Ex-US President Donald Trump told his wife Melania to move around their Mar-a-Lago mansion in a bikini so other men could see ‘what they were missing’, according to a leaked audio.
Trump allegedly shared the account with Australian billionaire businessman Anthony Pratt, whose secret recordings were obtained and reported by 60 Minutes Australia and The New York Times.
Pratt, who became friendly with Trump and has been interviewed by special counsel Jack Smith, said in the recording that Melania was sitting next to Trump during dinner at their Mar-a-Lago resort.
‘He said, “I asked Melania to walk around the pool in a bikini so all the other guys could get a look at what they were missing,”‘ said Pratt.
‘Then Melania said back to him, “I’ll do that when you walk around with me in your bikini.”
Peter Hartcher, political and international editor at The Sydney Morning Herald which also partook in the investigative reporting, then commented in the episode: ‘It certainly confirms for us and reminds us that Donald Trump is quite happy to demean his own wife in front of other people.
‘And is that that the kind of character you want in your next president?’
A Trump spokesman didn’t confirm or deny the reports but told The Times that the information came from ‘sources which totally lack proper context and relevant information’ and slammed the special counsel’s office.
Trump himself did not address the specific comment on Melania but denied the claims of the report as a whole.
‘The Failing New York Times story, leaked by Deranged Jack Smith and the Biden “Political Opponent Abuser” DOJ, about a red-haired weirdo from Australia, named Anthony Pratt, is Fake News,’ wrote Trump on his Truth Social platform.
Trump also denied Pratt’s claims that the ex-president shared potentially classified information on US nuclear submarines in a Mar-a-Lago visit a few months after he left the White House.
Melania has remained largely out of the public view since her husband, the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nominations, was hit with four indictments.