Why Did Melania Trump Really Swat Donald Trump's Hand?
Since her departure from the White House in January, former First Lady Melania Trump has become very quiet, covertly alternating her days between Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster, depending on the time of year. In many ways, her retreat from public life is another form of the status quo for a FLOTUS whose reputation during her husband's presidency was largely built on her absence from the public — but in other ways, it's a little off.
Ever since ex-President Trump threw his gauntlet into the madness of the 2015 GOP primary, Melania's aloof nature and silent, seemingly unblinking smiles spurred seemingly endless conjecture — was she happy, or in trouble? The "Free Melania!" meme went forth and prospered. Every gesture was parsed as a possible code. Among the latter was the infamous 2017 hand swat, in which Melania was caught on video lightly slapping away her husband's hand — which, per CNN, many took as a sign of disdain for her husband, and perhaps a symbolic disdain for the policies he stood for.
Of course, in hindsight — and with the aid of tell-alls written about Melania and the inner-workings of the Trump administration — we now know the "Free Melania!" mindset was more of a projection of the public's attitudes towards President Trump and his cohort, rather than an accurate understanding of Melania herself. But the question remains: why did she swat Donald Trump in the first place?
The infamous swat was supposedly due to Melania's concern with 'protocol' -- but there's more
According to SheKnows, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham's new memoir, "I'll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House," sees the former staffer explaining the infamous 2017 hand-swatting incident to be something other than Melania Trump finding her husband — or his politics — to be unlikable.
"For those who care to know, Mrs. Trump 'slapped' her husband's hand away that day because she thought it was against protocol to hold hands at such a formal ceremony," Grisham wrote of the viral moment (via SheKnows), which occurred shortly before the Trumps were to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara Netanyahu, after disembarking Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport (via CNN).
Even so, Trump's attempts at hand-holding were also performed by Melania out of, perhaps, a small sense of spite, per Grisham. "He often tried to hold her hand or messed with her hands on purpose in front of the camera to irritate her," Grisham also clarified in her book. As SheKnows noted, this is hardly the first hand-swat made by Melania on the books — she appeared to do the same on five separate occasions, all of which were documented or recorded in some way.