'Frightened' Trump waited 2 hours to muster courage to face Melania after 'grab 'em by the p***y' tape dropped
A new book on Melania Trump shed light on what transpired behind the scenes during the aftermath of the infamous Access Hollywood tape that was published by the Washington Post back in 2016, a month before the people of the US were going to decide between then-presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
According to an excerpt from, 'The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump' by Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Mary Jordan, published by CBS News, on October 7, 2016, Trump was "frightened" to confront his wife after he and his campaign staffers watched a clip of his 2005 interview with Billy Bush where he talks about how he tried to "f**k" a married woman, "moved on her like a b***h" and the line that made headlines on every major newspaper in the nation — "grab 'em by the p***y. You can do anything."
Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie — then a member of the Trump campaign — who was in the room when then-campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks played the video on her laptop was the first one to realize that Trump gave the interview when Melania was three-months pregnant with their now-14-year-old son, Barron. "Trump was quiet. Christie knew what Trump was dreading: facing Melania. 'She was the elephant not in the room,' Christie said. Trump was so embarrassed that, as one person in the room recalled, 'He turned red; red was coming up his neck to his ears. I think he understood early on that it was going to create ramifications for him at home, too,'" the excerpt from the book read.
As the video went viral and Trump's campaign advisers scrambled to somehow put a lid on the story before it could drown his aspirations for the Oval Office, everyone was worried about one thing — Melania's retaliation. "If Melania walked out, the campaign was all but over. If she said she couldn't tolerate her husband's behavior, why should female voters?" the book said.
Hence, everyone urged Trump to sort things out with his wife as quickly as possible. But the POTUS took his own time to prepare to face the mother-of-one. "Everybody was saying, 'You should go upstairs and see Melania. Why don't you go upstairs now and see Melania?' And he was not rushing to go up there," Christie remembered. "I said to him, 'It ain't going to get any easier. The longer you wait, it's not going to get any easier.'"
"That night he seemed frightened to go face his wife," another source told Jordan. The book added: "It took Trump two hours to finally step into the elevator." Sources with knowledge of how the first lady reacted, said that instead of yelling, Melania showed her "fury quietly and deliberately." "Now you could lose," she said to her husband "You could have blown this for us."
Apparently, while most of the members of Team Trump believed that the presidential campaign could do wonders for his brand and reputation, they were not convinced that he could actually secure a win. Melania was one of those very few who "had been telling him he would win." But after the tape was released she "told him his mouth had jeopardized their chance at the White House."
Melania also kept firm on the fact that she did not want to be seen in public with her husband, nor sit down for a televised interview following the Access Hollywood tape fiasco until she was ready to do so. When she did immerse herself in keeping track of how the media opinion was unfolding after the scandal, she did not like the narrative. "As Melania watched the nonstop TV coverage, she was particularly upset by how she was characterized. People said that they felt sorry for her. Poor Melania. That irked her. She was not fragile. She was strong and in control. 'I am putting out a statement,' she said, according to Christie. 'I am not going to sit here and pretend that I don't have an opinion. I have an opinion and people need to know my opinion.'"
Trump had no plans of stopping her but only requested to be allowed to read what she had to say before it was made public. "He understood that his conduct had put her in an embarrassing position and that this was not a woman who was just going to sit there and take it," Christie said. On October 8, 2016, he read her statement - "The words my husband used are unacceptable and offensive to me. This does not represent the man that I know. He has the heart and mind of a leader. I hope people will accept his apology, as I have, and focus on the important issues facing our nation and the world" and declared, "This could have been a lot worse."