The legacy of Melania Trump: scandals, enigmas and absences
Melania Trump, who will leave Washington on the day of Biden's inauguration, will be remembered as a first lady who arrived late to the White House and left prematurely.
Melania Knauss Trump came to her role as America's first lady as an enigma. No one knew how the former Slovenian model who became Donald J. Trump's third wife would adjust to a role that Michelle Obama redefined.
Even when Melania Trump's husband ignored the traditions of her predecessors, she initially tried to follow in the footsteps of her predecessors after arriving in Washington from New York months after the president: hired staff, spoke about child care in her capacity She was a mother of a young son and found causes to support while the attention she received was often for the designer outfits she wore to public appearances.
But as the years went by, her efforts lost momentum, harmed by a series of shows promoted by her husband and also by the public relations disasters that she caused and the hostility that she felt from the media. Like the president, he began to pay less attention to traditional courtesies: perhaps the most memorable episode of this disinterest was when an audio was released in which he said, in a foul way, that he could not stand the Christmas decorations of the White House .
In a state that White House officials called a surprise after the November 2020 election, the first lady joined her husband in insisting that he had actually won. But by the New Year she was already looking for a house in Florida and when a mob attacked the Capitol and the president's false accusations were finally silenced, she was already emotionally absent.
She did not contact the incoming first lady, Jill Biden, to coordinate transition matters, nor did she make any effort to offer her a tour of the White House, as outgoing first ladies are used to. Instead, Melania Trump focused on packing up the White House even as her husband tried to stop time.
After enduring four years of turmoil - reports of her husband's infidelity, a kidney problem that required hospitalization, and never-proven rumors that she was not living in the White House - what was most memorable in the end is how different Melania Trump seemed from her husband and how similar she turned out to be.
Last week, when the country was reeling from the Capitol unrest, Trump used his platform in part for revenge.
He regretted the gossip that had spread about her, which confused most of her, who did not understand what he meant about her. It turned out that he was alluding to Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former collaborator who published an unflattering memoir about her relationship and who released recordings of her conversations.
Winston Wolkoff had written an opinion column in which she denounced Trump after the January 6 riot, an article that hardly anyone had noticed until she drew attention to him. As first lady, Trump issued more statements on Winston Wolkoff than almost any other topic.
A spokeswoman for Melania Trump did not respond to questions Tuesday.
"I find it shameful that around these tragic events there have been lewd gossip, unjustified personal attacks and false and misleading accusations against me, by people who have an agenda and who seek to be relevant," Melania Trump wrote in a published statement. on the official site of the White House.
On Monday, Melania Trump's tone had changed in a video that would be her farewell. She promoted her first lady tenure and the platform she created, Be Best, and once again asked the rest of the country to uphold the same ideals that her husband has ignored for four years.
"Use every opportunity to show consideration to other people," Trump said. “I ask all Americans to be ambassadors for Be Best at every opportunity. May you focus on what unites us, may you rise above what divides us, may you always choose love over hate, peace over violence, and others over yourself. "
The first lady's friends say that she is a better person than the country could perceive, that at times she tried — but failed — to be a moderating influence on her husband, and was upset by how she handled the couple's final months in the White House.
"Melania is and will continue to be the most popular of the Trumps," Kellyanne Conway, the former adviser to the president, said in an interview. “She will use her platform for the good of others. As first lady she was fully engaged, but she was not overexposed. There is still curiosity and mystery around her ”.
Publicly, however, she has shown a side that critics found frustratingly cruel and, like her husband, dramatically self-indulgent. In 2018, upon returning from a visit to a border town in Texas where she had an encounter with detained migrant children, Melania Trump made her most explicit fashion statement by wearing a jacket with a phrase stamped on the back: “I really don't care. and you?". Months later, Trump tried to justify choosing her in an interview, only to say that she was "the most harassed person in the world" during a bug-ridden trip to Africa. Her reputation never recovered from that episode. Although at various times during her husband's presidency, Melania Trump enjoyed higher popularity ratings than he did, these bursts of popularity never lasted long.
"I think she never came out of the shadow of her husband for various reasons," said Katherine Jellison, a history professor at Ohio University who studies first ladies. "The times she tried to define an identity more independent of him just didn't seem to have staying power."
Trump never felt comfortable in Washington, those who know her said, and it showed. She entered the presidency fearful of the personal safety risks that she involved, her friends said, and that was how she defined her relationship with the American people. Her efforts to recruit her staff were strained at first; She briefly considered Kayleigh McEnany to be her spokesperson, but Melania Trump didn't like her, government officials said at the time.
Instead of forging lasting relationships in Washington, Trump always seemed to perceive her status as temporary, and he liked her move only insofar as it made her teenage son Barron happy, family friends said. .
"I think she was a reluctant first lady and that she did it for her husband," society publicist R. Couri Hay, an acquaintance of Melania Trump in New York, said in an interview. After leaving Washington, they will see that she will be even less visible and less available. "
In the end, if she is not remembered for her physical and emotional distance from her, Melania Trump's most enduring contributions may have been the cosmetic changes she oversaw in the White House.
The updates were to make life in the presidential residence more functional for the first family and their guests, though not for visitors from the public: one of their decisions was to record the White House bowling balls with the phrase: “The President's house ”.
In a message posted on the White House website Monday, Melania Trump said that during her time at the White House, she ordered an elevator restoration, wallpaper repair in the family dining room, and in the midst of the pandemic , the remodeling of the Garden of Roses.
Melania Trump will continue to employ a White House counselor, Marcia Lee Kelly, to assist her in the post-presidency, but for now, she is focused on finding a suitable place to settle in the Jupiter, Florida and Palm Beach area, according to people with knowledge of the search. And her involvement with the presidency has not ended: She is expected to collaborate with the design of Trump's presidential library, which the president has described as a job for his wife and her eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump. .
But on Wednesday, leaving Washington, Melania Trump risks being remembered as the first lady who arrived late to Washington and left prematurely, in every way.
"At best she is the reluctant first lady," Hay said. "Frankly, I think the United States should just let her go."
