“Melania at Risk? Joy Reid Warns Trump’s Move Could Backfire”

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Lib­er­al fire­brand and for­mer MSNBC star Joy Reid is drag­ging First Lady Mela­nia Trump into the immi­gra­tion debate sparked by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s alleged plans to denat­u­ral­ize cer­tain US cit­i­zens.

On a recent episode of ‘The Joy Reid Show’, Reid was joined by Demo­c­rat Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jaya­pal, where the pair sound­ed the alarm over Trump’s push to strip some Amer­i­cans — par­tic­u­lar­ly nat­u­ral­ized cit­i­zens — of their cit­i­zen­ship.

Joy Reid tar­gets Mela­nia Trump

While dis­sect­ing a Depart­ment of Jus­tice memo instruct­ing agents to “pri­or­i­tize denat­u­ral­iza­tion” of indi­vid­u­als who “pose a poten­tial dan­ger to nation­al secu­ri­ty,” Joy Reid said she thinks this is a slip­pery slope that could seri­ous­ly back­fire on the First Fam­i­ly.

Reid argued it sets a “dan­ger­ous prece­dent” and could give future pres­i­dents unchecked pow­er to boot out peo­ple they sim­ply don’t like. That’s when she zeroed in on Mela­nia Trump, who wasn’t born in the US.

If we ever get a Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­dent, they could say, ‘I don’t like Mela­nia Trump. She wasn’t born here. She was born in Slove­nia. She is a nat­u­ral­ized cit­i­zen. She’s out­ta here,’” Reid said.

First lady Mela­nia Trump reads to chil­dren dur­ing the White House Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House on April 21, 2025 in Wash­ing­ton, DC (Anna Moneymaker/Getty

Reid sub­se­quent­ly not­ed that Ivana Trump — Trump’s first wife, who died in 2022 and is famous­ly buried at his New Jer­sey golf course — also wasn’t a US cit­i­zen. “And maybe the next Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­dent says, ‘You know what? I don’t like the Trumps. And so we’re gonna denat­u­ral­ize all of the Trump chil­dren, whose moth­er was a for­eign­er at the time,’” Reid added.

She even called out Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Rubio’s fam­i­ly his­to­ry. She brought up how Rubio’s grand­fa­ther immi­grat­ed from Cuba, only to be deport­ed for enter­ing the US with­out a visa

The for­mer MSNBC host blast­ed Trump’s entire denat­u­ral­iza­tion rhetoric as “monar­chial-like” and asked how far such a pol­i­cy could go.

Joy Reid was excoriated on social media for her comments

But not every­one was clap­ping. Joy Rei­d’s remarks did not sit well with many on social media.

“Did Trump’s vic­to­ry give them brain dam­age or were they always this dumb?” one post­ed on X

Melania Trump’s ‘Einstein Visa’ and her husband’s immigration crusade

Mela­nia Trump arrived in the US in 1996 on a visitor’s visa, lat­er obtain­ing a work visa as she pur­sued her mod­el­ing career. Accord­ing to a 2018 Wash­ing­ton Post inves­ti­ga­tion, she began the process of becom­ing a US cit­i­zen in 2000, around the time she start­ed dat­ing Trump

She land­ed a green card in March 2001 through the elite EB‑1 pro­gram, known infor­mal­ly as the “Ein­stein visa” — a track typ­i­cal­ly reserved for indi­vid­u­als with “extra­or­di­nary abil­i­ties.” Appli­cants usu­al­ly need to show top-tier accom­plish­ments, and the visa is typ­i­cal­ly giv­en to the top two per­cent in a par­tic­u­lar field.

US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, pic­tured with First Lady Mela­nia Trump as he arrives to speak dur­ing an elec­tion night event at the Palm Beach Con­ven­tion Cen­ter on Novem­ber 06, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Flori­da (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

That said, immi­gra­tion has been a top Trump talk­ing point from day one of his return to the White House. Now, his admin­is­tra­tion appears to be float­ing the idea of revok­ing nat­u­ral­ized cit­i­zen­ship alto­geth­er

Mean­while, Trump has also toyed with the idea of deport­ing nat­u­ral­ized cit­i­zens who hap­pen to also be his polit­i­cal ene­mies — includ­ing tech bil­lion­aire and his for­mer ‘first bud­dy’ Elon Musk and New York City Demo­c­ra­t­ic may­oral can­di­date Zohran Mam­dani.

This arti­cle con­tains remarks made on the Inter­net by indi­vid­ual peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions. MEAWW can­not con­firm them inde­pen­dent­ly and does not sup­port claims or opin­ions being made online