Melania Trump Was Critical Of Donald Trump’s Handling Of Covid, New Book Claims

A new book claimed that former First Lady Melania Trump worried that her husband Donald Trump was "blowing" the U.S. response to coronavirus. But he apparently told her that she worried too much.

According to CNN, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser wrote in their new book "The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021" that Melania was "rattled by the coronavirus and convinced that Trump was screwing up." The former First Lady shared her concerns with former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Trump ally, in a phone call. She sought his help to persuade her husband to take it more seriously.

Baker and Glasser wrote in their book that Melania told her husband that he was "blowing this." She apparently said that it was serious, and it would "be really bad, and you need to take it more seriously than you're taking it." The book's authors said that Trump had reportedly just dismissed her saying, "You worry too much. Forget it."

9News reported that when it came to responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, it was Trump's most trusted advisers who were encouraging him to do more. It was particularly in the early days of the pandemic when Trump appeared nonchalant about the severity of the crisis.

As death tolls went up in America, he mocked mask-wearing. He suggested disinfectant injections and sunlight treatments to fight coronavirus, reported Business Insider. In 2020, he held a September Rose Garden ceremony. It was to announce Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, but it became known as a superspreader event.

Soon after the event, Trump and his wife announced that they had contracted coronavirus. Polling was done around that time and it showed most Americans thought that Trump didn't take appropriate precautions for his health or the risk of getting infected seriously enough.

In February 2020, he acknowledged in an interview with author Bob Woodward for the book "Rage" that the virus was "deadly." He said that it was more dangerous than the flu. A month later, he told Woodward that he wanted to always play it down, and said that he still liked playing it down, because "I don't want to create a panic." Soon after that, he said that he wanted the US "opened up and just raring to go by Easter."