US first lady Melania Trump delayed her move to Washington after Donald Trump became president to gain leverage in renegotiating her prenuptial agreement, according to a new book.
The White House denounced the book after it became public on Friday.
Mary Jordan, author of The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump, which is to be released on Tuesday, wrote that the 2016 campaign had been rife with reports about Trump’s alleged infidelities and the first lady was learning new details about them from media reports.
Photo: AP
Jordan, a reporter for the Washington Post, wrote that the incoming first lady wanted time to cool off and amend her financial arrangement with Trump to ensure the financial future of herself and their son, Barron.
Melania Trump has said that she wanted to wait until the end of the school year to move to Washington.
Citing interviews with several people close to the Trumps, Jordan wrote that during the campaign, Melania Trump thought a lot had changed since she signed the prenuptial.
She had been with him longer than any other woman, and she believed she had made key contributions to his success, Jordan wrote.
She also wanted to ensure that Barron got his “rightful share of inheritance,” particularly if the president’s daughter Ivanka took the reins of the family business.
The Washington Post said that Jordan conducted more than 100 interviews for her book, including with the first lady’s schoolmates in her native Slovenia and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie.
Stephanie Grisham, a spokeswoman for Melania Trump, said that the book was based on inaccurate information.
“Yet another book about Mrs Trump with false information and sources,” Grisham said in an e-mailed statement. “This book belongs in the fiction genre.”
The first lady and Barron, who was 11 at the time, settled into the White House in early June 2017, and she seemed visibly happier by mid-2018, the book said.
“According to three people close to Trump, a key reason was that she had finally reached a new and significantly improved financial agreement with Trump, which had left her in a noticeably better financial position,” Jordan wrote. “Those sources did not know precisely what she sought, but it was not simply more money.”
Jordan wrote that Melania Trump wanted “proof in writing” that Barron would be treated more of an equal to Trump’s oldest three children when it came to financial opportunities and inheritance.
A Philippine boat convoy bearing supplies for Filipino fishers yesterday said that it was headed back to port, ditching plans to sail to a reef off the Southeast Asian country after one of their boats was “constantly shadowed” by a Chinese vessel. The Atin Ito (“This Is Ours”) coalition convoy on Wednesday set sail to distribute fuel and food to fishers and assert Philippine rights in the disputed South China Sea. “They will now proceed to the Subic fish port to mark the end of their successful mission,” the group said in a statement. A Philippine Coast Guard vessel escorting the convoy was
DISPUTED WATERS: The Philippines accused China of building an artificial island on Sabina Shoal, while Beijing said Manila was trying to mislead the global community The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) is committed to sustaining a presence in a disputed area of the South China Sea to ensure Beijing does not carry out reclamation activities at Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Reef), its spokesperson said yesterday. The PCG on Saturday said it had deployed a ship to Sabina Shoal, where it accused China of building an artificial island, amid an escalating maritime row, adding two other vessels were in rotational deployment in the area. Since the ship’s deployment in the middle of last month, the PCG said it had discovered piles of dead and crushed coral that had been dumped
Experts have long warned about the threat posed by artificial intelligence (AI) going rogue, but a new research paper suggests it is already happening. AI systems, designed to be honest, have developed a troubling skill for deception, from tricking human players in online games of world conquest to hiring humans to solve “prove-you’re-not-a-robot” tests, a team of researchers said in the journal Patterns on Friday. While such examples might appear trivial, the underlying issues they expose could soon carry serious real-world consequences, said first author Peter Park, a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology specializing in AI existential safety. “These
The most powerful solar storm in more than two decades struck Earth on Friday, triggering spectacular celestial light shows from Tasmania to the UK — and threatening possible disruptions to satellites and power grids as it persists into the weekend. The first of several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — expulsions of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun — came just after 4pm GMT, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center. It was later upgraded to an “extreme” geomagnetic storm — the first since the “Halloween Storms” of October 2003 caused blackouts in Sweden and damaged