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Melania Trump, who could become the first foreign-born first lady in modern American history, defended her husband’s harsh rhetoric on immigration Wednesday.
The wife of GOP front-runner Donald Trump insisted her husband has no beef with Mexican-American immigrants — despite calling for a wall to stop illegal border crossings and calling some Mexicans “criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etcetera” over the summer.
“No, I don’t feel he insulted the Mexicans,” Melania Trump told MSNBC in a taped interview that aired on “Morning Joe” on Wednesday. “He said illegal immigrants. He didn’t talk about everybody. He talked about illegal immigrants. And after a few weeks — like after a few weeks, like after two weeks — of giving him hard time and bashing him in the media, they turned around and said, ‘Do you know what? He’s right. He’s right what he’s talking about’ and he opened [a] conversation that nobody did.”
Melania Trump chatted with MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski in the couple’s apartment in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
Trump’s wife, a native of Slovenia who came to the United States in 1996 to work as a model, would be the first immigrant since London-born Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams — wife of John Quincy Adams, sixth US president — to become first lady.
“I followed the law,” she said. “I never thought to stay here without papers. I had [a] visa. I traveled every few months back to the country, to Slovenia, to stamp the visa. I came back. I applied for the green card. I applied for the citizenship later on, after many years of [holding a] green card.”
She added, “So I went by [the] system. I went by the law, and you should do that. You should not just say, ‘OK, let me just stay here and whatever happens, happens.’ ”
The 45-year-old beauty, Trump’s third wife, also embraced her husband’s view of Muslims.
Following the San Bernardino massacre in December, Donald Trump called for a blanket halt on Muslims entering the US.
“Well, what he said is it will be temporary and it’s not for all the Muslims,” Melania Trump said.
“We need to screen who’s coming to the country. He wants to protect the people of America so we have a country and keep the country safe.”
She said she and her husband realized his presidential run would bring out critics.
“We’re prepared for that. We know people will judge him and call him names. They don’t give him enough credit,” she said.