President Trump tweeted on Tuesday morning that his wife, first lady Melania Trump, "truly loves what she is doing," and claimed that she told him before the election, "if you run, you will win." Trump's tweet seems to be in response to a recently published Vanity Fair article which reported that Melania did not want to be first lady at all, nor did she believe that Trump could win the 2016 presidential election.
On Monday, the office of the first lady told CNN in a statement that the Vanity Fair story was "riddled with unnamed sources and false assertions" and insisted the first lady remains "honored by her role." While some of the story's more juicy quotes ("She didn't want this come hell or high water. I don't think she thought it was going to happen.") are indeed from anonymous sources, other quotes from named sources, including political strategist Roger Stone, paint a portrait of a wife who is supportive of her husband's goals, if reluctantly. "She said, 'It's not my thing. It's Donald's thing.' And I think she understood he was going to be unhappy if he didn't run," Stone reportedly told Vanity Fair.
Despite Trump's claim to have never doubted his ability to win the presidency, New York Times White House reporter Maggie Haberman notes that Trump reportedly considered dropping out of the election if his numbers fell too low.
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