MEDIA/MELANIA/SOCIAL MEDIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump, who has long reveled in conspiracy theories, spent at least part of Wednesday [6-6-18] morning lashing out at the news media about its coverage of the first lady, Melania Trump, while in the process repeating the kind of unfounded rumors about his wife that would normally attract legal action from him and his notoriously litigious family. Melania Trump has been missing from the public eye in the three weeks since her five-day stay at Walter Reed National Medical Center to treat what her aides called a benign kidney condition. On Monday [6-4-18] she surfaced for the first time in a closed White House event but on Wednesday afternoon she was scheduled to make a more public appearance at a briefing with her husband on the approaching hurricane season. Mr. Trump marked the event by repeating and denying rumors about the first lady that have spread throughout social media…Last week, at least one reporter noted on Twitter that he’d seen the first lady walking with her aides in the White House, and her office has said that Mrs. Trump has taken several internal meetings during her recovery.”
-Katie Rogers, “Trump Defends Melania Trump and Spreads Conspiracies About Her in the Process,” The New York Times online, June 6, 2018