- Donald Trump wished his wife, Melania Trump, a very happy birthday.
- He gave the message to the cameras moments before entering the courtroom for his hush-money trial.
- He did not address why Melania has not attended the trial to show support.
It’s better than a Hallmark greeting card.
In front of television cameras and a gaggle of journalists, former President Donald Trump wished his wife, Melania Trump, a very happy birthday Friday morning, moments before he entered the courtroom for his criminal hush-money trial.
“I want to start by wishing my wife Melania a very happy birthday,” he told reporters in the downtown Manhattan courthouse hallway. “It’d be nice to be with her, but I’m at a courthouse for a rigged trial.”
Trump is spending the day in Manhattan’s criminal court, where he is on trial for charges alleging that he falsified business documents to disguise a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
The purpose of the cover-up, according to prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, was to keep the adult film actress quiet ahead of the 2016 presidential election about an affair she says she had with him years earlier.
“She’s in Florida,” Trump said of his wife, who turned 54.
“I’ll be going there this evening after this case finishes up. This horrible, unconstitutional case, when it finishes up.”
Melania Trump had been a no-show on the campaign trail as well, until Saturday, when she appeared at her husband’s side at a Log Cabin Republicans fundraiser held at Mar-a-Lago.
The former president spoke to the press Friday morning surrounded by his lawyers and a mix of aides, including Jason Miller, Boris Epshteyn, and Waltine Nauta.
(Epshteyn was indicted in Arizona this week over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and Nauta is a codefendant in Trump’s Florida criminal case stemming from the taking of government documents.)
Trump did not address why Melania Trump, or any of his other family members, have not attended the trial to support him. Experts previously told Business Insider that her appearance at the trial may help the jury view him sympathetically.
This week, jurors have been hearing testimony from David Pecker, former CEO at the media company that owned the National Enquirer.
Prosecutors for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg have portrayed the Pecker and his supermarket tabloid as an arm of Trump’s 2016 campaign, through “catch and kill” deals that kept Daniels — as well as Karen McDougal, another woman who says she had an affair with Trump — from going public with their stories.
Pecker spent Friday on cross-examination by Trump attorney Emil Bove, who is trying to establish distance between the 2016 campaign and the tabloid.
Throughout the morning, the former magazine magnate agreed repeatedly as Bove asked a series of questions where “Yes” answers help Trump’s defense.
Pecker conceded that at least some of his rationale for running negative stories about Trump’s opponents, particularly Hillary Clinton, was that they sold well.
He also agreed that one reason McDougal’s story never ran was that she had cold feet about publicity.
In direct testimony on Thursday, Pecker said McDougal told him she didn’t want to become “another Monica Lewinsky.”
And as for Daniels, under Bove’s cross-examination, Pecker repeated what he’d said Thursday, that he wanted nothing to do with handling the hush-money payments.
“I am not going to be associated with a porn star,” Pecker had testified Thursday that he told then-Trump attorney Michael Cohen.
Before stepping into court Friday morning, Trump also commented on Thursday’s Supreme Court hearing, where the justices appeared poised to formally recognize that presidents have some form of criminal immunity — though not necessarily in a way that would scuttle some of the charges against him.
Trump said he listened to the arguments Thursday night, after his court day in Manhattan, and “thought it was really great.”
“I thought the judges’ questions were great,” Trump said. “All presidents have to have immunity. This has nothing to do with me, absolutely nothing. All presidents have to have immunity, or you don’t have a president.”
He also complained about the chill in the 15th-floor Manhattan courtroom.
“We have another day in court in a freezing courthouse. It’s very cold in there for one purpose, I believe,” Trump said, without revealing what he believed that purpose to be.
“They don’t seem to be able to get the temperature up. It shouldn’t be that complicated. But we have a freezing courthouse, and that’s fine – that’s just fine.”
The trial is expected to last another month.
