Who Paid Melania Trump Almost a Quarter-Million Dollars?

Melania Trump got a big check to speak at a political event—but whoever paid it isn’t known to the public.

CNN reported Monday that the former first lady received $237,500 to speak at an April event for the Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative LGBTQ group, according to her husband Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosure form. But the president of the group, Charles Moran, told the network that the Log Cabin Republicans didn’t pay her.

Melania Trump has rarely appeared publicly during her husband’s 2024 presidential campaign, but has spoken at two political fundraisers held by the Log Cabin Republicans. The other fundraiser was held in July, and an unnamed source told CNN that a request was made to a political donor about another payment. It’s not clear if Trump was paid for that appearance, and the former president has not released a financial disclosure covering that time frame.

Former ambassador to Germany and Trump ally Ric Grenell reportedly made the request on behalf of the former first lady, and has helped her with other business ventures in the past. This kind of payment to a presidential candidate’s spouse to appear at political events is not normal and ethically questionable. If the money came from somewhere other than where the disclosure form states, the former president may be in legal trouble.

The former first lady was paid $250,000 by the Log Cabin Republicans for an event in December 2022, one of three such payments she received that month for speaking appearances. Donald Trump’s disclosure forms show that she made $330,000 in the past year for a licensing agreement for NFT trading cards, and her book, Melania, is due to be released next month.

It seems that Melania isn’t missing any opportunities to make money, similar to her husband. The former president has also sold NFT trading cards, as well as his own branded Bibles and assassination-themed sneakers, and engaged in a cryptocurrency scam. Maybe the first lady wants to make sure she’s financially covered regardless of whether her husband returns to the White House. The question is how ethically questionable the source of her latest benefactor must be for it to be kept a secret.

Donald Trump’s attempt to grab another electoral vote and complicate Kamala Harris’s efforts to win the presidential election may have just hit a wall.

A conservative effort to change how Nebraska awards its Electoral College votes was shot down Monday by Republican state Senator Mike McDonnell, who said he won’t support any changes to the state’s unique system. In a statement, McDonnell said, “After deep consideration, it is clear to me that right now, 43 days from Election Day, is not the moment to make this change.”

Nebraska is one of two states (the other is Maine) that award one Electoral College vote to the winner in each congressional district and two more votes to the winner of the state’s popular vote. Republicans sought to make Nebraska’s Electoral College votes a winner-take-all system, in an effort spearheaded by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Last week, Graham met with Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen and more than a dozen Republican state lawmakers, including McDonnell, to push a bill that would change the state’s vote allocation system in the Electoral College. Much of Nebraska leans Republican, with the exception of its 2nd congressional district, which includes the Democratic-leaning city of Omaha, represented by McDonnell.

It appears that McDonnell’s opposition will doom the effort, which would have taken away a critical Electoral College vote for Harris and the Democrats. Nebraska’s legislature has 33 Republicans, 15 Democrats, and one progressive, registered nonpartisan. So far, 17 legislators have pledged to vote “no” on changes to the electoral law, including McDonnell, according to the Nebraska Democratic Party. In Nebraska, 33 votes are required to overcome a filibuster.

If Nebraska would’ve changed its electoral vote allocation, it would have pushed Maine to try and do the same to make up for the loss, since it delivered one vote to Donald Trump and three to Joe Biden in 2020. But Maine’s laws prevent any such changes so close to Election Day. It seems that yet another of Trump’s election schemes has been foiled.

Kamala Harris’s campaign doesn’t intend to let Donald Trump simply walk away from his second debate with the vice president. They plan to humiliate him over it. 

The Democratic National Committee has planned a series of static and mobile billboards to follow Trump around the country that attack him for his cowardly behavior, NBC News reported Monday. The billboards depict the former president in a chicken suit beside the words, “There’s no debate: Donald Trump’s a chicken.”

The first billboard is set to appear outside of Trump’s rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Monday. A pro-Harris study group at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where Trump is scheduled to speak, will send inflatable chickens, according to NBC News.  

The DNC’s foray into psychological warfare comes after Harris accepted CNN’s invitation to  appear in another presidential debate on October 23. Trump claimed on Saturday that it was “too late” for another presidential debate because early voting had already begun in some states. 

At a Democratic fundraiser in Manhattan on Sunday, where Harris raised $27 million according to her campaign, the Democratic nominee taunted Trump for avoiding another face-off. 

“My opponent seems to be looking for an excuse to avoid when he should accept,” said Harris. “I feel very strongly that we owe it to the American people and to the voters to meet once more before Election Day and continue the conversation.”

According to polling from the The Washington Post, Harris saw a slight improvement compared to Trump following the debate on September 10. 

In an 2023 interview with The New Republic, George Conway suggested that this kind of localized ad campaign would be the perfect way to make Trump go crazy. “The more he gets attacked the more he will talk about things he shouldn’t be talking about,” Conway said. “I think you could even get him thrown into jail, by running the right ad.”

Donald Trump’s cozy relations with Middle Eastern leaders are causing him to bleed support.

The backlash began after the Republican presidential nominee took to Truth Social Sunday to share some of the details of his recent caucus with foreign heads of state at Mar-a-Lago, reported RawStory.

“It was great seeing my friends His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Amir of Qatar and His Excellency Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, Prime Minister of Qatar at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida,” Trump wrote.

“The Amir has proven to be a great and powerful leader of his country, advancing on all levels at record speed,” he continued. “He is someone also who strongly wants peace in the Middle East, and all over the world. We had a great relationship during my years in the White House, and it will be even stronger this time around!”

But Trump’s MAGA followers weren’t appreciative of his buddy-buddy relations with the Middle Eastern rulers, whom some critics pinned as antisemitic for their country’s positions against Israel.

“Come on President Trump. We luv ya, but I don’t think the hostages and families are thrilled about Qatar hosting the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist freaks!” wrote one user who identified as a “constitutional conservative.”

Other users questioned why Trump would be spending one-on-one time with supposed opponents to the Jewish state when there were still hostages in Gaza. Qatar has been hosting the unsuccessful negotiations between Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire in Gaza.

“Qatar? Are funding and housing Hamas leaders, WTF are you doing,” wrote another Truth Social user. “You can meet with the devil, but you don’t bargain with him in your home!”

But other users saw the far-right revelation as an early predictor for November, suggesting that such relationships could cost Trump the race.

“Hey Don. You should really start watching your mouth. It’s going to cost you the presidency,” wrote another user on Sunday.

Representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, was attacked Monday for supposedly claiming that Michigan’s attorney general is going after pro-Palestinian protesters solely because she’s Jewish. The only problem is, Tlaib never said anything of the sort.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, posted on X Monday addressing Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer while alleging that Tlaib had made an antisemitic statement about Attorney General Dana Nessel. Nessel is pursuing charges against pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan, alleging some had assaulted police officers and engaged in ethnic intimidation.

Greenblatt wrote, “When your attorney general prosecutes people for violating the law, harassing Jews, and attacking police officers, it’s in the interest of public safety. When a congresswoman accuses the attorney general of prosecuting protestors simply because she’s Jewish, it’s bias.”

In his post, Greenblatt linked an article published by Jewish Insider Sunday, which discussed an interview of Whitmer earlier that day on CNN. Host Jake Tapper had asked Whitmer to respond to Tlaib’s so-called argument that Nessel was “only doing it because she’s Jewish.” It’s unclear what Tapper’s source was for such a claim.

Whitmer declined to respond, saying, “I’m not going to get in the middle of this argument that they’re having.”

The Jewish Insider article stated that Tlaib “has also claimed that Nessel is only charging the protesters because she’s Jewish.” As evidence, that article repeatedly linked to yet another article, this one from the Detroit MetroTimes—which included no quote from Tlaib referring to Nessel’s Jewishness at all.

Nessel’s religious background was only mentioned as part of the description from the article’s author, who wrote, “Tlaib also criticized Nessel, who is the first Jewish person elected Attorney General of Michigan, for what she believes is a biased approach to the protest.”

A closer look reveals that Tlaib’s statement was not about Nessel being Jewish but about systemic anti-Palestinian bigotry.

“We’ve had the right to dissent, the right to protest,” Tlaib said, according to the MetroTimes. “We’ve done it for climate, the immigrant rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs. But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs.”

It should surprise no one that Greenblatt is attempting to blur the lines here. The ADL has reportedly held that all pro-Palestinian demonstrating is equivalent to antisemitism, even though it is often carried out by Jewish protesters and usually serves as a condemnation of the policy decisions of Israel, rather than the personhood of its Jewish citizens.