Donald Trump fears only one person during his volatile one-term presidency: his own wife, Melania Trump.
Kellyanne Conway, a former White House senior adviser, made as many claims during her Nov. 28 testimony to a House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots — a transcript released Monday.
Conway, a political consultant and pollster who helped Trump become president in 2016, told the committee Jan. 6 he became concerned when the Capitol protests turned violent. He said he did not speak to Trump that day, but contacted his wife.
“I texted him, please – something to the effect of, you know, please talk to him, because I know he listens to him,” said Conway about asking Melania to urge Trump to quell the crowd. “He’s reserved — he listens to a lot of people, but he’s afraid of one person, Melania Trump.”
Conway said the first lady “doesn’t have a phone,” however, and is cataloging items in the East Wing and “preparing for the end of the season.” Melania said it herself in a July 2022 Fox News interview – claiming she didn’t know the Capitol had been breached.
“They don’t know what’s going on,” Conway told the panel. “And I’m offended that no one ran over there to tell the First Lady of the United States that, I mean, she and her young son were, I don’t know, at risk.”
While Melania told Fox News that she was “doing one of her duties as first lady” by photographing things and “knowing what’s going on together” in the Capitol, former Trump aide Stephanie Grisham has published texts allegedly from Melania a month earlier that show otherwise. .
“Do you want to tweet that peaceful protest is the right of every American, but there is no place for lawlessness and violence?” read a text message between Grisham and the man labeled “MT” in the picture Grisham shared.
Grisham told The Washington Examiner that MT was Melania and that he “backed off immediately after” the first lady’s response. Grisham is indeed resigning on January 6, 2021 — becoming the first Trump official to resign following the Capitol attack, per Insider.
Melania finally condemned Grisham, who wrote the entire book, as “deceitful and problematic.”
Conway’s deposition also revealed a “brief” conversation with Trump on November 4, 2020, the day after Election Day, in which he couldn’t understand losing “to a guy who didn’t come out of the basement and all the Democrats didn’t even want to,” about President Joe Biden .
As for the infighting between Trump and the vice president, Mike Pence – including Trump cheering on the protesters who chanted for Pence to be hanged – Conway told the panel that all Trump wants Pence to do during the election is to send votes “back to the country.”