Especially if she’s played by Sarah Chalke.
I’ve not made a study of Melania, but my overall impression when I’ve seen her is that she looks sad, almost defeated. I can’t feel sorry for her because she should have known what she was marrying. Still, her life has to be hell. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that divorce had crossed her mind more than once.
Well, yes - the fake tweet was a boneheaded idea, as it only lends further credence to the “something’s not squared up” perception. But that level of decisionmaking wisdom is par for the course with him.
As mentioned he does not have a reputation of someone who’d willingly say “look, she’s still not quite up 100%, lay off of her and give her time, OK?” He wants everything to always be Tremendous, Amazing, Incredible, Best ever, Most Ever. Plus the WH team may be under the misapprehension that admitting that she’s doing poorly would create an expectation or entitlement to provide full details, and it wouldn’t. Contrary to what would be the case if it were *Donald *who took ill and remained in seclusion, Melania does have an expectation of some privacy. She’s not the elected head of State.
I don’t see why it’s any stretch to think that millions of American women would l trade places with Melania. It has nothing to do with putting women down, it’s just a fact that millions of women think Trump is a swell guy. If only 10% of female Trump supporters thought that, it would still be “millions”. There are probably millions of men who would jump at the chance to marry Kim Kardashian.
But more to the point, I have trouble summoning any pity for Melania. She knew exactly what she was getting into when she married Trump.
I don’t think he’s so much “speaking for women” as he is making an observation. Others in this thread have pointed out that “millions of women in America would trade places with Melania if the opportunity were offered” is a sound and well-supported claim, with many reasons behind it.
Well this was a fun read. 
I think she’s been kidnapped by North Korean spies. Trump meeting with Kim Jong Un is the condition for her return.
/science!
Given how things might be for him at home behind closed doors after the Stormy Daniels bits, they may be the condition to keep her.
It’s possible that many women would trade places with Melania Trump. What I find offensive in septimus’ comment is the belief that millions of women are willing to be beaten if the pay is good.
Is a Martha Mitchell scenario too much to hope for?
"In the days immediately after the Watergate break-in in 1972, her husband enlisted former FBI agent Steve King to prevent her from learning about the break-in or contacting reporters. Despite these efforts, Martha learned that one of her friends, her daughter’s bodyguard and driver James W. McCord Jr., was among those arrested. She began to explore the events in order to help him. While on a phone call with Helen Thomas about the Watergate break-in, King pulled the phone cord from the wall. She was held against her will in a California hotel room and forcefully sedated by a psychiatrist after a physical struggle with five men that left her needing stitches.[2][3] Nixon aides, in an effort to discredit Mitchell, told the press that she had a “drinking problem”.
I agree, that’s gross. I will concede that there are probably plenty of women who’d like to switch places with Melania, but that most of them probably think Trump is a swell guy, and the fake news is lying about how Melania and Donald don’t like each other, and maybe he cheats occasionally but that’s just typical guy stuff. I’d think that far fewer think that he’s physically abusive and a terrible husband and would switch places purely out of golddigging desire.
I don’t know if he has been physically abusive to Melania, but an excerpthas been circulating on Twitter recently about how a reporter didn’t say anything about how Pat Nixon was recovering from being beaten because he didn’t think it was a big deal or a crime. I hope times have changed since then that a reporter would report on it if it happened now, but the press has reported so little on Melania in general. Ideally someone in the press would at least investigate and report about the fake tweet from a few days ago, but I haven’t seen anything on that yet.
The thing is, Melania is Trumps KGB (now SVR) handler. She has found her tour extended time and again, and she is begging to be recalled. She has been permitted to return home for
“discussions”, while Putin and his advisors figure out how to send a replacement.
Honestly, I don’t have a clue. All I know is that if Michelle Obama had suddenly disappeared like this, Fox News would have had a field day with all of the conspiracy theories. But with Trump, this is just another WTF moment.
The best, most likely theory I’ve heard is that she tried to commit suicide. I mean, hell, would you be all that surprised?
With any other administration the “This has got to be evil in some way.” thoughts would be at the top of the list.
Look back at the Ford days. First Betty then Happy Rockefeller with their breast cancer surgeries. Openly discussed. Used to heighten awareness of the disease. Good PR value.
Any normal administration would have used this in a similar way.
But the Trump people aren’t normal. Inept and secretive. So this is what we get.
Being inept and secretive is basically indistinguishable from evil for these folk.
It will come out some day, but if Melania is being mistreated the sooner the better for her.
Ever seen women’s MMA?
How about make the proposition gender neutral? Millions of people would be willing to be beaten to a bruised up but not hospital grade injuries level for enough money and status.
Men, women, those with fluid identities … yeah pretty sure for the right price you’d find plenty in all groups. More of a fraction in one or the other group? I don’t know. I’d guess more men would be willing to sign up but that fewer of the women who did sign up would end up quitting the job.
I think she never wanted to be First Lady, hates the attention, and finds her life kinda miserable as a result. So she’s milking every opportunity that presents itself to step out of public view, for as long she possibly can. I can easily empathize because she so frequently looks uncomfortable and out of place. Bordering on looking like a captive, at times. If you hate the attention it must be just hellish, I should think.
Even if Trump himself wouldn’t notice any difference, others in the White House (John Kelly for one) would be aware that the tweet looks completely faked.
The logical conclusion is that some in the White House wanted speculation to grow.
This would be a huge win for Trump, particularly if there had been lots of main-stream-media (that is, un-Fox) outlets running headlines and major broadcast segments on the topic.
My feeling is that the non-Fox media are quite aware of this, and are consciously downplaying the story. And it IS a story because the missing person in question was in the hospital at the beginning of the 24-day absence-from-sight. It’s reasonable to expect some concern about an absence of more than three weeks after a medical procedure.
But the non-Fox media are trying to deny Trump that “gotcha”–they’re not giving him much material to use. They know Trump would love to show a bunch of “where’s Melania?” headlines after Melania reappears; it would give him a fairly good excuse (for a change) to yell “fake news.”
On the other hand, if there’s eventually a claim that Melania was blown up in a car targeted by Muslim Mexican Hillary-financed terrorists, I hope that a whole team of medical examiners of unblemished credentials are deployed. Because no one should believe anything Trump might claim about such a (hopefully hypothetical) development.
I just listened to a great podcast about Martha Mitchell. She was actually kind of amazing. I wish I’d known more about her when she was still alive.
As for Melania, the only interview I can remember watching with her, is where she talked about how Jackie O was her role model for an ideal first lady. I think Melania expected the world to be kinder to her in this role.
She should lose the big white hat. It’s too big for her head. 