Melania Trump gets candid about raid on Mar-a-Lago, assassination attempts on her husband

Former first lady Melania Trump sat down for her first interview in two years to promote her new book.
“I want to put the record straight,” she said. During her appearance on Fox News with Ainsley Earhardt, the former first lady did not reveal too many details about her memoir, and kept her answers brief.
At one point, Earhardt asked her about her special relationships with other first ladies and the wives of prime ministers. Trump responded by calling Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, a “fun” person with whom she’s shared many laughs.
Trump has largely stayed off the campaign trail as her husband, former President Donald Trump, seeks another term in office. Instead, she’s chosen to maintain her privacy after their time in the White House. As the interview revealed, she wasn’t with the former president during both recent instances of political violence against him.
Here are three takeaways from the former first lady’s interview.
Melania Trump said her husband’s record speaks for itself and touted his leadership success at home and abroad.
“The country is suffering,” she said, noting high inflation that is forcing families to struggle to put food on the table, the migrant crisis at the southern border and the flow of fentanyl.
“We have wars going on around the world. Soldiers are dying. They were dying under this administration because of weak leadership,” Trump said. “And if we compare these four years under this administration compared to four years under my husband as Commander in Chief, he was leading the country through peace, through strength, and the border was safer than ever before.”
She defended Trump’s rhetoric: “Maybe some, you know, strong tweets, but everything else is great for this country,” she said.
The former first lady first heard about the attempted assassination attempt on Trump through a television broadcast of the rally in Butler, Penn., minutes after the shots were fired.
“I ran to the T.V., and I rewind it,” she said. Trump recalled seeing him on the floor. “Nobody really knew” if he was safe. The former president didn’t answer his phone and the Secret Service was also unable to respond at first, but eventually confirmed to her the president was OK and being taken to the hospital. Trump said she was also able to talk to her husband.
Their son, Barron Trump, now a college student at New York University, rushed into the room, and the former first lady said she had a “very difficult” conversation with him.
Two months later, while former President Trump was golfing at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, a Secret Service agent saw the muzzle of a rifle poking through the chainlink fence. The Secret Service agent shot at the suspect, who fled the scene.
Melania Trump was in New York at the time, and saw it unfold on television. “I called again, and he was OK because Secret Service (was) great. The guys that were with him, they were fantastic,” she said.
“I think something was watching over him,” Trump said. She admitted she isn’t shocked by the rise in political violence since the opposition and the media brand “him as a threat to democracy, calling him vile names.”
Trump continued, “They (are) only fueling a toxic atmosphere … This needs to stop.”
She also commented on the raid at her Mar-a-Lago residence as a part of the investigation into President Trump’s handling of classified documents. The case was dismissed in Florida earlier this year.
“Yeah, it made me angry. Yes. Invasion of privacy. And, the way it was done, was I was really surprised,” the former first lady said.
When she entered her home again, she said she “saw unpleasant stuff that nobody wants to see.”
Trump continued, “And you get angry because, you know, nobody should be putting up with that kind of stuff. Some person — I don’t even know who or how many people — they, you know, they went through my stuff.”