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Former first lady Melania Trump is ramping up a media blitz to promote her upcoming memoir, Melania, which hits shelves Oct. 8.
In a series of black and white video clips posted to her social media channels, Mrs. Trump has teased a few of her personal views on hot-button issues such as women’s health care—which seem to be diametrically opposed to those of her husband Donald Trump’s MAGA fanbase.
“Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard,” Melania declares in one clip. “Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth.”
She added, “What does my body, my choice, really mean?”
The New Abnormal hosts were disillusioned with the whole delivery of the message and the messenger.
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“Why couldn’t she have gotten Michelle Obama to read it?” asked co-host Danielle Moodie. “I don’t care, do you?” Moodie added, referencing Melania’s infamous, ill-timed jacket design that seemed to address immigrant families being separated at America’s Mexican border.
“Thank God no one is asking me to read the book,” added Moodie.
Co-host Andy Levy added, “Ya I care about this as much as I care about every time that Ivanka and Jared pretended to distance themselves from something Donald did while in office. Like just shut up and go away.”
Producer Jesse Cannon had a different take.
“I think this has wider implications and smarter strategy than this. Trump is a student of Vladimir Putin’s hypernormalisation theory that if you make everyone confused, and no one believes anything they see and no one knows what the truth is, they vote for the authoritarian,” he said. “And this muddies the waters for thinking [Trump] is squishy on abortion. We saw that JD Vance was doing this during the vice presidential debate too, and they want people to have permission in their brain to say, ‘It’s going to be ok. My daughter is not going to get subjected to all these awful things. Mr. Trump will save us.’”
Plus! ProPublica investigative reporter Ava Kofman and Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC) in Washington, D.C., take listeners on an in-depth look at the rise of Christian nationalism in the United States and its effect on the right-wing.
Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, and Stitcher.
