Reluctant First Lady

A reluctant First Lady, Melania Trump has remained aloof from her husband’s third campaign for the US presidency although he announced his re-election bid in mid-November. She finally spoke up in May when she told Fox News Digital, “My husband achieved tremendous success in his first administration, and he can lead us toward greatness and prosperity once again. He has my support, and we look forward to restoring hope for the future and leading America with love and strength.”

Writing in The New York Times on Aug.1, Lisa Lerer and Katie Rogers said, “Unlike her predecessors, there are no plans for a speaking tour, a book, or a major expansion of her charitable efforts” which are not made public. They quote Kate Andersen Brower, the author of “First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies” who summed up Melania Trump: “She’s the most obviously unknowable first lady. There’s something radical about it. First ladies are expected to want to please people and I’m not sure she really cares.” Winning over and pleasing voters is what political campaigns are meant to achieve.

In 2019, during her husband’s first impeachment trial in the Senate, she posted images of fashionable clothing on Instagram rather than her opinions on what was happening. She distanced herself from his second impeachment trial in 2021 after his term ended. While he was glued to television news coverage, she went about her daily routine at Mar-a-Lago. A source familiar with her day told CNN, “She goes to the spa, has lunch, goes to the spa (again) and has dinner with Trump on the patio.”

This being the case, it is hardly surprising that she has not accompanied him during his three recent court appearances and indictments for alleged wrongdoing. Instead, she has remained at home in the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida where, allegedly, she and his youngest son Barron have been deciding which universities might suit him.

Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty for falsifying his company’s books, paying a porn star hush money from company coffers about their relationship, retaining classified documents after leaving office, and threatening US democracy by unsuccessfully trying to subvert the result of the 2020 presidential election which he lost to Joe Biden. The last is the most serious allegation which could carry a prison sentence if he is found guilty on one or multiple counts. He still faces possible indictment in Georgia where he tried and failed to convince election officials to give him 11,000 votes so that he could defeat Biden in that swing state.

In addition to these indictments, he faces charges of assaulting and defaming columnist E. Jean Carroll, charges which reveal a specific pattern of behaviour.  

Sources have told People magazine that Melania Trump shuns the limelight — which nourishes her husband — and prefers to remain in the background while he battles charges in these cases. While he loves greeting crowds of supporters, she opts to say at home where she can interact with family and friends when she pleases.

Following his April arraignment for cooking company records he thanked members of his family for standing by him but excluded Melania who, reportedly, remains angry over the porn star affair which occurred during their marriage and soon after their son was born.

After the Jan.6 attack on the Capitol which was carried out by Donald Trump’s followers, she did not make a statement condemning the violence for five days. If she decried the assault, her husband and his base would criticise her. If she stayed silent, she implied support. So, she did nothing. She took the easy way out.

To maintain peace between them, she follows his example. For instance, she initially decided to go to Biden’s inauguration — which is traditional for ex-presidents — but refrained because her husband boycotted the event.

During Donald Trump’s tempestuous term in office, his wife’s low-key behaviour in the White House contrasted sharply with the energetic approach of Jill Biden who set up a large support staff and gave interviews to popular magazines. George H. W. Bush’s wife Laura was interviewed by six publications during her husband’s two terms in office; Barack Obama’s first lady Michelle more than a dozen. Melania Trump gave no interviews to national publications. She was concerned over her privacy, hesitant use of English, and the possibility of replying wrongly to questions she would have to answer.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Melania Trump’s senior adviser during her first months in the White House told CNN that “it was not that the country wasn’t interested in reading about Trump, it was that the fiercely private first lady was not interested in allowing the public to get to know her.” At events she attended, she did not answer questions. She blames her staff, editors, others rather than herself for her lack of popularity.

She left the White House with a favourability rating of 42 per cent — with 12 per cent of respondents uncertain of their view — and an unfavourability rating of 47 per cent. Her positive ratings were lower than those of recent predecessors. Her highest positive rating was 57 per cent.

Since she is a small-town woman from a small country, Melania Trump may feel out of place in massive metropolises in the vast US. Melanija Knavs was born in 1970 in Novo Mesto, a Slovenian town with 24,000 inhabitants which was then a part of the former Yugoslavia. After modelling children’s clothing at five, she eventually adopted this difficult and highly competitive profession but was never hired by top fashion houses. In 1995, a friend of Donald Trump who ran a modelling agency in New York persuaded her to emigrate to the US where she struggled to find regular high-end jobs. She met Trump in 1998 at a party and began dating while he was divorcing his second wife. They married in 2005 and their son was born in 2006. She gave her full support to her husband’s 2016 presidential campaign but did not play a major role although this is usual among candidates’ wives. Perhaps, by that time she suspected that Donald Trump could become the most controversial president in US history.