A jubilant President Donald Trump inadvertently revealed his pet name for his wife Melania Trump during a speech to supporters in Iowa on Thursday, hours after Congress finally passed his “Big, Beautiful Bill.”
Delivering a “Salute to America” address in Des Moines on the eve of July 4, as the United States marks the 249th anniversary of its independence from Britain, Trump leapt from one topic to another and eventually settled on military recruitment.
“I remember saying to our great First Lady…” he began, before stopping to remark: “I call her ‘First Lady,’ isn’t it terrible?”
He continued: “I’m saying “Good night, First Lady, my darling,’ because it reminds me that I’m president, that’s why. I said ‘First Lady, it’s terrible nobody wants to join our military force…”
The president recently held a lavish military parade in Washington, D.C., on June 14, which also happened to be his own 79th birthday, but did not serve in the armed forces himself and has been quoted in the past making derisory remarks about U.S. troops.
The first lady has rarely been seen since her husband returned to the White House in January, although she did attend the parade and the eventful reopening of the revamped Kennedy Center last month and, on Thursday, met patients at the Children’s National Hospital in Washington.
According to The Daily Beast, she told the children: “It’s a very special day. So we will have a big party at the White House… When you feel better, maybe next year, you come over and we’ll celebrate together.”
She also reportedly bonded with them over a shared appreciation of Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter, breaking with the president on Swift, who said he “hated” the pop superstar last year after she refused to endorse his candidacy.
Speculation about the state of the Trumps’ marriage is never far from the headlines and biographer Michael Wolff claimed in May that the couple are effectively “separated.”
“They clearly do not in any way inhabit a marriage as we define marriage,” Wolff claimed. “And I think maybe we can more specifically say they live separate lives.”
Elsewhere in the president’s Iowa speech, he declared that, in addition to Swift, he hates Democrats for opposing his gargantuan tax and spending bill, mocked Iran, suggested farmers could be exempted from his raids on undocmented migrant workers, resumed his attack on New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and caused offense by using an antisemitic slur.
