"The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump": the book that discovers the first lady of the United States
In the publication, The Washington Post journalist Mary Jordan also raises the importance of Donald Trump's wife in his political career
When Melania Trump remained in New York after the presidential inauguration of her husband, she said her reason was not wanting to interrupt the school year of her son, Barron, who was then 10 years old. At the time, the news focused on an apparent coldness between the couple and exorbitant taxpayer spending to protect Melania and Barron away from Washington.
Those stories are true, but The Washington Post reporter Mary Jordan has revealed in her new book that the first lady was also delaying her arrival at the White House in order to renegotiate her prenuptial agreement with President Trump.
While the presidential campaign was filled with complicated news surrounding Trump's alleged indiscretions and sexual infidelities, ranging from the Access Hollywood video of "grab them by the ..." to an affair with Playboy model Karen McDougal ; Melania learned about new details around that issue through media coverage, Jordan details.
The incoming first lady needed time to calm down and "fix her financial arrangement with Trump, which was what Melania referred to as 'taking care of Barron,'" writes Jordan in The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump. Art of Her Negotiation: The Untold Story of Melania Trump).
Melania's original prenup had not been incredibly generous, Jordan said. But she noted that she has been married to Trump longer than his two ex-wives and has shown bargaining power: her notorious calming effect on him was so great that Trump's friends and at least one of his adult children urged her to arrive at the White House ASAP.
The 286-page book, matching the title of Trump's well-known business guide, is an in-depth look at the rise of the country's only immigrant first lady since Louisa Adams.
For her book, Jordan conducted more than a hundred interviews with Melania's Slovenian schoolmates and even former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Furthermore, she makes the argument that Melania Trump is as dedicated to her own mythmaking as her husband.
"They are both avid creators of her own story," says Jordan, arguing that the hashtag #FreeMelania should be removed because of her constant support of her husband and her moves to stay in the White House. "She is ... much more like him than she looks," adds Jordan.
Jordan, a longtime Post reporter, won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 and landed a rare personal interview with Melania while covering the 2016 campaign. The Post received a copy of her book ahead of the release date, which will be next June 16.
The report goes back to Melania's childhood in a small town in Slovenia, which was then part of communist Yugoslavia, where her mother was a pattern maker in a children's clothing factory and her father, who came to join the Communist Party He was a driver and repaired cars.
At that time, the journalist relates, Melania walked the catwalks at the age of seven, modeling the clothes that her mother made for her. At 16, you can read, she got ready for her first photoshoot.
Myth-making, writes Jordan, began early for Melania, when she did not correct reporters who misquoted her age, always younger than she actually was. Another myth was that despite saying that she would not have plastic surgery, three photographers who worked with her said they had seen her scars.
Melania attended a highly competitive architecture program at the University of Ljubljana, but she did not graduate, despite having claimed in sworn testimony that she had a bachelor's degree. Also, the reporter points out, there is little evidence to confirm that she can speak four or five languages fluently.
"Photographers and others who have worked with her over the years, including native Italian, French and German speakers, told me they never heard her use more than a few words from those languages," says Jordan. The report suggests that she is only fluent in English and Slovenian.
Meeting Trump accelerated that myth-making, as he introduced her across town as a "supermodel" when that was not true. Regarding how they met, Jordan found little evidence: she saw her at a club during Fashion Week 1998 with a more famous model, but he was obsessed with Melania, who refused to give him her phone number.
Multiple sources, including a German modeling agent she worked for that year, revealed to Jordan the version that Melania was already dating Trump before the timeline they set.
Jordan says the ease with which Melania creates myths has been favored by a pattern in her life, which consists of breaking with her past. Old friends from Slovenia said they had never heard of her again. People close to her years in New York commented that the same thing happened to them.
He always “took advantage of an opportunity and put all of her efforts into it. She then she kept going and never looked back, "writes Jordan.
As much as she and Trump seem completely opposite, explains the journalist: “They are both fighters and survivors. They value loyalty above almost everything. (...) Neither the very public Trump nor the very private Melania have many close friends. His lonely instincts seep into his own marriage. "
This includes separate bedrooms both in the White House and when they travel. Another example of this situation is that they are often in the same building but not in the same room.
They, Jordan says, also seem to love each other. According to people who witnessed their first courtship, and others who have seen their relationship in the White House, it turns from cold to warm time and time again.
With Melania, what emerges is a Trump-like image of personal ambition. In 1999, when she ran for president in the Reform Party candidacy, she gave interviews reflecting on the possibility of becoming the next Jackie O.
Later, she echoed Trump's calls for then-President Barack Obama to present his birth certificate, which was in line with the "birth" attacks primarily driven by Trump.
"There is ample evidence that from the beginning," writes Jordan, "Melania not only accepted and embraced Trump's political aspirations, but that she was also an encouraging partner."
According to Roger Stone, Trump's mentor who is about to go to prison for 40 months with sentences ranging from witness tampering to lying to Mueller Report investigators, Melania always encouraged Trump to run for president.
"She's the one who finally said, 'You know, Donald, stop talking about running for president and do it. (...) And if you run, you're going to win,'" Stone told Jordan to write the book.
In the campaign and in the White House, Melania has been Trump's sounding board. Christie commented that Melania was always Trump's first call when he got on a plane after a rally that she, she knew, had been televised. He would ask her what she thought and, noted the former governor, “she always had a comment to give him. I think that says a lot about what he thinks of her. "
She was the main reason Trump chose Mike Pence as his running mate, after Trump organized a weekend for Melania to meet him and his wife, Karen. He argued that Pence would be a better option than Christie or Newt Gingrich. "She believed he would settle for a number two spot and not a top spot," writes Jordan, "which was something she couldn't say about the other two."
Another moment in which her influence was demonstrated was when he issued an unusual statement of conviction on the deputy national security adviser, Mira Ricardel, which would lead to her firing.
If the coronavirus crisis hadn't forced her to be canceled, in March she would have done her first solo fundraiser for the 2020 campaign. "She has told people that she wants to win reelection," writes Jordan. .
Many of his latest moves point in that direction: from placing the Medal of Freedom around radio host Rush Limbaugh's neck to applauding when Trump called the FBI “scum” in his speech after his acquittal of the charges of challenge.
It must be said that White House observers had noticed a change in his mood since mid-2018, which could be explained by his willingness to fight for a second term.
According to three people close to Trump, Jordan writes, Melania had finally renegotiated the prenuptial agreement to her liking. She had already been looking out for Barron's future, ensuring that she had dual citizenship in Slovenia, which will allow her to work in Europe for the Trump organization when he comes of age.
For now, Melania wants to make sure her son is not excluded from the family business. Regarding this, Jordan writes: "I wanted written evidence that when it came to inheritance and financial opportunities, Barron would be treated on an equal footing with Trump's three oldest children."
