Hillary Clinton says Melania Trump reminded her of “a little kid” when she came face-to-face with the fellow former first lady for the first time after losing the 2016 White House race.
The encounter, Clinton recalled in her latest book, “Something Lost, Something Gained,” came last year at a memorial service for Rosalynn Carter.
“Rosalynn’s grandson Jason said it had been her wish that all the First Ladies would come together for her memorial in a show of unity in these divisive times,” Clinton wrote in the book, which was released Tuesday.
“If anybody at the White House or on Bill’s or my Secret Service detail had been briefed on Mrs. Trump’s plan to attend, they didn’t tell me,” Clinton, 76, wrote in the book.
“Now, here she was, standing alone as Laura [Bush], who’d looked to be chatting with Melania when the rest of us walked in, stepped away to say her hellos,” Clinton recalled.
“Melania had a look on her face – very smiley but uncertain – that reminded me of the little kid at the birthday party who doesn’t know anyone and is waiting at the edge of the circle, hoping people are going to be nice,” the former secretary of State said.
“We were. We all went up to her,” Clinton said of the group of former first ladies, along with President Biden.
“Jill air-kissed her cheek, and Michelle Obama gave her one of her signature big hugs,” Clinton recalled.
“[Former President Clinton] tried to make conversation, asking her how she was, but he was met with a smile and few words. I reached out, shook her hand, and said, ‘Hello, Melania, it’s nice to see you.'”
“I can appreciate how awkward it must have been, not knowing what kind of reception she would get after all her husband’s insults directed at us Bushes, Bidens, Obamas, and Clintons alike,” the former New York senator said.
Clinton wrote in “Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty” that she “never quite knew what to make of the third Mrs. Trump” and found herself “conflicted” by her.
“On a gut level, I have never believed that a wife bears responsibility for the actions of her husband. But did she aid and abet her husband’s worst instincts?”
“Was she quietly complicit in his bigotry and hate-mongering?” Clinton wrote, before referencing a headline-making and controversial clothing item Melania Trump wore while traveling to Texas in 2018 to visit a migrant child detention center.
Trump’s “army-green jacket with ‘I really don’t care. Do u?’ boldly scrawled” on the back “sure seemed on brand for Donald Trump,” Clinton wrote.
“As for Melania Trump, I’ll stick to my own edict of not passing judgement on another woman’s appearance. We get too much of that already.”
Clinton said she attended Donald Trump’s 2005 nuptials to Melania at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida “out of curiosity.”
“I was going to be in Florida anyway and thought it would be entertaining to see what a Donald Trump wedding was like. It was the first time I met Melania, and I just remember that she was young, very beautiful, and very tall,” Clinton said of the now 54-year-old former model.
“And that she didn’t talk much, at least to me.”
A spokesperson for Melania Trump didn’t immediately return ITK’s request for comment.
Clinton knocked news coverage of the memorial service, which she described as suggesting a “female rivalry” between the group of first ladies based on their body language.
Some media outlets, Clinton said, never stopped “to consider that perhaps the five of us First Ladies didn’t enter the sanctuary all smiley and sociable, like we were walking into a chick-flick matinee, because, you know, we were at a funeral.”
But Clinton also defended the former president’s spouse at one point in her memoir, when critics called Melania Trump’s decision to eschew a traditional black outfit and instead sport a grey coat at the funeral in Atlanta “distasteful and gross.”
“Let’s get real. The Victorian-era tradition of donning black for funerals has gone the way of the edict against wearing white after Labor Day. Jason Carter wore a gray suit to deliver a tribute to his ‘cool grandma.’ President Biden was in blue. As far as I can tell, neither of them got any flak for it,” Clinton said.
“Was I really feeling some sympathy for Melania Trump after all the ugliness and turmoil the Trump family had heaped on the nation, the world, and my own family the past several years? I won’t go that far,” Clinton said.
“But in my view, what Melania wore to pay tribute to Rosalynn (who herself was pointedly critical right back at the Trumps) was perfectly appropriate, and I was sorry that Melania got slammed for something so petty.”
—Updated at 11:53 a.m.
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