In her first interview in more than two years, former first lady Melania Trump blamed Democrats and the media for fueling “a toxic atmosphere” that led to attempts on her husband’s life.

“Is it really shocking that all of this outrageous violence goes against my husband?” Melania told Fox News’s Ainsley Earhardt in the recorded interview, which aired in segments across the three-hour “Fox & Friends” program Thursday morning. “Especially that we hear the leaders from the opposition party and mainstream media branding him as, threat to democracy, calling him vile names? They only fueling a toxic atmosphere and giving power all of these people that they want to do harm to him.”

Melania Trump, who was appearing on the show to promote her upcoming memoir, “Melania,” has seldom been seen in public since Trump declared his third run for the presidency 22 months ago — a campaign during which the former president has called his political adversaries “vermin” and “the enemy from within.”

The former first lady hasn’t been a visible part of the campaign so far, save for Trump’s announcement of his candidacy at Mar-a-Lago in November 2022 and a fundraiser in Palm Beach in April. She made no appearances in any of the courtrooms where her husband has faced charges, and wasn’t at the New York courthouse in May on the day the former president was convicted on charges related to hush money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. Melania appeared for only the final night of the Republican National Convention, where she joined her fellow Trumps in the VIP box but did not make a speech.

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And so her Fox News interview was a rare event — one in which Melania Trump was not only seen, but heard.

The former first lady said she learned of the assassination attempt in July while watching television at home (which one, she didn’t say). That attempt, at a televised rally in Butler, Pa., left Trump bloodied from an ear wound after a gunman fired at him from the roof of a nearby building. “I didn’t really see it live live, but maybe, you know, three minutes, few minutes later,” she told Earhardt. “But when I saw it, I, you know — it was only nobody really knew yet. Because when you see him, on the floor and you don’t know — you don’t know what really happened.”

She said she spoke to Trump sometime after he’d been taken to the hospital but didn’t share the details of their conversation. The “very difficult” part, she said, was telling Barron what had happened. “He was outside playing sport and he rushed in,” she said.

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The assassination attempt was huge news, prompting coverage of both the event and the would-be assassin — a 20-year-old man whose motives remain unclear to investigators. (In an August update, the FBI said that after analyzing five years’ worth of the shooter’s online activity he displayed “no definitive ideology . . . either left-leaning or right-leaning,” and appears to have acted alone.)

Melania nevertheless criticized the media for not reporting more on that assassination attempt. “There were a few days [of] reporting about July 13th event and then everything became quiet,” she said. “So I had a lot of questions. What’s going on? This is not normal.”

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She was in New York City for the more recent alleged attempt on her husband’s life, which occurred at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Fla., and was thwarted by a Secret Service agent securing the area ahead of where Trump was playing. (Federal authorities have charged a North Carolina man, who may have once supported Trump but later became a critic of him online, with attempting to assassinate the former president.) Again, Melania learned of the news on television. “I think both of the events, they were really miracles, if you really think about it,” she said. “July 13th, it was a miracle. Like, that much and he could, you know, he could not be with us.”

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“I think something was watching over him,” she added. “It’s almost like the country really needs him.”

With regard to her minimized role at the Republican convention, which occurred days after the earlier assassination attempt, Melania told Earhardt, “It was my decision.” The former first lady noted that the letter she’d written the day after that close call — which condemned the would-be assassin as “a monster who recognized my husband as an inhuman political machine” — served the same purpose as any RNC remarks she would have made. “In one way, that letter was my speech,” Melania said.

Melania’s relationship to her husband’s political career has long been an object of fascination. While the former president is loath to disappear from the spotlight, both in person and online, Melania’s social media posts had been sparse this election year, reserved primarily for commemorating holidays and occasionally hawking her jewelry and ornament collections. Then, at the end of August, Melania began promoting her book. Suddenly, the former first lady who’d declined to speak publicly since her husband left office had a lot to say.

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In early September, Melania began posting a series of videos, most of them featuring her speaking directly to the camera in soft focus. The first, posted Sept. 5, seemed to serve as a mission statement for the memoir.

“As a private person who has often been the subject of public scrutiny and misrepresentation, I feel a responsibility to clarify the facts,” she said.

In subsequent videos, she recounted the FBI’s search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago as an invasion of her privacy (“This is not just my story — it serves as a warning to all Americans”) and questioned how vigorously police tried to stop the July assassination attempt (“I can’t help but wonder, why didn’t law enforcement officials arrest the shooter before the speech?”).

More recently, she posted a video defending her modeling career. “Why do I stand proudly behind my nude modeling work?” Melania narrated over a slide show of famous artworks of naked people. “The more pressing question is: Why has the media chosen to scrutinize the celebration of the human form?”

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Each video ends with a graphic of the book and the web address of where to buy it.

“I want to put the record straight,” Melania told Earhardt of her decision to write the book. “People can learn some things about me that they were never discussed.”

She elaborated on some of her recent posts, saying that the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago made her “angry” — “I saw unpleasant stuff that nobody wants to see it.” Earhardt didn’t ask about Melania’s nude photographs, but Melania shared that the fashion industry prepared her for being first lady. “Everybody judges you, look at you [a] certain way,” she said. “… It gives you a thick skin.” She had emigrated from Slovenia to the United States in 1996, to pursue her modeling career, and met Trump two years later.

Earhardt asked what it was like when Melania found out she would be the first lady: “I don’t know that it hits you, but you know that you have extra, extra responsibility,” she said. She noted that she enjoyed getting to know French first lady Brigitte Macron (“she’s fun, we always have great laughs,” Melania said) and Akie Abe, the wife of the slain prime minister of Japan (“I’m so sorry what happened to him,” Melania said).

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Despite her scant presence in the campaign, Melania nevertheless took a moment to stump for her husband. “The country is suffering,” the former first lady said, arguing that the economy, the border, and national security were all better under Trump’s leadership. “The American people need to decide what they really want.”

“Maybe some strong tweets,” she conceded of her husband, “but everything else, great for this country.”