What is Melania Trump doing as First Lady?
Like the wives of the presidents who preceded it, it has presented an awareness campaign to exploit its influence, but for now it has not done much, concretely
In the United States, the wives of presidents, the First Ladies, are expected to use the influence of their position to carry out awareness campaigns on social issues, which often concern children or categories of people in need, such as those affected by a natural disaster. That of the First Lady is not an officially codified title, but over time it has become a recognized role - often referred to as FLOTUS, First Lady of the United States - governed by a certain practice, which also provides for a dedicated staff and a wing of the White House.
The first visibly politically engaged First Lady was Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, while it is since the 1960s, from the time of Lady Bird Johnson, that the wives of presidents have dedicated themselves to carrying out, during their husbands' mandates, specific social campaigns. Michelle Obama, for example, led the Let's Move campaign against obesity, while Nancy Reagan pledged against recreational drug use with the Just Say No campaign. Melania Trump is also running one, but after that week last its director Reagan Hedlund resigned (not of his own accord, according to an unnamed source), the Washington Post noted that so far it hasn't really organized much.
Trump's campaign is called Be Best and concerns the well-being of children, in particular with respect to the use of social networks and the widespread problem of the abuse of opioid drugs. It was unveiled in May and so far Trump has only attended three public campaign events: the first was a trip to Nashville, Tennessee, where he met with families affected by the opioid crisis; the second was a trip to the UK, where he spoke to elementary school children about the importance of kindness; the third was a meeting with a group of adolescents in Washington dedicated to education in online conversations. In addition, Trump gave two speeches addressed to students, one of which was in videoconference, always on the theme of kindness.
According to the Washington Post, these First Lady initiatives are small compared to what the wives of previous presidents did. It is true that only a week after the presentation of Be Best Trump she underwent a surgery on a kidney, and that then she was recovering for weeks: but there are also other reasons why the campaign initiatives have been limited so far. The main one is that Melania Trump's staff is very small: for Michelle Obama and Laura Bush 25 people worked in the White House, while for Trump only a dozen. It is the smallest staff a First Lady has ever had since Mamie Eisenhower in the 1950s.
Staff members are typically political experts who have worked for years in Congress and the White House and know how to leverage the influence of a First Lady to lobbying and successfully running certain political campaigns. Thanks to her collaboration with her own staff, in 2010 Michelle Obama was able to pass a law to finance free lunches in schools; Laura Bush instead obtained funding to combat the spread of AIDS in Africa, while Hillary Clinton extended federal programs to provide medical care for children.
Katherine Jellison, a history professor at Ohio University, told the Washington Post that so far Be Best has lacked the strength of Just Say No and Let’s Move, and the campaign appears to lack content. It seems, in short, that Trump does not plan to engage in the campaign as much as the previous First Ladies did, as Melania Trump's spokesperson Stephanie Grisham has partly confirmed. Grisham told the Washington Post that Be Best's purpose is to promote organizations, agencies and programs that help children and that in the future the First Lady could also support a bill "if she thought it could have a real impact on lives. some children". Grisham also anticipated that Trump will make a "big announcement" in September, without going into details.
