Melania Trump is still a mystery
Four years later we don't know much more than we did before she became first lady: but two upcoming books try to make her more three-dimensional
One of the most commented speeches at the US Republican Party convention, underway these days, was that of President Donald Trump's wife, First Lady Melania Trump. Unlike most other speakers, Melania Trump cited the suffering caused by the coronavirus pandemic to hundreds of thousands of families, urged Americans to "put themselves in others' shoes" in the face of protests against racism, and more generally he offered - albeit without great interpretation - an empathic message very different from the aggressive tones of the other Republican speakers.
It is not the first time that Melania Trump has surprised journalists and observers. "Even after four years as first lady, Melania Trump remains an enigma," headlines an opinion published yesterday by the Washington Post. Two books coming out in the United States could provide some more elements to better frame the relationship between Melania and her husband and her mandate as first lady.
The first is titled The Art of Her Deal - a quote from the title of Donald Trump's most famous book - and was written by respected Washington Post journalist Mary Jordan. It is an unofficial biography of Melania Trump, published speaking with dozens of people who know her or have had contact with her among collaborators, friends, relatives and colleagues. The advances published by the newspapers offer a more multifaceted picture of the fame that Trump has built in recent years, reinforced by thousands of memes and teasing on social media.
Melania Trump was born in Slovenia in 1970 as Melanija Knavs. After a brief modeling career, she began dating Donald Trump in 1998, when he was still married to his second wife Marla Maples. The two married in 2005. A little over a year later their only son, Barron, was born. In the following years, Melania Trump devoted herself above all to Barron's growth and some entrepreneurial activities: in the years preceding the election of her husband, she launched a line of jewelry and a series of beauty products.
Unlike the first ladies who preceded her, Melania Trump had no experience in the new role of wife of a very important politician. In the first year of her mandate, he made eight speeches in all, compared to Michelle Obama's 74. On the rare occasions when she showed up with her Trump she spoke very little about her, while the various videos in which she rejected her husband's hand during public occasions went viral. Meanwhile, newspapers continued to publish information about her husband's extramarital affairs with porn star Stormy Daniels and former model Karen McDougal. Her apparently expressionless face captured by some of her photos was associated with the hashtag #FreeMelania, as if she were therefore a victim of her marriage.
Hello, darkness, my old friend #FreeMelania pic.twitter.com/9436zO7lA8
— Vadim Schick (@vadimjhu) February 6, 2017
Over the years his public outings have just become more frequent, and since 2018 he has coordinated a campaign called Be Best to discourage cyberbullying, which has never managed to climb the administration's priority list (perhaps also due to lack of credibility. Trump himself, who often behaves exactly like a bully on social networks).
Excited to honor history & celebrate the future in our beautiful @WhiteHouse Rose Garden this evening. Thank you to all who helped renew this iconic & truly gorgeous space. pic.twitter.com/ggiqLkdGbw
— Melania Trump 45 Archived (@FLOTUS45) August 22, 2020
Yet, according to Jordan's book, Melania Trump has always had a certain relevance in Trump's inner circle, so much so that she discusses some important political choices with him: for example, the choice to nominate Mike Pence for vice president after a weekend spent together to him and his wife Karen, or to partially abandon the very harsh rules imposed against the children of irregular migrants, who for some months were systematically stolen from their parents. According to Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey and considered one of Trump's closest people, very often Melania Trump is the first person her husband calls after a meeting, and with whom he discusses the things just said.
But from Jordan's book there also emerges a figure with a degree of autonomy higher than that visible on the surface. During the first months of the Trump administration, which spanned New York, Melania renegotiated her prenuptial contract to better fix the position of her and her son, relying on the fact that her husband had for her new public image. desperately need a first lady. "You wanted to put in writing that in terms of financial opportunities and inheritance, Barron will be treated on an equal footing with Trump's other children," namely Donald Jr, Eric, Ivanka and Tiffany, Jordan wrote.
Jordan's book also cites the fact that Melania Trump taught her son Barron to speak Slovenian, a language that practically nobody understands outside of Slovenia, in order to have a channel of communication with him and his parents (who have moved at the White House). Melania spends most of her time with her family and her collaborators, with whom she recently renovated the Rose Garden, a garden built by John F. Kennedy in 1962 and used by presidents for institutional conferences or meals of work.
A second book coming out these days has added another layer of complexity to her character. It's called Melania and Me and it's written by one of Melania Trump's former best friends, event planner Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. The book contains a story of the relationship between the two women, abruptly interrupted in 2017 after the accusations of some people very close to the Trump, who insinuated that Winston Wolkoff had profited from the inaugural ceremony of the Trump administration (of which she was the main organizer). .
The New York Magazine published a rather itchy excerpt from Winston Wolkoff's book, in which, among other things, Melania Trump sarcastically calls Ivanka, her husband's eldest daughter, "princess", and which shows that once she arrives at the White House, Melania Trump has distanced herself from many people who were a part of her previous life - it is not clear whether out of loyalty to her husband, or to adjust to the new role, or simply to cut ties with the past - inevitably ending up earning her life. public image of a recluse. Journalist Olivia Nuzzi writes:
One thing you notice when writing about Melania is how small her world is. While her her husband maintains relationships with a vast network of friends, semi-friends, confidants, rivals, co-workers and people she has fired and hired and fired again, the first lady speaks to a few people and trusts very few.
It is one of the reasons why, despite her, she usually does the traditional tasks of a first lady that help to give a warm and feminine image - visiting hospitals, hugging sick children - she projects a certain coldness and impenetrability. […] To humanize a public figure who doesn't like the press, you need someone who knows them: sources that can draw a picture of a person under the surface. But the narrowness of Melania's circle prevented that from happening.
There is her family - her teenage son, her parents, her sister, who form a separate bubble from the Trump family - and a small group of friends she frequented in New York. Notice the way the press has dealt with her over the past five years: very few people have said anything about her or have made us understand what kind of person we are dealing with.
