What is Melania Trump actually doing?
After her husband's inauguration, she was completely submerged. Now you see the wife of the US President from time to time. What role Melania Trump plays.
She did what she could and smiled a lovely smile, but it wasn't enough to distract the cameramen from her husband. When Melania Trump recently appeared at her husband's side at a charity ball in Florida, it was one of the rare appearances of the Slovenian ex-model in her new role as first lady. But the journalists were particularly interested in the angry face of Donald Trump, who found it difficult to hide his anger at the judiciary's objection to his controversial entry ban.
It was a little sensation that Melania Trump even appeared in Florida that weekend. After attending her husband's inauguration in Washington in January in a blue costume reminiscent of her legendary predecessor Jackie Kennedy, she disappeared from the public eye. Instead of living in the White House, Melania Trump lives in New York's Trump Tower and takes care of her ten-year-old son Barron, who goes to school in Manhattan.
With this decision against Washington and against the public spotlight, she breaks with the tradition of her predecessors. Michelle Obama was the first African American first lady to become a model for millions of women, had a vegetable garden laid out next to the White House to emphasize the importance of healthy eating, and was involved in the election campaign. Laura Bush took care of problems such as illiteracy and cancer. Hillary Clinton was working on health care reforms on behalf of her husband Bill - which no longer came about at the time - and after her time in the White House as a senator, secretary of state and presidential candidate, she herself started a political career.
She has only seen the inside of the White House a few times
Such ambitions seem alien to Melania Trump. Even with the appointment of her own staff in the presidential seat, she takes so much time that the impression arises that she doesn't care too much about her role in the capital, but all the more about her 100 million dollar penthouse in Trump Tower. In Washington, there are now thousands of unfinished business inquiries from celebrities and less celebrities who wanted to be invited to the White House by the First Lady, reported the New York Times.
Melania Trump has only seen the inside of the presidential residence a few times. She chatted with Michelle Obama about life in the White House after the election, and stopped by for tea on the day of her husband's inauguration. The classic tasks of the first lady are currently being done by her stepdaughter Ivanka, whose husband Jared Kushner is an influential adviser to Trump in the White House. Ivanka recently accompanied her father when he received the coffin of an elite American soldier who was killed in an attack on Al Qaeda in Yemen in Delaware near Washington.
Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway called Ivanka - and not Melania - "the most prominent woman" around the president. The 70-year-old himself criticized the decision of the department store chain Nordstrom to take Ivanka Trump's fashion collection out of the range due to a lack of customer interest. Conway publicly urged Americans to buy Ivanka fashion.
“Will Ivanka be the most influential president's daughter in decades?” USA Today asks. Even before Trump was sworn in, Ivanka was more in the spotlight than Melania. The 35-year-old Trump daughter is said to shape the government's public image while her stepmother lives in seclusion in New York. Kate Andersen Brower, author of a book on first lady wives, told the newspaper Ivanka was a key player. "He always answers when she calls," Brower said of Ivanka and her father. "She is his top advisor, he respects her assessments - and she takes the edge off him a little."
While Ivanka's star is rising, attempts by Melania Trump to raise her public profile have not always been successful - perhaps this is also one of the reasons she's holding back. Her speech at the Republican Congress last summer, in which she was supposed to promote her husband as the ideal president, turned into a fiasco because it turned out that she had copied large parts of the speech from Michelle Obama.
Initially, Trump had spread the slogan, Melania and Barron planned regular visits to the capital after he took office. So far, Ms. Trump has rarely made the ninety-minute journey from Trump Tower to the White House. Last Friday, for example, the First Lady was in Washington - but only to jet off to the Trump vacation home in Florida over the weekend with her husband and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie.
With Trump, there are no discussions at the family table
It is unclear how the frequent absence of his wife in everyday life affects the president, who is 24 years his senior. Barack Obama attached great importance to a reasonably normal family life and dinner with his wife and two daughters, even if he then withdrew again to study files. Every now and then, friends and schoolmates of the President's daughters were invited to parties in the White House.
With Trump, there are no conversations at the family table and no visits from friends of his son Barron. In some media reports it is said that the President sits in front of the television until late in the evening or walks through the White House in a bathrobe.
Trump said in an interview that he used the time he would normally spend with his wife to work. According to his own account, he digs through files and templates every day until midnight and gets up at five in the morning to read the newspapers. At least the early start of the day for Trump can be considered guaranteed, because the American public is confronted with new Twitter messages from their president almost every day in the morning hours.
If Melania Trump had hoped that her absence from Washington would give her more peace of mind, then she was wrong. The fact that the president's wife and son have, so to speak, moved into a second residence in New York requires complex - and expensive - measures to protect them. Millions of dollars in tax money would be squandered just because the new President's wife spurned the White House, complain critics. Some media reports said the state gives more a year to personal protection for Melania and Barron than it does to financial aid for the arts, which is $ 150 million a year.
Although this amount is likely to be greatly exaggerated, the criticism continues. In social media, photos are circulating showing Melania surrounded by bodyguards shopping in New York. War veterans have to sleep on the street while the fine lady goes shopping, it is said in angry comments.
It is not just the geographical distance to the White House that is unusual for a first lady. According to media reports, the first lady has thrown herself into a new legal battle against the parent company of the British newspaper "Daily Mail". She demands $ 150 million because she is said to have been linked to an alleged call girl agency by the paper in a report that has since been withdrawn.
The first lady is only slowly putting together her own team
From the point of view of some observers, the arguments that Melania Trump brings to court are not exactly normal: The call girl claims could damage her business interests as "one of the most frequently photographed women in the world," said the Washington Post in court documents the case. Richard Painter, an ethics expert under President Bush, told the newspaper it was the first time a first lady had suggested that she wanted to make a lot of money from her role as first lady.
Meanwhile, Melania's public invisibility is fueling the Washington rumor mill. So far, it has been agreed that the first wife and son Barron will move permanently to Washington after the end of the current school year in the summer. There are now doubts about this plan, according to media reports. Melania may remain in New York for the entire term of her husband's presidency. The gossip magazine "Us Weekly" reported that the presidential couple would not decide how to proceed until the summer.
After all, the first lady is slowly but surely putting together her own team in Washington. So she hired Lindsey Reynolds as her chief of staff at the White House; Reynolds worked in government headquarters under George W. Bush. Niceta Lloyd, who helped prepare for Donald Trump's inauguration celebrations, is to take care of the First Lady's public appointments in Washington.
