Melania Trump, this little-known First Lady
One year after the inauguration of Donald Trump, the American First Lady remains an enigmatic figure.
Who is Melania really? A year after the inauguration of Donald Trump, his wife, the first American First Lady of foreign origin for 200 years, remains one of the most enigmatic personalities of the White House.
Unlike her predecessors, from Barbara Bush to Michelle Obama, married for years to elected officials, nothing prepared this 47-year-old ex-model of Slovenian origin, with a pronounced accent, for plunging into the hot political bath of Washington.
"All these First Ladies had had time to prepare to take on this role" but not Melania, "the first wife of a tycoon to parachute into the White House", underlines Jeanne Zaino, professor of political science at Iona College in New York. In this context, "the mere fact that she has not committed a major misstep is already a performance", she believes.
Chaotic beginnings
The early days of the elegant Melania were chaotic, however. Especially since she waited five months to follow Donald Trump to Washington, the time for their son Barron, 11, to finish the school year in New York, fueling speculation about his refusal to take on the role of Premiere lady as on her relations with the president, 24 years her senior. So much so that many saw in Ivanka, eldest daughter of the president, the “real First Lady”.
Many taunts accompanied his debut, in the wake of his speech at the Republican convention in the summer of 2016, because of Michelle Obama's plagiarism. But also after his exit from the White House in high heels to go to Texas after Hurricane Harvey in August or for his denunciation of "cyber-bullying" (intimidation on the internet, editor's note) an evil that many accuse Donald Trump of practice, thus undermining his wife's legitimacy.
Speculation about her relationship with the president continues to pursue her, fueled until recently by the explosive book by Michael Wolff, who claims they are separate rooms in the White House.
"She is not a politician and never wanted to be"
"The world has not been kind to her," said Paolo Zampolli, an old friend of the couple from New York, who introduced Melania to the real estate mogul in 1998.
"She is not a politician and never wanted to be (...) But she wants to succeed in this new role" and "is already doing it better and better", he estimates, citing his exits. applauded with her husband in Saudi Arabia, the Vatican and Paris, or her "Jackie Kennedy" elegance with the Netanyahu spouses or the Chinese presidential couple in Florida.
In fact, Melania's popularity is on the rise: 54% of Americans had a favorable opinion of her at the beginning of December, 17 points better than in January 2017, even though her husband continues to displease 56% of his fellow citizens. , according to a Gallup poll.
A cautious exercise in her role as First Lady
However, her popularity remains lower than that of previous First Ladies, in particular because of her reluctance to fully seize a good cause: in addition to cyber-bullying, she has been sensitive to the cause of children and to the opiate epidemic which is wreaking havoc in the United States, but without making any concrete proposal.
And she has remained silent on the #Metoo movement to denounce sexual harassment. Here again, her husband is in the hot seat as he is accused of having harassed several women in the past.
“To find a First Lady as enigmatic as Melania Trump, you have to go back to the late 1940s, early 1950s,” with Bess Truman, underlines Katherine Jellison, historian at Ohio University. “Americans don't feel like they really know her yet. She keeps a low profile, (…) is less present on social networks than her predecessors, and also because there is a lot of speculation about her relations with the president, ”underlines this specialist in First Ladies.
A "very intelligent woman"
Melania, who has only slowly recruited the staff to which she is entitled, will she reveal herself in the coming months?
According to her spokesperson Stephanie Grisham, she is preparing "an initiative for the next few months" focused on "the well-being of children", without further details.
"It seems that we are dealing with a very intelligent young woman who had not planned to play this role and has not yet completely decided what she wants to do with it," said Ms. Zaino. "Just like Princess Diana, she could end up finding her way and surprise everyone."
