Melania Trump Goes On Offensive for Her Husband

Melania Trump has kept a low profile since the GOP convention, but she's suddenly taking a more aggressive role on behalf of her husband. In interviews with CNN and Fox News, the wife of Donald Trump said she has accepted his apology over the language he used in his recent hot mic scandal, suggested he was egged on by host Billy Bush, and characterized it as "boys' talk." As for the women accusing her husband of sexual abuse, "they don't have any facts." Some excerpts:

• "I said to my husband that, you know, the language was inappropriate. It's not acceptable. And I was surprised, because that is not the man that I know." (To Anderson Cooper of CNN.)
• "Those words, they were offensive to me and they were inappropriate. And he apologized to me. ... I accept his apology. And we are moving on." (To Ainsley Earhardt of Fox.)

• Her husband "was led on—like, egged on—from the host to say dirty and bad stuff." (CNN)
• She said she'd never heard her husband talk like that. "No, that's why I was surprised, because I said like I don't know that person that would talk that way, and that he would say that kind of stuff in private." (CNN)
• It's "boys' talk," she said. "The boys, the way they talk when they grow up and they want to sometimes show each other, 'Oh, this and that' and talking about the girls. But yes, I was surprised, of course." (CNN)
• On the tactic of dredging up Bill Clinton's past: “They're asking for it. They started,” she said. "They started from the beginning of the campaign putting my picture from modeling days." (To Fox News.) Nude images of Melania Trump appeared in the New York Post, and another surfaced in an ad by a super PAC backing Ted Cruz.

(Billy Bush has been fired by NBC.)