Donald Trump announced Tuesday evening that his wife will hold a news conference “over the next couple of weeks” to address reports that she violated immigration laws when she first came to the U.S.
Trump said his wife would prove that “she came in totally legally.”
The New York Post last week published nude photos of Melania Trump in 1995, quickly raising questions about whether the former model had obtained the appropriate visa to work as a model in the United States.
The Republican nominee floated the upcoming news conference just hours after he stoked yet another controversy by suggesting that gun owners could take action to stop rival Hillary Clinton from appointing judges who would infringe Second Amendment rights, should she be elected president.
“They said my wife, Melania, might have come in illegally. Can you believe that one?” Donald Trump told his supporters Tuesday. “Let me tell you one thing. She has got it so documented, so she’s going to have a little news conference over the next couple of weeks. That’s good. I love it. I love it.”
Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed to CNN that Melania Trump will indeed hold a news conference, but declined to provide additional specifics on the timing.
Melania Trump told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in February that she came to the US in 1996, but the nude photos were taken in New York in 1995.
She also said in the interview that she “obeyed the law” and “flew to Slovenia every few months to stamp” her visa during her initial stays in the US, before she was able to obtain a green card.
But while tourist visas need to be renewed periodically, the visa Melania Trump would have needed to work legally in the US as a model would not have needed to be renewed for at least three years.
On the stump Tuesday in North Carolina, Donald Trump added that he advised his wife to “let it simmer for a little while” before holding a news conference to correct the record.
“Let them go wild. Let it simmer, and then let’s have a little news conference and have some fun,” Trump said.