Melania Trump recalls answering the harrowing phone call from her chief of staff who told her a madman had tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump in her new memoir.
“I rushed to the TV and pressed play. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” the former First Lady writes in “Melania,” out Tuesday and obtained by The Post.
The charity founder was at home in Bedminster, New Jersey, with her 18-year-old son, Barron, on July 13 when the shooting happened.
Melania writes that she watched in horror as a bullet grazed her husband’s ear before he crouched below the podium and secret service agents swarmed him at the campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“I watched the chaos unfold: the gunfire, Donald instinctively reaching up to his head,” she writes, saying she then watched the Secret Service members leaping into action to protect the president after the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired eight bullets in under six seconds at the Republican presidential nominee. Crooks was then himself killed by a sniper.
Melania, at the time, asked her chief of staff, in disbelief, “‘He’s on the ground,’ I called out. ‘Are you sure he’s OK?’”
She hung up and immediately dialed her husband. When he didn’t answer she called his Secret Service detail. They were at the hospital.
“After what felt like an eternity” they connected her with the former president.
“‘I’m OK,’ he assured me. It was only when I heard his voice that I could finally believe that he really was fine,” she writes of the traumatic ordeal.
The former FLOTUS also reveals details about her time after the oval office in her memoir, including the August 2022 raid on Mar-a-Lago when FBI agents swarmed former Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, residence looking for classified documents.
That case landed an indictment against the former president on 37 criminal counts in June 2023 for allegedly retaining more than 100 classified documents. Charges against the former president in connection to the case were later dismissed by a judge in July.
54-year-old Slovenian-American Melania, a former fashion model who served as the first lady from 2017 to 2021, details how she felt “violated” by the FBI raid in her memoir.
She also shares her views on pressing issues like abortion and trans women in sports, and gives details of her modeling career and how she bonded with the British royals.
While in shock following the assassination attempt, Melania opens up in the book about having to share the news with Barron, her only son, with Donald.
She describes how she and Barron watched the footage over and over, as it was played on loop on the TV.
“Can I explain how traumatic it is for a child to witness the attempted murder of his father? The relentless replay of the rally footage on the news only intensified our anxiety,” she writes.
“Each time we saw Donald’s bloodied face, I had to remind myself that I had actually just spoken to him, heard his voice, and knew that he was safe.”
Just hours before he was shot at, Melania revealed she had told her husband, “good luck, be safe,” ahead of the rally.
When Trump returned to their home in Bedminster at 2 a.m. the next morning, Melania described her relief following her husband’s near-death experience. She writes the incident was both “harrowing and surreal” and calls the shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, a “monster” in a letter she later drafted on July, 14, 2024, written to the American people.
“Let us not forget that differing opinions, policy and political games are inferior to love … Political concepts are simple when compared to us, human beings,” she wrote in the letter, published for the first time in her memoir.
Since Crooks’ attempt on Trump’s life, he has also survived a second would-be shooter, who hid out on his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, in September. Ryan Wesley Routh who was foiled after a Secret Service scout noticed his gun and he was arrested after he tried to flee the scene, before he ever got a chance to make a shot.
Melania, born Melania Knauss in Novo Mesto, Slovenia, also writes about how she rose to achieve the American dream in her book. She was born to father Viktor Knavs — a chauffeur for the Yugoslavian Army and car salesman — and Amalija Knavs, a patternmaker who introduced her daughter to fashion at a young age.
Melania recalls arriving in New York with two suitcases and a carry-on, on August, 27, 1996, to work for Metropolitan Models.
“Coming to New York City? That was my moment,” she writes, highlighting that becoming an American citizen a decade later in 2006, was also a pivotal point. She also notes her own experiences with the challenges of the immigration process “opened my eyes” to how long and complex the immigration process is for anyone who emigrates to the US.
Melania secured a work visa and landed bookings with high profile clients Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus. She also details meeting Donald in 1998, later bonding over their mutual love of Elvis Presley and Elton John.
Melania writes how she tried to stay “low key” while the press followed Donald around
“constantly” amid their publicized relationship.
“I wasn’t one for seeking attention, so I tried to keep our time together as low key as possible,” she writes.
But the gossip writers still sniped at her, she writes, for their 24-year age difference.
“The gossip columns labeled me a ‘gold digger’,” she claims, although she adds such “baseless accusations” could never affect her relationship with Donald. Melania also points out that she already had a successful career of her own before she met her husband, that she was rich and could “have easily have captured the attention of numerous celebrities” to date if she had chosen to.
The couple married on January 22, 2005 at Bethesda-by-the-Sea church in Palm Beach, Florida, followed by an extravagant Palm Beach reception at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate attended by Shaquille O’Neal, boxing promoter Don King, former president Bill Clinton and US senator Hilary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani and former governor of New York George Pataki.
The former first lady writes how she understands the scrutiny her family was under while in the White House, but says since Trump has been out of office, she longs to be out of the public spotlight.
“Following the [FBI] raid, I became increasingly concerned,” she writes, about their security and how much privacy they could really enjoy.
Melania said she had become accustomed to the political attacks against the family, which she calls “relentless” but the FBI raid seemed personal and unlike something she would ever have imagined happening in the US. She calls it a “profound violation” which affected her, Donald and Barron.
Melania compares the experience to her childhood “growing up under a communist regime” under “pervasive surveillance of the state”. Remembering that time, she writes how her father’s fleet of cars came under scrutiny, and he was reported to police in Slovenia. That investigation “amounted to nothing,” Melania writes, despite Slovenian journalists falsely reporting her father had been imprisoned.
Melania also goes on to detail her stance on hot button issues including trans people in sports, singling out when male-born athletes compete against women.
She writes about the advantages which male bodies have such as height, bone density and strength, saying it can affect people even at high school level.
She writes that even one biological male can change the balance in female sports and affects issues such as potential future earnings as professional athletes and the issue of equal pay in sports.
Melania also reiterated her support for the community, adding: “I fully support the LGBTQIA+ community. But we must make sure that our female athletes are protected and respected.”
Melania also details meeting Queen Elizabeth II for the second time over tea, scones and her beloved corgis before her death in September, 2022.
“We had truly connected and were delighted to have the opportunity to see her again,” Melania writes.
“We had truly connected and were delighted to have the opportunity to see her again,” Melania writes. REUTERS
The former FLOTUS notes despite the “tumultuous backdrop of British politics” at the time, as Brexit took hold and there was changes of leadership in the Prime Minister’s office, the Queen and her family “extended a warm welcome to us,” she writes, noting that Queen Elizabeth gifted her with a specially commissioned silver box with an enamel lid made to look like the ceiling motifs of Buckingham Palace’s music room.
“Our friendship with the royal family continues and we exchange letters with King Charles to this day,” she writes.
“Melania” is available at booksellers from Tuesday, Oct. 8.