Controversial former White House aide during Donald Trump’s administration, Anthony Scaramucci, says Melania Trump secretly hopes Kamala Harris beats her husband in November’s election.

Nicknamed The Mooch, Scaramucci, 60 – who was fired after just 10 days as communications director when Trump assumed office in 2017 – told the MeidasTouch podcast host Ben Meiselas that Melania “hates” her husband.

Maintaining a conspicuous absence on the campaign trail to look after her son, Barron, 18, and not being by Trump’s side during his various courtroom dates since he left office in 2021, Melania’s commitment to the marriage has long been publicly questioned.

Even Melania-ologists claim she won’t live in the East Wing full time if Trump wins a second term as president.

‘The Melania standard’

In an interview on the election race between Harris, 59, and former president Trump, 78, Scaramucci claimed “nobody wants [Harris] to win more than Melania Trump”.

“That could be the only person I think of … because she hates him.

“I judge the hatred of Donald Trump by the Melania standard  … my wife hates Trump as much as Melania.”

Scaramucci, now an American financier with his own The Rest Is Politics: US podcast, was on a roll, saying there was one other person who “hated” Trump more than the former first lady.

As former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and highest-ranking military official in the US, retired General Mark Milley held talks with Chinese officials after the January 6 riots to assure them the US was not under attack.

Trump suggested Milley deserved execution for “an act so egregious”, he wrote on his Truth Social account.

“I’ve met one person that actually hates Trump more than Melania,” he told Meiselas’s three million followers.

“That’s General Milley … he’s the only guy I’ve met so far that actually hates him more than Melania.”

Milley spoke to CBS last year saying he “wished those comments had not been made” and had taken measures to ensure his safety and that of his family.

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Melania also hates Washington

During Melania Trump’s four-year residency in the White House, she famously made it known on several occasions she wasn’t really invested in the whole ‘First Lady’ job.

There was the confusing ‘I really don’t care. Do You?’ $39 Zara army-green jacket she wore while visiting a child migrant detention centre in 2018, and the damaging “who gives a f–k about Christmas?” leaked tape and her blood-red corridor of Christmas trees.

Hand-slapping the President. Looks of disdain and eye-rolling captured on camera at public events. Living in a separate suite. Smiling as she arrived back in Palm Beach wearing a kaftan after Trump left office.

Kate Andersen Brower, who has written several books about first ladies, told Axios in July Melania was “distancing herself even more from her husband and from the Washington social political scene”.

“I mean, she clearly hated being in Washington.”

New York ‘my home’

And clearly loves being in New York.

On August 28, Melania shared a cryptic post on her Instagram about “my home” New York, marking the 28th anniversary of her arrival in town (she also spends time at their Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for events).

Dedicated to Barron, with whom she reportedly speaks Slovenian, she’s also releasing her memoir, Melania, six weeks before the presidential election on November 5.

It promises to reveal “the serendipitous meeting with Donald Trump, a chance encounter that forever changed the course of her life”, writes the Amazon.com pre-order blurb.

As for how she will chronicle the years since they married in 2005 at Palm Beach is unknown, but she will share “behind-the-scenes stories” from her four years in the White House.

Deal rumours

This year, Melania has been seen with Trump a handful of times, including at a Palm Beach ballot box for the Florida primary in March and at the home of billionaire investor John Paulson in Palm Beach for a fundraiser in April.

In June, an insider told Page Six she struck a deal with her husband not to move back to the White House full time if he was re-elected.

“Melania has made a deal with her husband that if he wins the presidency she will not have to be on first lady duty 24/7.

“She does not want a non-stop schedule of events in the White House, and makes the point she can be both a hands-on mother and First Lady at the same time,” it wrote.

In July, she joined him on stage for after his speech at the Republican National Convention.

Many accused her of “dodging” his kiss.