President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump step off Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Thursday, Dec. 31, 2020. Trump is returning to Washington after visiting his Mar-a-Lago resort. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
By Darlene Superville
Melania Trump said Monday that she is “disappointed and disheartened” by the deadly riot at the Capitol last week by supporters of her husband. But in breaking her silence, she also lashed out at people she said have used the tragic event to spread “salacious gossip, unwarranted personal attacks and false and misleading accusations about me."
The statement marked the first lady's first public comment in the five days since a violent mob of Trump supporters, angry over Trump's election loss and stirred up by the president himself, stormed the Capitol on Wednesday and temporarily disrupted proceedings certifying that Democrat Joe Biden will be the next president come Jan. 20.
“I am disappointed and disheartened with what happened last week,” she wrote in a White House blog post released before sunrise. “I find it shameful that surrounding these tragic events there has been salacious gossip, unwarranted personal attacks, and false misleading accusations on me — from people who are looking to be relevant and have an agenda.”
The first lady did not say who she was referring to. Last week, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the first lady's former friend and one-time assistant at the White House, wrote an editorial accusing Mrs. Trump of being “complicit in the destruction of America.”
Their friendship ended bitterly after Wolkoff, who had worked on arranging festivities for Trump's inauguration in 2017, said the first lady failed to defend her after questions arose about inaugural spending, now the subject of federal and congressional investigations.
In the post on Monday, the first lady said, “This time is solely about healing our country and its citizens. It should not be used for personal gain.”
“Our Nation must heal in a civil manner,” she wrote. “Make no mistake about it, I absolutely condemn the violence that has occurred on our Nation’s Capitol. Violence is never acceptable.”
She also urged people to stop the violence, not judge people by the color of their skin or "use differing political ideologies as a basis for aggression and viciousness.” She made no comment about her husband or his role in encouraging his supporters to go to the Capitol.
The president has spent the weeks after losing the November presidential contest spreading baseless claims that the balloting was tainted by massive fraud and that the election was stolen from him. Numerous state and federal officials, including former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, said there was no evidence of fraud on a scale massive enough to have affected the outcome.
Trump encouraged his supporters to flock to Washington last Wednesday, the day set for Congress to certify the presidential vote. After addressing a rally near the White House in which he encouraged his supporters to keep fighting, they stormed the Capitol.
Five people, including a Capitol police officer, died.
President Donald Trump says a deal struck by Netflix last week to buy Warner Bros. Discovery “could be a problem” because of the size of the combined market share. The Republican president says he will be involved in the decision about whether federal regulators should approve the deal. Trump commented Sunday when he was asked about the deal as he walked the red carpet at the Kennedy Center Honors. The $72 billion deal would bring together two of the biggest players in television and film and potentially reshape the entertainment industry.
Real estate software company RealPage has agreed to stop sharing nonpublic information between landlords as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice.
A legislative package to end the government shutdown appears on track. A handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to advance the bill after what's become a deepening disruption of federal programs and services. But hurdles remain. Senators are hopeful they can pass the package as soon as Monday and send it to the House. What’s in and out of the bipartisan deal has drawn criticism and leaves few senators fully satisfied. The legislation includes funding for SNAP food aid and other programs while ensuring backpay for furloughed federal workers. But it fails to fund expiring health care subsidies Democrats have been fighting for, pushing that debate off for a vote next month.
Sabrina Siddiqui, National Politics Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins to break down the SNAP funding delays and the human cost of the ongoing shutdown.
Arguments at the Supreme Court have concluded for the day as the justices consider President Donald Trump's sweeping unilateral tariffs in a trillion-dollar test of executive power.
President Donald Trump said he has decided to lower his combined tariff rates on imports of Chinese goods to 47% after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on curbing fentanyl trafficking.
The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday for a second time this year as it seeks to shore up economic growth and hiring even as inflation stays elevated. The move comes amid a fraught time for the central bank, with hiring sluggish and yet inflation stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. Compounding its challenges, the central bank is navigating without much of the economic data it typically relies on from the government. The Fed has signaled it may reduce its key rate again in December but the data drought raises the uncertainty around its next moves. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters that there were “strongly differing views” at the central bank's policy meeting about to proceed going forward.
U.S. and Chinese officials say a trade deal between the world’s two largest economies is drawing closer. The sides have reached an initial consensus for President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to aim to finalize during their high-stakes meeting Thursday in South Korea. Any agreement would be a relief to international markets. Trump's treasury secretary says discussions with China yielded preliminary agreements to stop the precursor chemicals for fentanyl from coming into the United States. Scott Bessent also says Beijing would make “substantial” purchases of soybean and other agricultural products while putting off export controls on rare earth elements needed for advanced technologies.
