Melania Trump Blasts Vanity Fair As 'Liberal Media' Over First Lady Report

Melania Trump responded Monday to a Vanity Fair article claiming that she didn’t want to be First Lady, basting the magazine as part of the “liberal media.”

“Once again part of the liberal media, this time Vanity Fair, has written a story riddled with unnamed sources and false assertions. As a magazine tailored to women it is shameful that they continue to write salacious and false stories meant to demean Mrs. Trump, rather than focus on her positive work as First Lady as a supportive wife and mother,” said a spokeswoman for Melania Trump in a statement to CNN. “As has been stated on the record many times before, she is honored by her role.”

The article titled “‘She didn’t want this come hell or high water’: Inside Melania Trump’s Secretive East Wing,” detailed Donald Trump’s presidential election through the eyes of his wife. The article published Sunday quotes one unnamed source as saying that Melania Trump did not want to be the First Lady.

“This isn’t something she wanted and it isn’t something he ever thought he’d win,” the source described as Melania’s longtime told Vanity Fair. “She didn’t want this come hell or high water. I don’t think she thought it was going to happen.”

The controversial Republican operative Roger Stone is quoted in the piece as saying that Melania Trump is the reason Donald Trump ran.

“She was very clearly the one who said, ‘Either run or don’t run,’” said Stone.

The article also explores Melania Trump’s journey from Slovenia to New York and her role as First Lady. Melania Trump has remained much more out of the public eye than women who have held the role before her, and she is surrounded by a smaller than usual staff. The First Lady did not speak to the magazine for the piece.

The article quotes others saying that she is not unhappy in the role, but concludes that it appears as if this was something she didn’t want.

“Melania may well have wanted a very different life from the one she is currently leading. In that path not taken, she would be out of the harsh glare that her husband’s campaign and presidency have cast upon her,” writes Vanity Fair’s Sarah Ellison.