Former President Donald Trump told Kristen Welker in a soon-to-be-released interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he made the decision to keep former First Lady Melania Trump off the campaign trail for him, because he would rather not have her subjected to attacks, reported The Daily Beast on Friday.
“Honestly, I like to keep her away from it,” said Trump, according to the news report. “It’s so nasty and so mean.”
This comes after the former president dodged questions about Melania in an interview with Megyn Kelly, saying that "the beauty is that mystery."
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Melania, who often came under criticism for shying away from normal duties of the First Lady, reportedly was eager to leave the White House and has rarely been in the public spotlight since then. Trump was greeted with a "Where's Melania?" banner earlier this month at a campaign stop in Iowa.
Other reporting suggests that Melania is enraged at the former president for his affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2006, which was the focus of an alleged hush-money payment brokered by the former president and his one-time attorney and so-called "fixer" Michael Cohen.
That case is currently being prosecuted as business fraud by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.