Trump Keeps Making The Same Joke At Melania's Expense — And Marriage Experts Say It Reveals A LOT About Their Relationship

Brittany WongSun, October 25, 2026 at 11:00 AM UTC

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President Donald Trump isn’t winning any husband-of-the-year awards as he campaigns for Republicans ahead of the midterms.

The president made two speeches last week in which he joked about his wife, first lady Melania Trump, disapproving of two of his signature speech moves: his tendency to act out the debate over transgender athletes and his herky-jerky “YMCA” dance.

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At a rally in Wasilla, Alaska, last Tuesday, Trump brought up how his “elegant” wife thinks he should stop making jokes about trans athletes. He then egged on the crowd, asking them to encourage him to do the impersonation she “hates” but he thinks is “sort of cool.” When the crowd cheered, Trump launched into another one of his exaggerated performances.

Then, at a rally the next day in Bullhead City, Arizona, Trump went on another rant about an unidentified transgender weightlifter before blurting out, “My wife is going crazy with me.”

Melania Trump “hates” these antics, he said, adding, “She said, ‘You’re president of the United States, you shouldn’t be doing this.’”

Undeterred, he then launched into a grunt-filled impression of an athlete hoisting a barbell overhead.

Relationship: Trump Keeps Making The Same Joke At Melania's Expense — And Marriage Experts Say It Reveals A LOT About Their Relationship

The president also said the first lady finds his signature “YMCA” dance a bit unbecoming of the office: “She said, ‘You should walk off with a gentle wave,’” Trump said while mockingly performing her request. “Goodbye, everyone.”

After calling the “YMCA” the “gay national anthem” and claiming the song helped him get the “highest gay vote of any Republican in history,” he got back to ridiculing his wife.

“She said, ‘You should not dance off the stage, my darling,’” Trump went on. “‘I love you very much, but please, don’t do that.’”

Oof. If there’s a dog house in the White House, Trump just might be in it, marriage therapists say.

“Like everything else Trump does, his display at his rally is of course about him, with Melania in this case as the punching bag,” said Amy Begel, a therapist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.

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“His preferred mode of exercising power often comes with doses of cruelty and humiliation, in evidence here,” Begel told HuffPost.

In any relationship ― not just the Trumps’ ― throwing your partner under the bus for the sake of a laugh is a breach of trust, Begel added.

“It’s playing with fire. Just like with Trump, it’s a power play, a game of one-upmanship mixed with humiliation,” she said.

Greg Cason, a psychologist in Los Angeles, California, agreed. Even though he is trying to couch this as a joke or a bit of playful crowd work, there’s a “hostile humor” and mockery in the president’s Melania material that could be read as contempt, he said.

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“He’s not only disregarding a piece of advice she gave to him in private, but then revealing it to an audience and asking them to laugh at it,” Cason said.

Ignoring advice from a partner isn’t itself contempt, but bringing it before an audience for ridicule can certainly communicate contempt, Cason told HuffPost.

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“Recruiting the audience creates a power imbalance in that moment. He appears to be using her for material, not advice,” he said.

Even though the president is trying to couch this as a joke or a bit of playful crowd work, there’s a “hostile humor” and mockery in Trump’s Melania material that can be read as contempt, said Greg Cason, a psychologist in Los Angeles, California.Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images

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It could have been worse; the last time he made the same joke about his wife’s annoyance over his “YMCA” moves, he got in a little quip about her unfamiliarity with American history.

“I said everybody wants me to dance,” Trump told Republican lawmakers in January, recounting a conversation with his Slovenia-born wife. “‘Darling, it’s not presidential.’ She actually said, ‘Could you imagine FDR dancing?’ She said that to me.”

(President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist down due to polio, and took great pains to avoid being photographed in his wheelchair while president.)

“I said there’s a long history that perhaps she doesn’t know, because he was an elegant fellow, even as a Democrat,” Trump joked.

Trump also made a joke at FLOTUS’ expense Monday, this time in front of her face.

The two teamed up on the executive order to establish a task force and a National Institutes of Health division for women. When it was time for Melania Trump to sign the doc, the president drew laughs from the gallery as he joked, “I don’t know if her signature means anything,” to which his wife replied as she signed, “Yours is the most important.”

The advice therapists would give to anyone who “jokes” in a similar fashion.

Unfortunately, this kind of ribbing at your partner’s expense isn’t confined to the White House. The marriage therapists we spoke to said it’s common for people to enlist others in poking fun at their partners.

“I see versions of this all the time with couples,” said Jennifer Chappell Marsh, a marriage and family therapist in San Diego, California, noting that in therapy speak, allowing a third party into your relationship beef is called “triangulation.”

“One partner tells an embarrassing story at dinner, brings up something they know is a sensitive subject, or makes a joke at their partner’s expense,” she said. “Everyone laughs, but the person on the receiving end doesn’t find it funny. They feel embarrassed and devalued.”

If you tease your partner in a similar way to Trump, psychologist Greg Cason’s advice is to stop. “Even if your spouse laughs at it in the moment, stop it!”SAUL LOEB via Getty Images

What often happens is that the partner who feels hurt says something, and the response is, “I was just joking!” But instead of addressing the original hurt, the conversation becomes about whether the person is being too sensitive or can’t take a joke.

“That’s where couples can get stuck. One person feels hurt and dismissed, while the other feels criticized for something they intended to be harmless,” she said.

Over time, these seemingly “small” interactions can create disconnection, “especially when one partner experiences their feelings and boundaries aren’t being taken seriously.”

If you’re Donald Trump ― or tease your partner in a similarly Trumpian fashion ― Cason’s advice is to knock it off.

“Even if your spouse laughs at it in the moment, stop it,” he said. “A laugh in the moment doesn’t necessarily mean your spouse enjoys it; they may just be trying to avoid an awkward scene. If you are in doubt, talk with your spouse.”

Chappell Marsh tells couples that humor is wonderful for a relationship when both people feel included in it. There’s a big difference between laughing with your partner and getting a laugh at your partner’s expense.

At the end of the day, being funny shouldn’t come at the expense of making your partner feel disrespected, Chappell Marsh said.

“If the behavior keeps happening after it’s addressed, then it may signal something deeper such as underlying resentment being expressed passive aggressively through ‘humor,’” she said.

In other words, sorry, “sir” ― no midterm crowd work is worth making your spouse unhappy.

The original version of this story was published on HuffPost at an earlier date.

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