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Melania Trump’s memoir, “Melania,” will soon be in the hands of millions of readers. Supporters of the former first lady and presidential (re)hopeful Donald Trump will appreciate it, while detractors may LOL, as Stephanie Grisham did, at some of Melania’s claims. But there’s at least one portion of the October 8 release sure to garner sympathy from both sides of the political fence. The New York Post teased an excerpt from the memoir that discusses the shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, which killed an audience member and left the former president wounded but not seriously harmed.
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Melania was watching the rally that afternoon but had paused the TV for a moment. It was then the shooting occurred, and her chief of staff called to alert her. Resuming the broadcast, Melania watched the footage of her husband being ushered to the stage floor by Secret Service agents. “‘He’s on the ground,’ I called out,” she writes in the memoir. “‘Are you sure he’s OK?'” Then began a frantic period in which the former first lady tried to reach her hospitalized husband. When she finally got through, Trump calmed her fears with a simple, “I’m OK.”
But as difficult as it was to see her spouse of two decades come so close to death, it was even tougher for Melania to tell her son, Barron. At 18 and a recent high school graduate, he was old enough to understand what had happened, but that didn’t make it any easier. Melania writes, “We replayed the footage and watched it together. We were both in shock. As we tuned into the news coverage, I felt a deep sense of distress.”
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Melania Trump gets real about her reaction to the assassination attempt
The nature of news coverage being what it is, the attempt on Donald Trump’s life was instantly covered by all outlets, which was torturous for his wife and youngest son. Melania Trump writes in her memoir (via New York Post), “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. … 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.” Only after Donald arrived home early the next morning — with a bandaged ear the only sign of injury — could Melania and Barron Trump finally relax. Still, it took a while for the family to process the “harrowing and surreal” truth of what had occurred, and how differently things might have turned out if the gunman’s aim had been better, or if the presidential hopeful hadn’t turned his head from the podium for a split second.
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Just two months later, Trump was allegedly targeted by another gunman who trespassed on one of his golf properties. Police spotted and apprehended the suspect before he had a chance to fire, and he is currently awaiting trial. With the publication date so close, Melania probably didn’t have a chance to add a mention of this latest incident or the strange gift Trump received after the second assassination attempt: the handcuffs used to restrain the gunman during the arrest. If that’s the case, readers will just have to wait for the “Melania II” sequel.
