Melania's next step after the White House

Melania Trump has done little to dispel rumours of her reluctance to play the game of first lady. Former White House official Omarosa Manigault Newman goes a step further claiming she planned to divorce her husband as soon as she could, postpresidency

- Harriet Alexander

LONDON

If you were a fly on the wall of the White House, where on Saturday would you have wanted to be?

Not watching Donald Trump as he returned home from his golf game: his fury and denial was all too predictable. Not watching Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump: their despondency and growing alarm was equally expected.

The prime spot was certainly wherever Melania Trump was, to watch how she took the news.

On the night of the 2016 election, we know how she felt. “Melania was in tears - and not of joy,” wrote Michael Wolff in his book Fire and Fury, in an account backed up by other reporters.

On Saturday she may well have felt the same – this time, however, with tears of relief. The 50-year-old Slovenian-born model has done little to dispel rumours of her reluctance to play the game of first lady.

Some went further, with former White House official Omarosa Manigault Newman claiming she planned to divorce her husband as soon as she could, post-presidency. “Melania is counting every minute until he is out of office and she can divorce,” she said.

“If Melania were to try to pull the ultimate humiliation and leave while he’s in office, he would find a way to punish her.”

Whether the former reality TV show contestant was close enough to the first lady to know-how she felt was unclear. Ms Manigault Newman was fired from the White House and let after a year, going on to release an explosive memoir of her time there and air recordings she had made inside the Situation Room, in a highly unusual breach of protocol.