by Jon Sopel
She was undoubtedly one of the most significant and well-known first ladies to be in the White House. But what is the role? What do you have to do? What marks out a significant first lady from an also ran? It’s not as if there is a strict definition of the duties and responsibilities. There are no fixed key performance indicators set by the American people for what they want from their first lady. And they don’t run on an agenda in the way the president does. It is very much up to the individual to set their own goals and priorities. It’s then up to the American people to decide whether they like what they see.
Maybe the words that chimed most closely with Melania Trump when she moved into the White House were those spoken by America’s first presidential wife, Martha Washington, back in the late 1700s. She famously said the position of first lady can sometimes feel akin to that of a state prisoner. Mrs Trump has said the most difficult part she has found about the role is the loss of privacy, the feeling (not imagined) that you are always under a microscope. ‘I cannot move freely any more,’ she told ABC News. ‘Before I could easily move, like, in a minute I could go somewhere. Now it’s a bigger production. You need to, wherever you go it’s a big, big production.’ When asked whether she felt like a prisoner, she said she didn’t – before quickly adding, ‘This will not last forever.’
Jackie Kennedy can be considered a significant first lady because of the profile that she brought to the job, and the part she played in modernising the way the White House operated and ran, and in particular opening it up to the public. But though she did help on the margins, and did get involved with some national security issues, she chose very much not to be a frontline combatant in the political battle. She certainly wasn’t an Eleanor Roosevelt.
The First Lady to FDR was political down to her fingertips, and was probably the first First Lady to use her role to champion causes dear to her heart. She fought alongside her husband for the New Deal, the sweeping range of policies designed to lift the US out of poverty after the great depression. She championed civil rights – once risking arrest in 1938 when she travelled to Birmingham, Alabama, and flouted that state’s segregation laws by shunning the ‘whites only’ section en route and sitting directly behind an African American associate. She would go on to be appointed to the board of the National Association for the Advancement of the Coloured Person (NAACP) – a body whose work carries on to this day.
She championed women’s rights too in a pre-feminist age. Reporting the White House when FDR won the presidency was very much a ‘men only’ profession. So she organised a number of ‘ladies only’ press conferences – and that had the effect of forcing newspaper editors into hiring more women reporters. It also endeared her to many female voters – and helped her husband win votes in his re-election battles. And she wrote a daily newspaper column, in which she tackled the most controversial issues of the day. It ran from 1936 right through until 1962. The only four days she missed of ‘My Day’, as the column was called, were in 1945 after her husband died.
Hillary Clinton as First Lady was in that mould, but nothing like as successful, even though she was a brilliant lawyer, and one of the most accomplished first ladies in American history. Deeply immersed in the detail of policy, and one of her husband’s most trusted advisors, she was put in charge of the hottest of hot potatoes in American politics – healthcare reform. It is the most deeply polarising of subjects, and boy did she polarise opinion: about healthcare and about her. A divisiveness that would ultimately cost her, and mean she wouldn’t become the woman to shatter that glass ceiling and become the first female president.
The more successful approach is the one adopted by a number of other first ladies – which is to use your privileged position to support causes that are vitally important social issues, but which will not leave you fried on the live rail of US politics. Barbara Bush, wife of the 41st president, was a determined champion of the importance of literacy; Michelle Obama – another high-achieving lawyer – would be a fierce advocate for healthy lifestyles to tackle the epidemic of obesity among children in the US. What was interesting about her initiatives was the extent of coordination there was with what her husband was doing. It was East Wing and West Wing working in tandem. So while he was returning to the divisive subject of healthcare reform, via the Affordable Care Act, she was also championing a health issue, but not in a way that would leave her scarred like Hillary Clinton.
And then there are the slightly quirky issues that have been advanced by first ladies. Lady Bird Johnson, wife of Lyndon B. Johnson, thought that America’s great natural beauty was being sullied by the endless advertising hoardings that were becoming ubiquitous on America’s highways and interstates. She worked tirelessly for the protection of wild flowers, and demanded that more be planted. Ultimately, she would spearhead legislation that would become the Highway Beautification Act – instead of billboards there would be flowers. Well, some flowers – and still very many billboards. This was a hobby horse. She rode it successfully onto the statute book.
And then there have been the first ladies who by their own candour and openness have shone a light on subjects that polite society tended to ignore. Betty Ford, wife of Gerald Ford, successor to the disgraced Richard Nixon, would arguably have more of an impact on American life than her husband in his slightly less than 900 days as president. She spoke about mental health and the benefits of psychiatric treatment. She spoke about women’s rights and a woman’s right to choose on the issue of abortion. Weeks after she became First Lady she had a mastectomy to treat her breast cancer. Afterwards she decided to speak openly about it – still something of a taboo at the time. In 1975 she won Time magazine’s coveted person of the year nomination. Gerald Ford, after just two and a half years in the job, trying to re-establish respect and confidence in the presidency, would lose in his 1976 bid to win re-election. In that campaign, Betty’s approval ratings stood at a stunning 75 per cent. ‘I would give my life to have Jerry have my poll numbers,’ she commented.
So what of Melania Trump? How does she see the role? What sort of first lady does she hope to be? The flippant answer from a number of separate accounts is that she never wanted to be First Lady, or not according to the writer Michael Wolff, whose account of life on the campaign and in the first months of the Trump presidency is the result of extraordinary – and probably misguided – access granted to him by a chaotic team where no one seemed to be in charge. Fire and Fury is a riveting read, even if at times he seems to have embellished the odd story. Wolff claims that Melania Trump burst into tears when it became clear on that night in November that her husband was on course to victory. It is an account, I should add, that she disputes. According to Wolff she had only gone along with Trump’s bid to win the presidency because she was certain he was going to lose. She hated the limelight, and just wanted to go back to her – relatively – anonymous life in New York. She feared, too, what extensive media exposure would do to her young son, Barron. He would be the first young boy in the White House since the Kennedy era. There were a number of others around Trump who had also never believed he was going to win.
In that sense this is a story of life imitating art. It is the unlikely plot of the brilliant Mel Brooks film, The Producers, in which a washed-up producer and a dodgy accountant raise a load of money to put on the most sick and tasteless musical ever (who can forget the cast singing ‘Springtime for Hitler’?) in the hope that it would fold after the first night, so they would be able to keep all the money. Except the audience loved all the outrageous comments, and the provocative nastiness of it all. The worse it got, the more people cheered. Melania Trump had apparently made a similar bet with herself.
There was little from her pre-White House life to point to what sort of figure she would cut in the role. She is every bit as unique a first lady as her husband is a president. In the public eye perhaps the most notable/notorious thing she did was a magazine photoshoot in which she posed naked on a fur rug inside Donald Trump’s privat
e Boeing 727 jet, that has the word TRUMP emblazoned along the fuselage. I’ve looked and can see no record of that having been done by anyone else who has gone on to become first lady.
The spread for GQ magazine from 2000 was done when the Slovenian-born model Melania Knauss (as she was then) was Trump’s girlfriend. The headline for the piece was the not ever so bashful: ‘Sex at 30,000 feet. Melania Knauss earns her air miles.’ In one photo she stands on the wing of the plane wearing a skimpy red bikini, silver revolver in her hand, aimed back at the camera; in another she sits on the plane’s white leather sofa, her breasts about to spill out, while in front of her is a studded, leather attaché case overflowing with jewels that are also spilling out, her gold toe and fingernail polish matching the Trump plane’s fittings. She is also photographed in the cockpit wearing a sort of loosely linked, silver chain vest that leaves little to the imagination. It is brash, it says loads of money. It is gilt heavy and guilt free – hallmarks that some have suggested have become a moniker for this presidency.
One could say ‘So what?’ Nasty perhaps. Unnecessary even to raise, given that what models do is pose for photos. And if you are on a fashion shoot, you are going to put yourself in ridiculous positions. But this was not a case of an embarrassing teenage transgression; of Melania Trump trying to airbrush her past when she became First Lady. There was no fumbling attempt to make sure the pictures never saw the light of day. She was in her twenties when the photos were taken, and was proud of them, it seems. Donald Trump, at the time, asked for the photos to be sent to his office. Eighteen years later, when she became First Lady, attention was drawn to the spread, via the White House website. On the personal biography page for Melania Trump it says: ‘She has graced the covers of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, British GQ, Ocean Drive, Avenue, In Style and New York Magazine.’
These photographs, though, did raise a series of interesting questions about her immigration status when the shoot took place. It was around this time she began to petition the US authorities for the right to reside permanently in the United States, under a programme reserved for people with ‘extraordinary ability’. It is a scheme designed for nuclear physicists, Olympic athletes, Oscar-winning actors and the like. People who have demonstrated ‘sustained national and international acclaim’.
Now, true, Melania Trump had appeared on a billboard in Times Square advertising Camel cigarettes; and she had also been photographed for the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated, hugging a six-foot inflatable whale – and all those front covers already mentioned – but estimable though those achievements are, they are not normally considered qualifications for the so-called Einstein visa. The year she was granted her EB-1 visa, only five other people from Slovenia were granted one.
But what that visa gave was the ability to sponsor her parents, Viktor and Amalija Knauss, to come to the US too. In 2007 they listed their address as Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s luxury, exclusive and eye-wateringly expensive private members club in Florida, which he has dubbed the ‘winter White House’. Mr and Mrs Knauss have now been granted US citizenship, and have moved to live near their daughter, just outside Washington, where she and son Barron spend a lot of time. A representative of Mr and Mrs Knauss made it clear to the press that they received ‘no special treatment because of their relationship with the first family’, but one cannot help wondering whether the influential property billionaire, Donald Trump, intervened on Melania’s behalf to help secure her the visa when they were dating? It would be interesting if he had, because this is the type of ‘chain migration’ (where one family member’s admittance to the US allows several others to come) that he now inveighs against.
In the first six months Melania Trump was a first lady pretty much in name only. She stayed in New York in Trump Tower, and only made occasional visits to Washington. This was done to allow Barron to finish his school year, without the upheaval of moving in between. And at an incredible cost to the US taxpayer in terms of additional security being provided by the US Secret Service. But even at weekends, there were times when it seemed they could have met up, but for whatever reason chose not to. When she and Barron did move into the White House the rhythm of life – if you can use the word ‘rhythm’ to describe something as cacophonous and arrhythmic as this presidency – had already been established, and Melania found that some of her East Wing staff had been poached to go and work for her stepdaughter, Ivanka – who was the product of Donald Trump’s second marriage to Ivana. The two, according to many reports, do not enjoy an easy relationship. Ivanka, as a key advisor to her father, plays a dominant role in the West Wing; Melania is queen of the East. Donald Trump has to navigate his way between the two.
There was a portrayal of Melania Trump in the months after the election that was well wide of the mark. She was variously depicted as a bit dim – the dumb model with the heavy East European accent on the arm of the billionaire; and also as the hapless prisoner, Donald Trump’s captive, unable to break free. A Rapunzel figure, whose hair wasn’t quite long enough to allow her rescuers to reach her in the isolated tower. The joke that went around was ‘Blink twice if you need rescuing, Melania’. It simultaneously poked fun at her position, and also what often appeared to be a lack of facial expression, that people surmised was the result of too much Botox and too many facelifts. #freemelania became a popular hashtag in those early days.
Melania Trump may never have wanted to be first lady – but she is her own woman. And during the most tumultuous period of the campaign when the Access Hollywood tape emerged of her husband bragging about what he could do to women as a result of his fame, she was sent out to reinforce the Trump defences. She gave an interesting interview to CNN’s star anchor, Anderson Cooper. Of course, she said the Donald Trump on the tape was not the man she knew. But she also went on: ‘People, they don’t really know me, people think and talk about me, like, “Oh, Melania, oh, poor Melania.” Don’t feel sorry for me.’
And she’s a fighter. Soon after the presidential election she sued the Daily Mail for defamation over false allegations that she had acted as a highly paid ‘escort’ in the 1990s – a case that she won, and claims the paper withdrew. What was interesting – and extraordinary given the public position she held – was not so much the legal grounds for the defamation, but why they were so injurious to her. According to her attorney, Charles Harder, the Mail article had hurt her chances of establishing ‘multi-million dollar business relationships’ during the years when she would be ‘one of the most photographed women in the world’. And in his court filings the lawyer went on: ‘The plaintiff had the unique, once in a lifetime opportunity as an extremely famous and well-known person, as well as a former professional model, brand spokesperson and successful businesswoman, to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multi-million dollar business relationships for a multi-year term.’ The products could have included clothing, accessories, jewellery, perfume and hair care.
Remember, this is the First Lady. A person who is a servant of the American people, with a full retinue of staff, round the clock secret-service protection, private government jets at her disposal, all paid for by the taxpayer – but seemingly more concerned about her money-making opportunities afterwards. With a hue and cry growing, the lawyer would later seek to clarify his filing, by saying, ‘The first lady has no intention of using her position for profit and will not do so. It is not a possibility.’ Reporters who suggested otherwise were guilty of ‘misinterpreting’ the court filing. Goodness. Sorry. How warped a mind must you have to gain the impression from his deposition that she was interested in making money? A second version of the lawsuit removed this controversial wording. There are those who suggest that Donald Trump is obsessed by his own personal branding; this court filing seemed to prove that Melania Trump didn’t lag far behind in that department.
And there have been times when she has not been afraid to show her own irritation at the President. The camera
s have caught various occasions where a Donald action has been matched by a Melania reaction. A grimace here, a sharp look there. Most memorable for me perhaps was when I was in the Middle East to cover Donald Trump’s first overseas trip. The first couple had arrived in Israel from Saudi Arabia aboard Air Force One. They were greeted at Ben Gurion airport by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and his wife Sarah. The two countries’ flags fluttered, and the band played as they walked along the red carpet. The Netanyahus walked away from the aircraft, hand in hand. Seeing this, Donald Trump, the globetrotting new boy, reached out to grab Melania’s hand. She was having none of it. The First Lady pushed his hand away as you might swat an irritating fly. There are several other examples of presidential outreach snubbed.
All first families find themselves living in a goldfish bowl, to a greater or lesser extent. The eyes of America and the world are firmly fixed on them – the Obamas, the Bushes, particularly the Clintons, and so on, back through history. But no president has been married three times before with such a well-documented and colourful playboy past. And the White House has never had a Slovenian born ex-supermodel as its first lady. The fascination about the state of the Trump marriage has fixated the tabloids and broadsheets, TV and radio – and of course the internet.
The two seem to lead very separate lives. By Melania’s own account the two are ‘very independent’. Speaking to journalists before the election she said, ‘We give ourselves and each other space.’ The Washington Post would report the extent of this separation, subtly, but with a clear message: ‘Donald and Melania Trump’s remarkably separate daily routines begin with him getting up around 5:30 a.m., watching cable news shows and tweeting. The first lady wakes in her own bedroom a bit later, according to two close friends of the Trumps. She then readies their 12-year-old son for school, including checking to make sure his homework is in his backpack.’