A Sneak Preview of Melania's Memoir
Don't ask how I got the galley proofs. Just subscribe in gratitude.
[page 11] People think of the British as having a dry sense of humor. If dryness means sensitivity to irony, or to irony’s less elegant nephew sarcasm, I think it would be fair to characterize the American sense of humor as soggy. When, in response on Wednesday Morning Joe to an interviewer’s question about what I had first loved about Donald Trump, I replied, “His mind — his amazing mind,” I had no idea that people wouldn’t know I was being sarcastic.
Donald Trump’s mind? Hello? If the man were any stupider, he’d have to be watered twice a day! A case in point. When he began courting me, he made a big display of having hired a tutor to teach him Slovene. (My first thought, I’ll admit, was that a wiser investment would have been in someone to teach him English LMFAO) So whom does he hire? Someone who speaks the Shtokavian dialect, rather than the Kajkavian. D’oh!
It was hardly as though I was unaware that Donald Trump was and remains stupid, boorish, infantile, delusional, corrupt, hateful, petulant, vulgar, treacherous, and soulless, and I am of course aware that there are those who regard me as a whore. If you define whore as one who dispenses sexual favors in exchange for material comfort, well, guilty as charged. It’s my right to adore luxury. I like to think that those of gentler disposition will see my having made that bargain only with Donald Trump, rather than with multiple benefactors, as mitigating.
[page 266] On the subject of stupid, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention his two older sons. OMG! They make Donald Trump himself seem in comparison like the late Stephen Hawking. Much has been made about my being aloof from the family, and there’s your explanation. Can you imagine what it’s like being alone with Junior and Eric, trying to converse with them? I don’t think their combined IQ is greater than my son’s height in inches.
[page 37] On meeting him for the first time, the first words out of Donald Trump’s mouth to my father Viktor are “If you think there’s even the slightest chance of my addressing you as Dad, you can forget it right now.” Then, on learning that before he was an automobile salesman, Očka had been a chauffeur — first for the next-town-over’s mayor, and then for the head of the (Communist!)government-owned textile factory where Mama was a pattern-maker— Donald Trump asks Očka if he’d like to become Donald Trump’s driver.
You should have seen the look on Očka’s face. Would you be surprised to learn that when I told him and Mama that I’d agreed to marry Donald Trump, Očka said, “Kako si lahko sploh sanjal, da bi se poročil s tem kretenom?”
[page 53] Donald Trump and his bodyguard Keith Schilling come over to my parents’ house. Mama has made a delicious meal. There’s Carniolan sausage (a Slovenian dish guaranteed by law to contain at least 68% pork, 12% beef, and no more than 20% bacon), three types (pehtranova, orehova, and makova) of potica, a delectable pastry served on important occasions and holidays in Slovenia, such as Christmas and Easter, and on non-holidays to the most honored guests, and my own favorite, prekmurska gibanica, the famous layer cake from the Prekmurje area of my country. Mr. Schilling’s eyes are like those of a little boy on Christmas morning, but Donald Trump takes one look and asks Mama, “Is there a McDonald’s nearby, or even a Burger King?”
[page 184] I’m pregnant. On the day my ObGyn tells me that it’s a little boy that I’m pregnant with, Donald Trump’s playing golf, or barging into teenaged beauty contestants’ dressing rooms while they’re not yet fully dressed “to make sure everything’s all right”. When I tell Donald Trump over dinner the wonderful news about our impending joint parenthood, the first words out of his mouth are “We’ll name him Barron’s, after the world's premier investing publication providing financial news, in-depth analysis and commentary on stocks.”
I tell him I’d hoped to name him after Očka, who’s named Viktor. Victor Orbán hasn’t become the virtual dictator of Hungary yet, so Donald Trump nixes the idea. As alternatives, I suggest Lovro, Jaka, Marko, Janez, Andrej, or Luka. Luka Dončić hasn’t yet become the dominant Caucasian player in the National Basketball Association, so Donald Trump nixes that idea too.The most I’m able to persuade Donald Trump to do is remove the apostrophe and s from the end of Barron’s. And i call our beautiful little boy Barry, just to infuriate Donald Trump, after finding out that President Obama was known as Barry until he was 19. Donald Trump doesn’t seem to notice.
He does notice, though, when I host two fundraising events for the Log Cabin (that is, LGBTQ) Republicans, one in Trump Tower, and the other at Mar-a-Lago. The mouth-breathing cretins in Chinese-manufactured red baseball caps and other Trumpwear who are most of Donald Trump’s following are homophobic, so I was hoping he’d be livid, but as I write this, he’s kept any umbrage he may feel to himself. For once!
[page 146] I was disappointed when Donald Trump wasn’t much more annoyed by “my” plagiarizing Michelle Obama’s speech to the 2008 Democratic convention. When Donald Trump got that horrid Paul Manafort person to condemn Hillary Clinton for pointing out what I’d done, all Donald Trump did was describe my speech as “absolutely incredible”. Which, to my great amusement, was how he’d characterized the Bible. The man has a vocabulary of around 81 words! I liked Michelle, though her sharing hard candies with the war criminal George W. Bush wasn’t my favorite thing ever.
[page 287] Another example of the sogginess of the American sense of humor came when, after the Michelle brouhaha finally quieted down, I described Donald Trump as ”tough when he has to be, but also kind and fair and caring…The kindness is not always noted, but it's there for all to see. That is one reason I fell in love with him to begin with.” If Ali Wong or Michelle Buteau or Nicole Byer has every said anything funnier than that, I’d like to hear about it.
Speaking of fairness, by the way, when I see VIce President Harris condemned for being the great great great great granddaughter of an Irish American slaveowner, I can easily picture someone of comparable stupidity condemning me for being the daughter of a former Communist Party member.
Fair is fair.