by Kate Bennett
There are those who see Melania as the complicit wife, sticking around in a damaged marriage for money, perhaps, or power, or whatever the trade-off might be. And there might be some truth in that. There are many women who marry for money and who, because of it, turn a blind eye to infidelity—or worse. Part of the country was slim on empathy for Melania, as they often were, pegging her emotional maturity at the same level as her husband’s, which was basically that of a petulant child. Marist even conducted a poll asking respondents whether Melania should leave Trump—43 percent said she should stay, but more than one in three thought that she should go.
But Melania, say friends, wasn’t ever going to leave. “What about after the White House?” people would ask me at every D.C. cocktail party or soccer game with our kids, desperate to know what I knew. “Would Melania Trump leave Donald Trump?” was everyone’s favorite parlor game for the many months during the Daniels and McDougal scandals—add to those scandals the white State of the Union suit, the canceled trips, the curtailed public appearances, the solo motorcades, and it was enough to make a very unsexy Washington somewhat hot and bothered. “Is she going to divorce him?”
But I would say then what I still say now: “Maybe. But I don’t think so.” I refer back to the fact that Melania was raised in a tight-knit family, that her parents are still together, that she has faith in her Catholicism, that she is a product of where she came from, and that she typifies an old Slovenian proverb: the woman of the house controls three of its corners; the man, just one. Melania is definitely a woman very much in control of her three corners.
17
A Room of Her Own
Reporter: “Do you love your husband?” Melania Trump: “Yes. We are fine. Yes.”
Melania and Donald Trump are the only first couple since the Kennedys and the Johnsons to have separate bedrooms in the White House (excluding the handful of months in 1998 when Bill Clinton was forced to sleep on the sofa in the private study attached to the master bedroom, having been kicked out by Hillary after his affair with Monica Lewinsky came to light).
Their relationship might not take the form that most marriages or relationships do (by all accounts, Trump didn’t have separate bedrooms with his two previous wives; it’s worth noting that those relationships lasted nowhere near as long as his current one), but that doesn’t negate that, for them, it is what works, and—with her tendency to need alone time and his to be bolstered by sycophants—it is strong.
The Trumps live their lives with a good deal of physical detachment. That includes their separate bedrooms, a setup they have had in place for many years. Especially after Stormy and McDougal, there was heightened hyperbole that Melania had somehow kicked him out of their marital bed, assigned him to the doghouse. However, I think it’s important to note here that the reality of that scenario simply isn’t possible. Trump still occupies the master bedroom in the executive residence, and it is Melania who doesn’t sleep there, according to those familiar with the layout.
“There are classified structural assets [in the master bedroom], essential to protective needs,” a Secret Service agent who worked the presidential detail said. “Since he was at the White House first, and there are some major security protocols in place in the presidential bedroom, he is more than likely in there.” The other big bedroom on the second level of the residence is the Queen’s Bedroom, but a source tells me it has a “horrible bathroom” connected to it and the decor—pink, with a canopy bed—is neither the style of Trump nor Melania. The other bedroom on the second floor of the residence is the Lincoln Bedroom—again, not an option for long-term stay. (Though the Lincoln Bedroom was a favorite place for the Clintons to host guests.)
There are, however, two smaller bedrooms on the floor, each with a connecting bathroom, and those could be an option for Melania, but that’s not where she is. Melania likes her privacy, she likes her space, so she selected living space on the third floor of the executive residence, not the second. I’m told she prefers to stay in the room Marian Robinson, Michelle Obama’s mother, lived in during the Obama years.
It’s more like a small two-bedroom apartment than a simple bedroom. It has its own master suite and another, smaller bedroom, plus a living room area and two bathrooms.
Mrs. Robinson may have avoided the spotlight during the years she lived in the White House, but she was a beloved and constant presence to the staff and the Secret Service. They all adored her. She was friendly but sassy, and she had her own life in Washington separate from that of her family, and she had her own rules that she refused to change, even though she had agreed to be a live-in grandma. (For example, she would occasionally step out onto the patio area of the third floor for a cigarette.)
Michelle Obama said that the fact her mother had her own space on a different floor than the rest of the family made her feel slightly better about marginalizing her independence for eight years. “There are many times when she drops off the kids, we hang out and talk and catch up, and then she’s like, ‘I’m going home.’ And she walks upstairs,” Michelle once told Oprah Winfrey about her mother’s White House habits.
From what I have gathered, Melania also appreciates the privacy afforded by the third floor, which is also where she has her “glam room,” the space where she does her hair and makeup, located on the east side. Someone familiar with her habits says she often likes to wear a silk robe while she gets herself together, a garment she is prone to wear when she is home and begins or ends her day. Again, the third floor feels more like a private space in which she can do just that. She can also use what was once the Carter Doll Room (a fan of dolls, this is where Rosalynn Carter kept some of her collection) for her dressing room and storage for clothing. A private gym is up there too, and it houses Melania’s pilates machine, which she uses with some regularity.
The Obamas used some of the third floor’s many spare bedrooms for staff “employee quarters”; their chef, Sam Kass, was a frequent overnight guest who happily, and with his boss’s invitation, would stay for several nights when workdays went long into the evening. The Trumps, however, have chosen not to use the spare bedrooms in that way. Instead, the empty rooms mostly remain empty. Sometimes Melania’s parents will stay there or a friend of hers from New York will come for a visit, but it’s rare they are occupied for long periods.
The real secret of the third floor, and probably its peak allure, is the solarium, a massive sun-filled space where, since the beginning of the twentieth century, first families have enjoyed relatively more comfort than in other spaces in the residence. First lady Grace Coolidge was the first to build out the space, calling it her “sky parlor.”
Jackie Kennedy turned it into a kindergarten for Caroline and some of her friends, portioning off some of the space with cubbies and a chalkboard; Ronald Reagan liked the natural light and spent most of his recuperation from his gunshot wound in the solarium; the Clintons loved to use it for family nights and board games. Melania likes it, too. She had it redecorated when she moved in, as she wasn’t a fan of the beige and burnt orange palette the Obamas’ decorator, Michael S. Smith, had done the room in. Smith, in general, is prone to using earth tones and taupe, an occasional faded sage green; when Architectural Digest, the interior-decorating magazine of note, did a feature on Smith’s work for the Obamas in the White House, it was photo after photo of brown, beige, orange, and tan. Only the Family Dining Room had bold color, in the form of blue striped wallpaper.
Melania kept very little of the Obama decor, which the Obamas reportedly paid for out of pocket, to the tune of $1.5 million by the end of their eight years in the White House, according to NBC News. (Congress provides $100,000 for each new first family to redecorate the residence to their liking, but Trump, like Obama, didn’t use it and personally paid for redecorations.) Melania hired a woman named Tham Kannalikham to overhaul the residence to her liking. Kannalikham was hardly a celebrity designer in the vein of Smith. She had done some work as an in-house designer for Ra
lph Lauren, mostly decorating his lavish boutiques and showrooms. She is quiet and personable and has maintained an excellent reputation with the White House Historical Association, with which Kannalikham must work to ensure she is respecting the rules and guidelines of decorating the White House. Kannalikham’s main point of contact was the White House curator, William Allman, who, though looking forward to retiring after forty years in the job, agreed to stay on to help with the Trumps’ transition to moving in. He officially retired in June 2017. As curator, Allman’s role was essentially to oversee the museum component of the White House and to ensure that a family could live and work as seamlessly as possible among the American art, treasures, and historical items without disrupting them and while abiding by the family’s taste. It should be noted that the White House Historical Association, the nonprofit that Jackie Kennedy started in 1961 to help oversee all aspects of the executive residence, has by several accounts a solid working relationship with Melania. “We love her,” one board member told me. It’s the historical association that approves and allocates private funds to update certain items in the White House.
Kannalikham’s work on the White House residence was mostly done while Melania wasn’t even living there yet. She sent detailed instructions, however, with inspirational photos and examples of what she wanted.
For the solarium, as is typical of Melania’s aesthetic, most of the furniture is white and warm, the artwork traditional, and the vibe luxe comfort. She has showcased the most stunning part of the room, the view, by not distracting from it with gaudy furnishings and too many knickknacks. The room’s massive windows look out to the south all the way past the Washington Monument and beyond; you can even see Reagan National Airport in the distance.
Another bonus of the third floor, and one that appeals to Melania, again for its privacy, is the wide promenade that goes all the way along the uppermost level, running outside on the south side of the White House roof. Unlike the Truman balcony, or really any of the outdoor space below the third floor, the first lady, even the president, can step out on the promenade, which is basically like a big terrace, and be perfectly fine from a safety perspective (although for the president, a Secret Service detail is never too far away). When they’re on the promenade, there is no need to shut down pedestrian walkways or close traffic on the busy streets around the perimeter of the White House, as must often occur nowadays when the first lady or the president wants to go outside, even for a few minutes.
Several years ago, when Barbara Bush returned to the White House for the unveiling of George W. Bush’s official portrait, she lamented to a staffer how security had changed there since 9/11. Bush used to walk their family dog, Millie, all around the White House grounds, even right up to the gates, where she used to talk to people. “It was such a different world then,” she said. Today that’s an impossibility, which is why the outdoor space on the third floor is so appreciated by the first family.
The Trumps spend time together when they can, and when they want to. In the morning, they see each other typically until Trump makes his way to the West Wing, which can sometimes be as late as 10 A.M. During the day, the president calls Melania on the phone when he wants her advice, something he does often.
“Once while I was visiting Melania and Donald, they were both working on separate issues but in the same room at the residence,” Melania’s close friend tells me of a trip she made down from New York to visit Melania. “I observed him over the course of an hour, look up about every six to seven minutes, and say to her, “‘Baby, what do you think, is this guy full of crap? Is he jerking me around?’ It was funny and real and very much how he looks to her for her opinion, an opinion which he knows will always be an honest one.”
The friendly rapport between the Trumps that some of their friends told me existed might very well be a symptom of their sleeping arrangements and separate quarters. In their Trump Tower penthouse, there are reports that Melania sleeps in a separate bedroom; she definitely has her own office, her own bathroom, her own dressing room, and her own sitting room. Same for Mar-a-Lago, where the Trump family living quarters are only about three thousand square feet, large by American standards, beyond cozy by Trumpian ones. Melania’s bedroom there opens up to a balcony that overlooks the grounds of the estate cum private club, all the way to the ocean. Her parents, by the way, have their own suite of rooms at Mar-a-Lago and, like their daughter, choose to spend their time there engaging in leisure activities like going to the spa or sitting in the sun.
Back at the White House, Melania runs her home as traditionally as she is able to, considering Trump’s work hours and his obsession with watching television news. For Barron’s sake, she wants things—meals, playtime, and so on—to be as comparable to pre-Washington times as possible. Melania redecorated the White House bowling alley, which has been around since the Richard Nixon administration, updating the paint colors and fabrics, redoing the couches in a tufted royal-blue velvet. She even redesigned the actual bowling balls in red, white, and blue, each emblazoned with a drawing of the north entrance of the White House and the words THE PRESIDENT’S HOUSE above. (It’s actually known as “the People’s House.”) Trump even got his own “toy,” a $50,000 golf simulator, fitted inside one of the third-floor residence rooms, where he can hit a golf ball toward a large video screen. Trump’s version is more sophisticated—and expensive—than the golf simulator Barack Obama had in the White House. (Trump paid for the simulator and its installation from his own funds.) It might seem like an extravagance, but many presidents put in hobby systems at the White House, like Nixon and his bowling alley. It was Obama who turned the White House tennis courts into a full basketball court; Dwight Eisenhower carved out space on the South Lawn for a putting green. Trump’s simulator, however, has not cut down on his days spent actually golfing, which three-quarters of the way through 2019 is pushing 180 days.
Much was made of the fact that Trump had a lock put on his bedroom door (even though the Secret Service can break it down at a moment’s notice). Clearly these are a man and a woman who like their privacy, and living in the most famous white fishbowl is not going to change that.
18
A Health Crisis
“A sincere thank-you … to all who have sent good wishes and prayers!”
—MELANIA TRUMP
It was April 2018 or thereabouts when Melania began experiencing some nagging pain. She visited her doctor and was told that she had a fairly severe issue with one of her kidneys; several more appointments with specialists followed. Her condition, they told her, would require surgery. For an intensely private person like Melania, the idea of undergoing a medical procedure was intimidating and scary; as first lady it was downright daunting. She didn’t want anyone to know she was sick, her Slovenian upbringing compelling her to accept the bad news without showing it on her face, rejecting any impulse to slow down or ask for help or show the slightest hint of weakness. She carried the burden of her medical issue mostly on her own shoulders, conferring with her mother and father, her sister, and Trump, while knowing he wasn’t comfortable with medical issues. He is famously squeamish about hospitals and doctors and germs—Melania didn’t want to alarm him, but she also didn’t want to deal with his anxieties. He is prone to stress when it comes to health and well-being. And his concern for her could teeter on obsessive, so she was careful to avoid throwing him into a spiral of worry.
The public didn’t know a thing, of course, and she wanted to keep it that way, insisting on maintaining the date she had selected for finally unveiling her first lady initiative, Be Best. She was adamant that the announcement of her program be made in the Rose Garden, a spot more aligned with West Wing importance and sweeping ceremonies for announcing things like Supreme Court justice nominees and the passing of laws—it wasn’t really first lady turf. Which is exactly why Melania wanted to do it there.
On a sunny May 7, most of Trump’s cabinet, as well as Ivanka Trump and Melania’s parents, joined
the president in the front rows of the audience and watched as Melania, at this point grinning through near constant discomfort, emerged from the West Wing and walked the length of the colonnade, alone, dressed in her favorite white pencil skirt—likely the same one she wore on “hat” day the month before (along with a $6,000 tan leather trench-style jacket by Ralph Lauren)—to unveil her platform. Be Best was sixteen months in the making, and it was a lot. There were three parts: children’s overall well-being, fighting opioid abuse, and focusing on kids’ being positive on social media. “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,” she said in her remarks. The title Be Best was immediately ridiculed by the public for its odd grammatical phrasing. “Shouldn’t it be, ‘Be THE Best?’” people said. Or, possibly, “Be YOUR Best?” Yes, it probably should. But it wasn’t. Again, Melania cared little about what people were saying about the title; she was riding a surge of popularity, spurred on by how she handled the events of the past few months, including the Daniels and McDougal headlines. Being quiet and fighting back by going solo to events and insisting on her own motorcades were apparently viewed favorably by the public, who, in an April CNN poll, boosted her positive impression from 47 percent in January to 57 percent, her highest number yet, higher than any favorability rating earned by her husband in the network’s Trump polling history, going back to 1999.