Melania Trump endorsed Trump’s 2024 bid just before E. Jean Carroll sex abuse verdict

Melania Trump broke more than a month of silence Tuesday to affirm her support for Donald Trump’s third run for president, saying she backs her embattled husband’s effort to return to the White House so they can restore “hope for the future.”

Melania Trump’s statement of endorsement to Fox News Tuesday came several hours before a New York jury found the former president liable for the sexual abuse and defamation of the magazine writer E. Jean Carroll. The jury also awarded Carroll $5 million in damages in a widely-watched federal civil trial that sought to apply the accountability of the #MeToo era to a powerful political figure.

The former first lady told Fox News Digital that she looks forward to working alongside her husband in a second White House term, saying she hopes they can lead “America with love and strength.”

Melania Trump also said it would be a “privilege” to serve as first lady again and would continue to prioritize initiatives focused on the well-being and development of children, to ensure they have the “support and resources they need to reach their full potential.”

Earlier Tuesday, Melania Trump also posted photos of her hosting foster students for a luncheon at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend.

I enjoyed the open and sincere discussion I had this past weekend, over lunch, with a group of teens from the foster care community. We covered a wide range of topics, including their personal experiences, struggles, and hopes for the future. I am confident that they will… pic.twitter.com/pqY8F2RZzm

— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) May 9, 2023

However, Melania Trump did not respond to inquiries from the Daily Mail about whether she would join her husband on the campaign trail.

In the Carroll lawsuit, a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse for forcibly touching the writer in a New York department store dressing room in the 1990s. However, the jury found that Carroll had not proved, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Trump had raped her, as she had long claimed.

Not surprisingly, Trump wasn’t happy with the verdict, even though he didn’t attend the trial and failed to file a motion to testify, even after the court gave him an extension to change this mind, the Daily Beast reported. The former president wrote in all-caps on Truth Social: “I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS.” He echoed earlier assertions that he’d never met Carroll either before or after she accused him of assaulting her. He also declared: “THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE – A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!”

Trump’s lawyer Joseph Tacopina seemed to take heart that Carroll had not proved her rape claim, as he said his client would appeal, the New York Times reported. 

“Strange verdict,” Tacopina said. “This was a rape claim, this was a rape case all along and the jury rejected that, made other findings. We’ll obviously be appealing those other findings.”

Meanwhile, the New York Times said it’s not immediately clear if the verdict will have much impact on the former president’s election bid, as he had been thriving politically up until Tuesday and his legal problems tend not to hurt him with his supporters.

A Washington Post-ABC poll over the weekend showed that he is the favorite for the Republican presidential nomination, even as a majority of respondents said he should face criminal charges in cases involving efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and events leading to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. Trump also faces other legal problems. They include his possession of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida and a criminal indictment in New York City on 34 felony counts, involving alleged falsification of business records and a hush-money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

Melania Trump’s expression of support marks her willingness to get back out in public to back her husband. In early April, she made the high-profile choice to not accompany Trump to his arraignment in New York City for the Stormy Daniels case. She also did not appear by his side when he gave a news conference at Mar-a-Lago that night to protest his innocence and to denounce the prosecution as politically motivated.

Melania Trump’s absence from the Mar-a-Lago press conference was “glaringly” apparent to anyone in the ballroom that night and to viewers around the country, the Daily Mail reported at the time. Notably, Trump also failed to thank his wife in his speech, even as he thanked other family members for their support.

A former close friend of Melania Trump said in April that she’s probably in “denial” about her husband’s various legal issues.

“Melania lives in an ivory tower of denial,” Stephanie Winston Wolkoff told Page Six. Winston Wolkoff also was once Melania Trump’s unpaid White House aide, but the women had a falling out and Winston Wolkoff wrote a scathing account of her ex-friend in her 2020 book, “Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady.”

But even with Melania Trump’s denial, Winston Wolkoff told Page Six that her ex-friend would ultimately support her husband.

“She will stand by her husband, as she always does,” Winston Wolkoff said. “She isn’t leaving him. This is a transactional marriage, she knew what she was getting into when she married Donald.”