Ask Donald Trump, a man known for putting his family at the centre of his political and business world, if we’ll be seeing more of former first lady Melania on the campaign trail and his eyes will light up.
For a moment.
“I would like to, that’s not the point. This world is horrible for me,” he said six weeks after an assassin’s bullet went through his ear.
“It’s not as bad for Democrats as it is for me. And I wish my family didn’t have to go out and deal with some of the things that, as you know, happen.”
Melania, he said, cares deeply about the country.
Donald Trump sat down with DailyMail.com and spoke about his pride in his family’s role in his campaign, but also his fears about the attacks they have to endure.
“She will do whatever she needs to do, but my children have not been treated properly,” he said. “She has not been treated properly.”
Visiting Mar-a-Lago during the off-season is like sneaking behind the curtain of Trump world. The club is closed until Halloween, while members spend the summer in the less humid air of Europe or California.
Half the lawn has been torn up and reseeded, and terracotta tiles on an outbuilding are being replaced.
But the living room is a hive of activity, the center of Donald Trump’s business and political world.
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a key figure in his administration and 2020 election campaign, leaves the tea room after a business meeting.
Corey Lewandowski, who recently joined the campaign as a senior figure, stands nearby, eyes on his phone.
And Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, walks around with the air of a man who spent part of his childhood growing up among the club’s antique Spanish tiles, arches and heraldic reliefs.
Trump sat down with DailyMail.com on Wednesday as part of a strategy to keep up media pressure on his opponent Kamala Harris, who had by then gone 38 days as the Democratic candidate without giving an interview.
It seemed to be a strategy that was working for him. His fundraising reached record levels and he outperformed Trump in national polls, all without running the risk of getting asked awkward questions.
Trump and his team were hoping for a honeymoon when Democrats abandoned Biden, 81, and he insisted he was happy with the direction his campaign was taking.
Trump got animated when talking about his family’s role in the campaign
The former first lady has appeared sparingly so far. Here she is seen arriving at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in July.
Former President Donald Trump, second right, his wife Melania, second left, their son Barron, center, and father-in-law Viktor Knavs, left, stand in front of the Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea at the start of the funeral for Amalija Knavs, the former first lady’s mother, in Palm Beach, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024.
“You know, they didn’t have a surge at their convention. You saw the numbers,” he said, referring to polls showing Harris didn’t appear to have gained support after a week in which the media focused on Democrats in Chicago.
“And the reason is that he doesn’t want to talk to anyone. Either he can’t explain how he changed every single policy he had, or he’s incompetent.”
He was still buoyed by endorsements from Robert J. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, and dismissed questions about how he would recover from his deficit in the polls.
“It’s been a great month,” he said. “I don’t understand that question.”
Trump rarely gives interviews in the Mar-a-Lago lounge. Its gold-leaf ceiling, inspired by the Accademia in Venice’s “ceiling of a thousand wings,” is a dazzling distraction with its shimmering sunbeams.
The walls are adorned with large embroidered silk panels from a Venetian palace, all acquired by the house’s original owner, Marjorie Merriweather Post, who left it to the nation as a “Winter White House.”
That’s what happened when Trump took office in 2017, hosting world leaders and running his administration between weekend rounds of golf outside Washington.
Trump made headlines in the interview when he said he had reservations about Florida’s six-week abortion law, hinting that he might vote in favor of a referendum to expand abortion access. Two days later, he changed his position.
The interview took place in the spectacular living room, seen here in 1967.
Trump raises his fist as his father speaks at a campaign rally at Trump National Doral Miami, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Doral, Florida.
These days, Trump is too busy to play 18 holes. Instead, with campaigning in full swing, he said he had barely managed to hit a few balls at his golf club in West Palm Beach (about a 10-minute drive away) before sitting down to talk to DailyMail.com.
In the meantime, she’s been experimenting with a new audience, engaging with YouTubers and other types of online “influencers,” thanks to her own in-house Gen Z expert: her 18-year-old son Barron.
“He knows a lot about it,” he said, his eyes filled with fatherly pride. “Adin Ross, you know, I take care of some people that I wasn’t that familiar with, from different generations. He knows them all, and we’ve had tremendous success.”
The livestream with Ross was filmed at Mar-a-Lago and had more than 580,000 live viewers at its peak, making it the third most-watched stream simultaneously on Kick’s platform this year.
Trump struck a relaxed demeanor as he strutted through a playlist in a Tesla Cyber Truck, even dancing with Ross at the end.
He also showed a different side of himself when he appeared on Barron Trump’s favorite podcast, This Past Weekend with Theo Von, at one point discussing the finer points of alcohol and illegal narcotics.
“Is cocaine a stimulant?” the former president asked.
Trump discussed everything from the after-effects of a bullet that went through his ear to politics and the state of the campaign in an exclusive interview
Former President Donald Trump criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for her legal record while appearing with livestreamer Adin Ross on his Kickoff show
Trump was also recently interviewed by Theo Von for his podcast, one of the impacts of Barron Trump’s network of influence in his attempt to court the Gen Z vote.
According to the latest JL Partners/DailyMail.com poll, Trump is trailing his rival among younger voters. The poll found that 32 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds plan to vote for Trump, compared with 48 percent for Harris (though Trump has a two-point lead overall).
But Barron is helping try to bridge that gap by using platforms that were new to Trump, who stumbled over the details when he tried to describe them.
“We did three unusual things… I don’t know what you would call them, but it’s a platform with three people I don’t know, but three people Barron knows very well,” he said.
‘In fact, he calls them all his friends, because they are from a different generation. They don’t grow up watching TV like we do. They grow up watching the Internet or looking at the computer, right?’
Like his protective mother, Barron has appeared sparingly with his father.
Melania has chosen her moments carefully. She received a rapturous reception at the party convention in Milwaukee and issued a public statement after the attempt on her husband’s life, asking people to remember that love is worth more than political differences.
As far as Trump is concerned, it’s one thing for him to take the bullets and the blows, and another for his family to be in the line of fire.
“My kids gave up a lot of things and all they did was get accused of Russia, Russia, Russia and all these hoaxes, you know, misinformation, disinformation,” she said.
“I don’t want them to be affected by the horrible things that Democrats are willing to do.”