A former Donald Trump staffer, who tried to rubbish speculation about Melania Trump during a Fox News interview, has revived a suspicious claim about the former First Lady’s talents.
Monica Crowley, the former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, appeared on The Ingraham Angle on Wednesday, criticizing a recent story in The New York Times about Melania’s choice of dress at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser on Saturday.
The article scrutinized the significance of Melania’s fashion choice: “a covered up black Michael Kors pantsuit with a leather belt wrapped tightly twice around her waist.”
Getty Images/Drew Angerer
Crowley, while discussing media scrutiny of Melania’s outfits, began rattling off a list of the former First Lady’s talents and credits.
“You know Sigmund Freud’s old and very famous saying: ‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar’? Sometimes a chic, gorgeous black suit is just a chic, gorgeous black suit,” Crowley said.
“Mrs Trump looks absolutely beautiful in anything. She is highly accomplished, she is fluent in five languages, and yet they always have to try to find something to bludgeon her because by extension they are trying to hit her husband, of course.”
However, the claim that Melania Trump knows five languages has been scrutinized for some time. On X, formerly Twitter, political commentators Decoding Fox News, wrote the day after Crowley’s appearance that “there’s no evidence that Melania is fluent in five languages.”
Newsweek has examined what we know about Melania’s linguistic prowess.
Is Melania Trump a polyglot?
Melania told MSNBC in February 2016 that she spoke “English, Italian, French, German.” Alongside her native Slovenian, that makes the five languages Crowley referred to. While it’s also been claimed that she can speak Serbian, Newsweek could not find Melania claiming that herself.
This self-reported talent has been taken at face value but there’s little evidence that confirms it.
There are a few videos of Melania meeting French and Italian speakers but not much can be heard beyond general stock phrases, with her otherwise relying on a translator or speaking in English.
For example, in 2019 fact-checkers Snopes found one video of her speaking to Pope Francis in which she appeared to require an Italian translator. Other video footage of her visiting hospitalized children in France and Italy shows her only using simple greeting phrases, otherwise speaking in English.
As pointed out by Snopes during her visit to a children’s hospital in Rome in 2017, as she entered the room, she used the phrase “Come stai?” meaning “How are you?” However, this is an informal greeting for an individual, not a group.
While Newsweek found other clips of Melania speaking to world leaders and foreign delegates, none of them clearly show which language they are using. There does not appear to be other footage of her speaking proficiently in languages other than English.
It’s understood that Melania continues to speak Slovenian. In a 2016 BBC interview, Natasa Pinoza, former Miss Slovenia, recalled meeting Melania at Miss Universe in Los Angeles. Despite being prepared to speak to her in English, Pinoza said, “She spoke back to me in Slovene.”
A 2020 biography by journalist Mary Jordan, The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump, also found no evidence of Melania speaking languages beyond English and Slovene. Jordan has said, however, that Melania’s son Barron speaks Slovenian and that she, her mother, her father, and Barron do so together.
All of this is not to say that Melania does not speak these other languages, but there still isn’t enough evidence to prove it.
Newsweek has contacted media representatives for Melania Trump via a contact form for comment.
Where is Melania?
Despite the publicity surrounding the former president, both from his trials and political campaigning, Melania has infrequently been seen in public.
The fundraiser on Saturday at Mar-a-Lago marked her first major political event of 2024. As she turned 54 on Friday, Donald Trump wished her “Happy birthday” from the Manhattan courthouse where he is standing trial.
Trump is accused of falsifying business records to hide a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, so the adult film star would keep quiet about a rumored affair ahead of the 2016 general election.
Trump allegedly had a one-night stand with Daniels in 2006, while Melania was pregnant with the couple’s son, Barron Trump. However, the former president has refuted the claims, along with denying the 34 felony counts against him.
The trial began on April 15, and Melania has yet to be seen in the courtroom.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.