Russian State TV Mocks Melania Trump’s Return With Risqué Flashback

President Putin’s media network had a little fun at Melania Trump’s expense, congratulating her on her husband’s reelection by airing a series of saucy nude photos that were taken during her time as a model.Anchors for the state run show “60 Minutes” on Russia-1, husband-and-wife team Yevgeny Popov and Olga Skabeyeva, reported on President Trump’s reelection, but quickly veered into the absurd when they aired the sultry photos, including shots she took for a GQ Magazine spread in 2000.“Now that Melania Trump’s husband has finally won, she is getting ready to come back to the White House for a second time. Here is how Melania looked in the year 2000. This is the cover of the magazine GQ,” Mr. Popov said during the segment. His wife, Ms. Skabeyeva, was visibly fighting back laughter.“The future first lady lies on top of furs in a negligee. Inside the magazine, Melania’s sexy photos near a private plane and aboard the plane. In one of the shots, the model is wearing only her underwear, lying on a blue carpet with the U.S. seal, as though the editors of the men’s magazine knew something in advance about the future of their model.”The state TV show “60 Minutes” on Russia-1 focused on Melania Trump’s modeling photos. Via XThe rhetoric displayed on the show often carries a heavy pro-government tone and an anti-Western stance and is known to be a spreader of Russian propaganda and misinformation.The segment was highlighted in a post on X by Daily Beast Columnist and creator of the watchdog website Russian Media Monitor, Julia Davis.“Meanwhile in Russia: this is how the most watched state TV channel in the country welcomed Melania Trump’s upcoming return to the White House,” she said in a post of the video. “Olga Skabeeva is trying not to laugh. This was probably her idea.”Mrs. Trump was discovered by a Slovenian photographer when she was 16 years old and signed with an Italian-based modeling agency a few years later, working in Milan, Paris, and Milan in the 1990s and early 2000s before marrying Trump in 2005.The nude photos from the GQ cover shoot first made the rounds during her husband’s first bid for the presidency in 2016. Mrs. Trump defended the racy pics and her modeling career during that time and even as recently as this past September on her X account.“Why do I stand proudly behind my nude modeling work?” she asked in a promotion video she posted for her recently released memoir.“The more pressing question is, why has the media chosen to scrutinize my celebration of the human form in a fashion photo shoot? Are we no longer able to appreciate the beauty of the human body?”

Russian State TV Mocks Melania Trump’s Return With Risqué Flashback

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