around 122,000 euros to them shortly before the election in 2016.
Before Trump entered the courtroom on Friday, he repeatedly complained to the reporters present about the temperatures in the room: “We have another day ahead of us in an ice-cold court. It’s very cold in there. On purpose, I think. ” The former president will have to endure the cold for at least another month – the process was originally scheduled to last around seven weeks.