AT TIMES, pundits’ efforts to read the Trumps’ relationship are reminiscent of Western experts’ attempts to analyze the government of the old Soviet Union. “Kremlinologists” pored over images of military parade reviewing stands, identifying who stood where to determine which Soviet officials had more power or who might be falling out of favor. Melania-watchers similarly study the Trumps’ joint public appearances—or the lack of them—and try to glean larger meanings.
Occasionally, Melania and Donald Trump (or “Muse” and “Mogul,” as the Secret Service calls them) travel down the road from the White House to dine together at the Trump International Hotel. But they are rarely seen just casually enjoying a laugh or quiet moment together. The White House chooses which official photos to release to the public, but unlike with many past presidencies, the images shared are rarely candid snippets of their lives—such as a family movie night or a stroll on the South Lawn.
On June 4, 2017, a week before Melania moved into the White House, the Trumps attended the annual gala for Ford’s Theatre. The historic building where Abraham Lincoln was shot is administered by the National Park Service. Trump told people in the administration that he would attend because Obama had declined the invitation in the past—Trump loves to draw distinctions between himself and his predecessor. The theater’s seats were filled with members of Congress, top executives, and other patrons, and some present said that they perceived friction between Trump and Melania. At one point, Trump attempted to grab Melania’s hand, but she rebuffed him. One of the attendees noted that it was memorable because of the recent viral video of Melania slapping away her husband’s hand on the Ben Gurion airport tarmac in Israel during an official visit. A White House official later insisted that she was just trying to follow protocol on that trip, and that the incident should not be mistaken as demonstrating a lack of affection.
The next year, Melania attended the Ford’s Theatre event alone, but the president and first lady appeared together again in 2019 and sat in the front row. I was also in the theater that night and saw them frequently whisper to each other. Melania smiled and laughed a few times at what Trump said. Guests who had been present two years before said that the couple’s dynamic seemed to have shifted from frosty to warm.
Melania’s onetime confidante Stephanie Winston Wolkoff told me that Melania “will never show you her emotion in public—that’s just not who she is.” Others have seen that when she is upset or angry, she just walks away. In Trump’s first three years in office, there have certainly been plenty of times when Melania has walked away. In January 2018, after the Wall Street Journal published details of the $130,000 hush-money payment made by Trump’s personal attorney to Stormy Daniels and In Touch magazine published Daniels’s first-person account of her alleged affair with Trump, Melania abruptly canceled plans to join her husband at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. She also broke with tradition and rode separately from her husband to his State of the Union speech before Congress at the end of the month. At that point, she had not been seen in public with her husband since the Stormy Daniels news broke.
In February, hours after the New Yorker published a detailed account of Trump’s alleged affair, with Karen McDougal, and included McDougal’s handwritten notes—“We got naked + had sex”—both Trumps headed to a planned weekend at Mar-a-Lago. But instead of making the very public, familiar walk across the White House lawn with her husband to Marine One, the presidential helicopter, Melania traveled separately to Andrews Air Force Base, the Maryland military airport, to catch Air Force One. Her spokeswoman explained the unusual arrangement at the time by saying that it was due to the first lady’s schedule. But then when Melania’s motorcade arrived on the tarmac, journalists were shooed off the plane until after she had boarded, and no photos were allowed of her arrival. She never said anything publicly. But she clearly put physical distance between herself and her husband.
In the most crucial moments, however, Melania has publicly backed Trump even when friends recall her privately fuming. Her televised interviews supporting him after his Access Hollywood comments may well have saved his presidential candidacy. She has also publicly downplayed the reports of his serial infidelity and allegations from the roughly two dozen women who have accused him of sexual impropriety or abuse. In an October 2018 interview with ABC News reporter Tom Llamas, she waved off a question about her husband’s infidelity. “It is not a concern and focus of mine. I am a mother and first lady, and I have much more important things to think about and to do.” While hardly a ringing endorsement of her husband or her marriage, it offered Trump cover. When Trump is in trouble, Melania is in a unique position to embarrass him or save him, and she has consistently chosen to remain publicly on his side.
That has been of great value to Trump—and Melania knew it. She turned out to be a sharp negotiator, even when dealing with the man who boasts that no one can make a better deal than he can. There were several factors behind why Melania seemed visibly happier by mid-2018, which is something many in the White House had noticed. According to three people close to Trump, a key reason was that she had finally reached a new and significantly improved financial agreement with Trump, which had left her in a notably better financial position. Those sources did not know precisely what she sought but it was not simply more money. She wanted proof in writing that when it came to financial opportunities and inheritance, Barron would be treated as more of an equal to Trump’s oldest three children. Among the items under discussion was involvement in the family business, the Trump Organization, and ownership of Trump property. One person aware of the negotiations noted that Barron has Slovenian citizenship, so he could be especially well-positioned if the young teenager ever wanted to be involved in a Trump business in Europe. Melania wanted—and got—options for him.
Trump was experienced at crafting prenups and obsessed with keeping his fortune intact. After Ivana’s efforts to renegotiate her prenup, Trump had lawyers insert every conceivable clause into his prenup with Marla to try to make it unbreakable. If she contested it, Marla would even have to pay his legal fees, according to a lawyer directly involved. By the time Trump married Melania in 2005, he already had four children. Melania convinced Trump to have one more child, according to a close friend of Trump’s: “That’s where she used her power—her nonnegotiable back then was that she wanted to have a baby. But did she get some great prenup deal? No way.”
Especially after Access Hollywood and Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal spoke publicly about their affairs with Trump right after Barron was born, Melania’s nonnegotiable was that her son would be treated more like Trump’s oldest children. Trump’s oldest, Don Jr., was twenty-nine when Barron was born, one year after Melania and Trump married. The number of heirs in line for a share of the Trump fortune has kept growing: Don Jr. now has five children, Ivanka has three, and Eric has two. Melania did not want Barron treated as somehow a “lesser Trump.” In a press briefing in the White House in 2019 about efforts to curb e-cigarettes, Trump famously referred to Barron as Melania’s son: “She’s got a son,” he said, then awkwardly adding, “together, that’s a beautiful young man.”
Melania, a long-game player, could not have picked a better time to push for an improved financial agreement. The fact that Trump was in the White House instead of Trump Tower, and needed her to play a particularly public role, strengthened her hand. In 1996, the year Melania arrived in the United States, Ivana Trump appeared in the hit movie The First Wives Club and gave this long-remembered advice: “Ladies, we have to be strong and independent. And remember: Don’t get mad—get everything!” Melania, a third wife, appears to have come closest to getting out of Trump what she wanted.
AS ONE of her official duties as first lady, Melania Trump is the honorary chair of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, best known for its annual honors program, which recognizes leading American artists who have made significant contributions to the nation’s cultural life. But many in the arts community refuse to have any association with Donald Trump or to be present in the same room. They reject his divisive rhetoric and social policies and were angered by his proposals to eliminate funding for both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, two federal agencies created to support the arts, education, and culture. (Congress voted to continue their funding.) Trump’s positions put Melania in a tough spot. Many of her friends and acquaintances in the New York arts and fashion worlds had initially urged her to use her visibility to showcase culture, arts, and fashion. Instead, she has largely avoided those topics, perhaps well aware that if she invited cultural icons to the White House, they would likely turn her down.
Some Kennedy Center honorees have been particularly pointed in their rejection of Trump. In 2017, TV producer Norman Lear, being recognized for his outstanding contribution to American culture, and dancer Carmen de Lavallade announced that they would boycott the usual White House reception before the televised event. The White House event was canceled for the first time in the awards’ history, and the president and Melania stayed away from the big ceremony at the Kennedy Center. The next year, Hamilton musical creator Lin-Manuel Miranda was selected to be honored. Miranda, of Puerto Rican descent, had already stated that Trump was “going straight to hell” for his tepid relief response following Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico. Trump and Melania ignored the honors again.
So it was noteworthy when Melania appeared at the Kennedy Center for the first time in July 2019, to participate in a music program for disabled children. She had her picture taken with the young musicians; they were being recognized by the Jean Kennedy Smith Arts and Disabilities Program. Melania had been reassured that she would not face a hostile reception. The Kennedy Center has thirty-six presidentially appointed trustees on its governing board. During his eight years in office, President Obama had selected all of them. But a few months before Melania’s first visit, Trump had begun to fill vacant openings with some of his supporters and friends, including actor Jon Voight, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, and Karen Tucker LeFrak, an author and composer married to the New York real estate developer Richard LeFrak. Karen LeFrak is a friend of Melania’s.
In September, Melania returned to the Kennedy Center to speak at the opening of the new REACH annex. The event was closed to the press. According to several invited guests, she was warmly received and applauded, and looked happy and relaxed in front of a crowd that included Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. The next day, she tweeted: “Honored to join the Kennedy Center @Kencen last night in celebration of the grand opening of the REACH. This is an amazing investment in the arts and our next generation.”
THE WHITE HOUSE has given Melania many opportunities, including introductions to world leaders from the president of France to Pope Francis. But these events have also subjected to scrutiny one of the most often repeated parts of her life story: that she speaks five languages. In October 1999, the Daily News reported, “Knauss would have little trouble talking to VIPs. She speaks French, German, Italian, English and Slovene.” In 2016, MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski asked her directly: “How many languages do you speak?”
“I speak a few languages,” Melania replied.
“A few?”
“English, Italian, French, German,” Melania said.
She told me the same in our 2016 interview, and she and Trump have repeatedly told interviewers that over the years. But her language expertise was not on display when she and the president visited the Vatican in May 2017 as part of his first official overseas trip. At the start of their audience, Pope Francis extended a hand to Melania, a Roman Catholic, as she approached him wearing a black lace veil covering her hair.
“Thank you. Nice to meet you,” she said, almost in a whisper. They were still shaking hands when the pope spoke to her in Italian, asking lightheartedly if she fed her husband potica, a traditional Slovenian pastry. She looked at him and said nothing. Francis motioned to his interpreter, who stepped forward and translated the pope’s words into English: “What do you give him to eat—is it potica?”
“Potica, yes!” Melania laughed. A papal aide handed her a rosary for the pope to bless. “Oh, I would love it, thank you. Grazie,” she said to the pope, as he held his hand over hers and blessed the beads. “Thank you. Thank you,” she said. A few minutes later, as the first couple were leaving, Francis locked eyes with Melania again. “Thank you very much,” he said, expressing gratitude for her visit. She shook his hand and told him about her next stop. “I’m going to visit a hospital, for bambinos. Thank you so much.”
Perhaps Melania was starstruck or being polite. Or maybe she has taken a page out of Trump’s playbook: There’s nothing wrong with exaggerating if it builds the brand and polishes the image. The narrative of Melania’s language skills also fits with another Trump storyline: that she is the new Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Trump told Fox & Friends in 2019: “We have our own Jackie O, it’s called Melania, Melania T.” But in 1962, when First Lady Jackie Kennedy met with Pope John XXIII in the Vatican, he greeted her with open arms and said, “Ah, Jacqueline!” They proceeded to have a conversation entirely in French for thirty-two minutes.
I tried to independently confirm the extent of Melania’s language abilities, but I couldn’t find any videos showing her fluency in anything other than Slovenian and English. I asked the White House if they could point to any evidence, and they did not respond. The videos that do exist of her speaking to children in France and Italy show her using only a few basic and universally known words, like “bonjour” and “ciao,” before switching quickly to English.
In 1993, when she arrived in Vienna, where the main language is German, modeling agent Wolfgang Schwarz recalled that she knew so little German that they spoke English together. Photographers and others who have worked with her over the years—including native speakers of Italian, French, and German—told me that they never heard her use more than a few words in those languages.
During that same May 2017 trip, Melania joined other G7 leaders’ spouses to tour the elegant Palazzo degli Elefanti in Catania, Sicily. At lunch, Melania was seated beside then-mayor Enzo Bianco. She spoke entirely in English, communicating to the mayor through her Italian interpreter. Bianco said that he thought it proper etiquette to converse in English with the first lady. But others involved in the planning of the trip said it would have been a nice gesture if Melania had spoken even a few words in Italian. Two months later, Melania and Trump visited Paris. Melania walked into a children’s hospital and brightly greeted the children with a cheerful, “Bonjour! Bonjour!” Then she sat down with the French kids and started chatting to them in English through an interpreter. “How are you? Nice to meet you,” she said to one little girl. Although she placed her hand over her heart and offered a “Je m’appelle Melania. Et toi?,” she then switched back to English. In August 2019, at a G7 summit in Biarritz, France, Melania picked up translation headphones to listen to a speech by French president Emmanuel Macron. CNN commentator Keith Boykin spotted the problem: “Wait. I thought Melania Trump spoke French fluently.”
FIRST LADIES have often said that living in the White House is like living in a fishbowl. Melania’s way of dealing with life in a public building visited by thousands of people each week is to spend large amounts of her day cocooned in the White House’s private quarters. The first lady is officially in charge of a White House staff of one hundred people, from the chefs to the housekeepers and butlers. Melania involves herself in the minute details of running the house, but often from her residence rooms rather than the formal first lady’s East Wing office.
In her first three years, Melania oversaw multiple restoration projects in the White House public rooms, plus a redo of the basement bowling alley, originally installed by Richard Nixon. The first lady has upgraded the most famous public rooms in the White House, restoring furniture and faded wall fabric. She showed a frugal side by flipping the draperies in the Green Room, so the backside now faces out, and adding new fringe. She also designed a new rug with the official flower of each of the fifty states.
Similar to what she did at Trump Tower with her spa, Melania overhauled the small area in the White House where first ladies have their hair done, making it mostly white. Laura Bush, after watching the heavy criticism Hillary Clinton endured for her hair, paid to have hers professionally styled, as did Michelle Obama. Melania spends less time in the West Wing and more time in the private residence than past first ladies. Her parents often stay in the family residence, too, and have their own bedroom, as did Michelle Obama’s mother. Melania, her parents, and Barron often speak Slovenian to one another when they’re together. This gives them in essence a private language, so they can continue to speak freely even in front of residence staff or the Secret Service agents standing watch at the door.
In her East Wing offices, Melania maintains a small and loyal staff. Many of them have less experience in government, policy, and speechwriting than those who worked for previous first ladies. Michelle Obama hired two power lawyers to run her office: Susan Sher, the top lawyer under Chicago mayor Richard Daley, followed in her second term by Tina Tchen, who had previously led the White House Office of Public Engagement and been a special assistant to President Obama. Laura Bush hired Andi Ball, who had worked for her in the governor’s office, and then Anita McBride, whose White House experience spanned two decades. Melania’s first chief of staff, Lindsay Reynolds, was associate director of the White House Visitors Center under George W. Bush and then led an event planning business in Ohio. During her tenure, she returned home most weekends to be with her husband and small children. Stephanie Grisham, Melania’s spokeswoman, got her start in national politics in 2012 as a press aide to Mitt Romney’s campaign. Rickie Niceta Lloyd, her social secretary, was a well-liked executive at Design Cuisine, a high-end caterer for many Washington events. At the White House, both Trumps prized a person’s loyalty to them above anything on their resume. Lewandowski noted, “There are no leaks that come out of [Melania’s] staff,” adding, “Her staff is small and tight-lipped, and they have 100 percent loyalty to her.”
In April 2020, with the reelection campaign looming, Melania made big changes to her staff. Reynolds left the White House and Grisham, who had been promoted to White House communications director, was Melania’s chief of staff as well as spokesperson. Most significantly, Melania named Marcia Lee Kelly, the CEO of the 2020 Republican National Convention with an impressive track record of government service and organizing huge events, as her senior adviser. The first lady also brought over from the West Wing Emma Doyle to work on policy for her. Many saw the addition of Kelly, known for making things happen, as a sign that Melania wanted to raise her profile.
Melania’s approach to the first lady’s job has been different from that of her predecessors. She was invisible at first, then ducked out of public view for weeks at a time. She has stayed silent on big issues many hoped she would address and surprised people when she did decide to speak up. She has limited her public speaking but offers polished short videos of what she’s doing in the White House. The Melania effect may be to allow the spouse of the next president to feel less bound by tradition and public expectations. “She really relieved a burden for any future occupant, male or female, that they do not have to feel compelled to follow the way that we were, as Americans, used to seeing things done,” said Anita McBride, who serves on the board of directors of the White House Historical Association.
Lauren A. Wright, an associate research scholar at Princeton University, noted that Melania Trump made eight speeches in 2017, while Michelle Obama made seventy-four and Laura Bush gave forty-two during their husbands’ first year in office. In her first three years as first lady, she did only a small number of television interviews, including with CNN White House correspondent Kate Bennett on a trip to China in 2017, and the next year with ABC News’s Tom Llamas during her Africa trip, and with Fox News personality and Trump booster Sean Hannity aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush. Phillip Bloch, who had worked on Trump’s beauty pageants, said that Melania knows to “stay in her lane.” Bloch said he believes that one of the reasons she is not very active as a first lady is that she knows the White House is really the Donald Trump Show.
Melania has a compelling personal story to tell, and it confounds some who have worked with her that she is not more willing to tell it. One person who worked for Melania said that it was unusually difficult to help her prepare her public remarks. Personal stories help connect speakers with their audiences and help create a more memorable voice. But in meetings to prepare for her speeches, she was often reluctant to share personal anecdotes. Even getting her to describe her motivation to focus on children’s issues had proven difficult. “She just felt more comfortable talking in platitudes, such as, ‘Cyberbullying is not a good thing. We need to stop it,’ ” the aide said. She felt pressure to look good in public, he said, and that often seemed to take priority over the substance and delivery of the speech. “If she had ten hours to spend getting ready for an event, nine of them would be devoted to her appearance. That left no time to practice with the teleprompter, to say the words out loud, to have her input into the remarks she was making.”
She gave a speech about children at a luncheon she hosted for spouses of world leaders in 2017 during the United Nations General Assembly in New York. As she spoke, Melania appeared nervous and her voice quivered. “The most important and joyous role I’ve ever had is to be a mother to my young son,” she said. “Together we must acknowledge that all too often it is the weakest, most innocent and vulnerable among us, our children, who ultimately suffer the most from the challenges that plague our societies.” She spoke of the “moral imperative” to take responsibility for the “bullying” and content that children “are exposed to on a daily basis through social media… and in person.” The message she wanted to relay was strong but it was largely lost because of her poor delivery. Several people in the room thought that if she had wowed the audience with her speech, and even lingered afterward to talk to the guests, she would have gotten more attention for her initiative. Instead, her appearance ended up in style pages and tabloids, mentioned more because of what she wore than what she said. “She’s electric!” wrote the British tabloid Daily Mail, describing her “eye-catching $3,000 neon pink” Delpozo coat dress with huge puffy sleeves and matching “hot pink” stilettos. It would become a constant dilemma. She loved dressing well and wanted to make a statement with her clothes. But she also wanted to be taken seriously, for people to listen to her.
MELANIA’S SIGNATURE program, an initiative known as Be Best, was unveiled in the Rose Garden on May 7, 2018, in front of the full press corps and a crowd of invited guests. Everyone turned their heads as Melania walked toward the podium, her high heels clicking with each careful step. She didn’t rush. Shoulders back, she swept past photographers, Secret Service agents, and staffers. She wore a tan leather jacket the color of sand. It took a full forty-four seconds for her to reach the podium. Her appearance came only four days after Trump had been forced to acknowledge that, despite prior denials, he was aware of a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels—and that he had repaid the money to his personal lawyer. Now, in a powerful display of support for Melania, Team Trump was out in force. Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, five cabinet secretaries, and many top advisers and officials, including Kellyanne Conway, were seated in the baking sun waiting for her to speak. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wore sunglasses. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s bald head pinkened in the heat.
“As a mother and as First Lady, it concerns me that in today’s fast-paced and ever-connected world, children can be less prepared to express or manage their emotions and oftentimes turn to forums of destructive or addictive behavior, such as bullying, drug addiction or even suicide,” Melania said. “I feel strongly that, as adults, we can and should be best at educating our children about the importance of a healthy and balanced life. So today, I’m very excited to announce BE BEST.” Its three main pillars were child well-being, social media use, and the consequences of the opioid epidemic.
As was the case with her UN speech, it was not the substance of her remarks that attracted attention. Instead, it was the name of her new initiative, Be Best, that drew the most notice. Although Michelle Obama had great success with her two-word health and exercise initiative Let’s Move, Be Best didn’t have the same ring, and it provided fodder for late-night comics. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who was working with Melania at the time, said that they had considered other names. These included Children First, which Melania had discarded, saying it sounded too much like her husband’s America First slogan. Some wondered why Melania hadn’t called the program Be the Best or Be Your Best. But Melania had made up her mind, saying: “At least they won’t say I plagiarized it!”
Now she was telling the country that she would focus on children, whom she called “the most valuable and fragile among us.” When she invited her husband to join her at the podium, she referred to him as “Mr. President” and then stood stiffly as Trump kissed her right cheek, left cheek, and right cheek again, in the European style. “That’s the way she feels—very strongly!” Trump said, praising his wife. He said that everywhere she went, “Americans have been touched by her sincerity, moved by her grace and lifted by her love.”
Melania has made a number of Be Best appearances since launching the initiative. One that came as a surprise, given her husband’s penchant for attacking people on Twitter, was a March 2018 White House conference to stop what she called the “evil” of cyberbullying. “I am well aware that people are skeptical of me discussing this topic,” she told top executives from Twitter, Facebook, and other tech companies. “I have been criticized for my commitment to tackling this issue, and I know that will continue. But it will not stop me for doing what I know is right.” She added, “We have to find a better way to talk to each other, to disagree with each other, to respect each other.” Seated at the table with the first lady was Stephen Balkam, founder and CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute, who recalled, “It was a pretty remarkable opening. I was pleased that she addressed the elephant in the room.”
Melania had told others that she recognized that her husband had contributed to the combative tone online, but she wanted to talk about the issue even though West Wing advisers urged her to pick another topic. But after the cyberbullying event, Melania seemed to focus Be Best more on its other two pillars: child well-being and the consequences of the opioid epidemic.
One of Melania’s Be Best appearances that drew significant attention was on November 26, 2019, in Baltimore, a city that Donald Trump had previously derided as a “disgusting, rat- and rodent-infested mess.” Approximately one thousand middle and high school students were in the audience for the B’More Youth Summit to raise awareness about the opioid crisis. A mix of boos and cheers started when Melania strode onto the stage in a pricey caramel-colored suede trench coat and matching knee-high suede boots. “It is my pleasure to introduce to you the first lady of the United States of America,” said Jim Wahlberg, representing the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation, run by his actor brother. “Thank you, Jim, for the warm introduction,” Melania said, reading from a teleprompter, “and for inviting me to join you today for such an important event centered on opioid awareness.” As she spoke, the crowd remained loud, talking and jeering.
Realizing what was happening, Melania looked amused and did not get flustered. She turned her attention from the teleprompter and gazed at the students. “Hello, everyone,” she said with a big smile. Melania then spoke for about five minutes on the dangers of drug use and about how Be Best was working to highlight efforts to fight online abuse and opioid addiction. “Since its launch, I have used Be Best to shine a light on programs like these that show what it means to Be Best,” she said. When she had finished, she said, “Thank you.” There were cheers, but a loud chorus of boos grew as she walked off the stage, waving and giving a big smile. Later, she responded to the behavior with a public statement, “We live in a democracy and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but the fact is we have a serious crisis in our country and I remain committed to educating children on the dangers and deadly consequences of drug abuse.”
The Baltimore incident underscored the challenge of being married to a president who is seen as exceptionally divisive. Melania has the highest poll numbers of anyone in the first family. But while being in politics has given her new opportunities, it has also closed off other avenues. Magazine editors who featured Michelle Obama and other first ladies on their covers have bypassed Melania. Her friends blame biased liberals in the fashion and magazine world and point to Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour’s response to a question posed by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in 2019. “We profile women in the magazine that we believe in,” Wintour said. “We believe that women should have a leadership position and we intend to support them.” The editor named both Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton, but conspicuously never mentioned Melania Trump. Two decades ago, an association with Donald Trump would be a potential selling point for a glossy magazine cover; today he is seen as so polarizing that anything connected to him—including his wife—risks alienating many readers.
A few days later, spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham addressed the controversy by telling Fox News, “To be on the cover of Vogue doesn’t define Mrs. Trump, she’s been there, done that long before she was first lady. Her role as first lady of the United States and all that she does is much more important than some superficial photo shoot and cover.” The put-down struck many as odd since Melania spent years doing photo shoots. Grisham went on to sharply criticize Wintour, whose relationship with Melania in the White House stood in stark contrast to the chummy coverage Vogue had given to her in the past. It also illustrated how personal the divide had become. “This just further demonstrates how biased the fashion magazine industry is and shows how insecure and small-minded Anna Wintour really is. Unfortunately, Mrs. Trump is used to this kind of divisive behavior.” Grisham’s tough and personal statement was seen as yet another reminder that Melania, like her husband, often hits back when she feels attacked.
But statements like this also stand out because of how generally tight-lipped the first lady’s office is. Her staff has been directed not to answer even basic media questions. Aside from limited events and periodic photo ops, very little is known about the most basic details of the first lady’s schedule, including whether she is in Washington or traveling. Many days are a blank, with no official engagements. That unusual information vacuum about the first lady of the United States has led to a cottage industry of speculation about Melania. At one point she was not seen publicly for twenty-four days. In her absence, rumors flew that her marriage was faltering, and that she was staying with Barron and her parents in a house in the Washington suburb of Potomac, Maryland, near her son’s school. “It’s 1,000 percent false. We laugh at it all the time,” Grisham said in 2018, when asked about the speculation that Melania sometimes escaped to another house. Rickie Niceta Lloyd, the White House social secretary, called it “an urban legend.”
Melania has returned to New York and visited Mar-a-Lago quietly at times without her husband—for a while, reporters staked out the Palm Beach airport looking for signs of a government plane to track her travels—but she is often where Barron is, and he is in the White House. Many people in the White House have a special affection for Melania and describe her as “drama-free” and “not demanding.” One added that she is a rare person around Trump who doesn’t cause any problems. “Trump loves her cool,” said Winston Wolkoff. “She knows exactly what he does not want, which makes her exactly what he wants.”