KEY POINTS
- Former aide Kellyanne Conway had also said that Trump ‘reserves fear’ for Melania Trump
- A Manhattan grand jury is hearing evidence over Trump’s role in the hush money payments
- O’Brien said Donald Trump has a ‘long history of cheating on his wives’
A Donald Trump biographer claimed that the former president made hush money payments to former adult film actor Stormy Daniels out of his fear of his wife Melania Trump.
Speaking on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” biographer Tim O’Brien said Trump was likely also worried that his marriage with Melania would have “blown up” had it been revealed that he had an affair with Daniels in 2006. The affair happened just months after Melania had given birth to their son, Barron.
“I don’t think he was only worried about his campaign potentially getting blown up. I think he was also worried about his marriage getting blown up,” O’Brien said. “Donald Trump has a long history of cheating on his wives, and I think he was probably more afraid at that point of Melania Trump than he was of the electorate, so he had a motivation to try and get this out of the way.”
O’Brien, who is now a journalist and political analyst for MSNBC and NBC News as well as a senior executive editor of Bloomberg’s opinion desk, wrote the 2004 biography, “TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald.”
O’Brien is not the first person to claim that Trump is fearful of his wife. In November last year, former senior Trump aide Kellyanne Conway made a similar comment while testifying to the House panel investigating the Capitol riot.
“He reserves — he listens to many of us, but he reserves fear for one person, Melania Trump,” Conway said.
O’Brien’s comments come as a Manhattan grand jury is hearing evidence over Trump’s role in the $130,000 hush money payments reportedly made to Daniels at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign — allegations that Trump has previously denied.
Trump critics have pushed for him to face criminal indictments in hopes that it would bar him from running for the presidency again in 2024. Trump, however, has stated that he would continue to run even if he is given an indictment.
Several Republicans who have already endorsed his 2024 presidential bid, including Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., appear to be ready to stick with Trump even if he is hit with an indictment.
“He gets indicted every time he flies over a state,” Tuberville was quoted as saying by the Business Insider. “They’ve been after him, the media has been after him, ever since he’s been running and it won’t change anything for me. I mean, it’s — we got a lot more problems than that.”
Currently, only a guilty conviction on charges related to treason or insurrection could ban Trump from running.
