A year into the presidency, Melania Trump raises profile
WASHINGTON: Donald and Melania Trump’s remarkably separate daily routines begin with him getting up around 5.30am, 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-yearold son for school, including checking to make sure his homework is in his backpack.
Amid the noise and churn of the Trump administration - most recently about how the president paid money to silence Stormy Daniels - Melania Trump has settled into a quieter routine, often apart from the president, raising their son and carving out a place for herself in a most untraditional White House.
The first lady has not directly addressed the affairs that Daniels and another woman, Karen McDougal, said they had with her husband. But she has noticeably begun to raise her profile, independent from the president’s, and she has called a news conference in the White House Rose Garden last Monday, a public appearance that would have been almost unthinkable just a few months ago.
“Her focus all along has been children and this launch is meant to formalise what her role will be for the next three to seven years,” said Stephanie Grisham, Melania’s spokeswoman. She said the first lady will devote the rest of the Trump presidency to the issues children face today and their well-being.
In recent weeks, the first lady has been at the center of more high-profile events than during the entire previous year - including attending the funeral of former first lady Barbara Bush solo.
Political marriages tend to be more complicated than most, but it’s striking that the Trumps make so little effort to project a more united front.
Although both are keenly aware of the power of visual images, some of their memorable moments together are awkward: Melania swatting his hand away on a tarmac, and several times caught on camera seeming to resist his outreach.
“She is a dignified, private person, and she’ll deal with her personal life in private and it’s no one’s business,” said Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a longtime friend of Melania’s. “They are not that couple that holds hands just because; she is old-world European and it’s not who she is.”
It is unusual to see a candid shot of the president enjoying an unplanned moment with his wife, or even with Barron, the first young son in the White House since John F. Kennedy Jr. in the early 1960s.
The Trumps are often apart even during their free time, according to several people who know the couple’s schedules. At Mar-a-Lago on holidays and weekends, the president golfs or dines with politicians, business executives and media personalities on the patio, while Melania is often nowhere to be seen. According to several current and former aides, the president and first lady often do not eat together in the White House either.
“They spend very little to no time together,” said one longtime friend of the president.
Grisham said the president and Melania do spend time with each other. “Aside from the president’s solo trips, the family spends most evenings together.” She also played down the headlines about Trump’s alleged affairs and said Melania “is focused on being a mom. She’s focused on being a wife, and she’s focused on her role as first lady. And that’s it. The rest is just noise.”
A senior West Wing official, when asked about the couple’s separate schedules and bedrooms, declined to comment, saying it wasn’t official business.
Melania grants few interviews and declined to speak for this article, but during the campaign she told The Washington Post that she and her husband are “very independent,” adding, “We give ourselves and each other space.”
According to several people who know the couple, that space appears to have grown wider under the White House roof - especially since Daniels, a porn star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, as well as Karen McDougal, a Playboy model, publicly talked about their alleged affairs with Trump during his marriage to Melania. Another awkward exchange happened Apr 26 with Trump calling into “Fox & Friends,” announcing that it was Melania’s birthday, and then suddenly talking about Daniels. Asked on the same TV show what he had gotten Melania for her birthday, he paused: “Maybe, I didn’t get her so much. I got her a beautiful card, you know I’m very busy to be running out looking for presents.”
According to several White House staff members, Melania has erected a de facto wall between the East Wing, where she is renovating her office and enjoying growing popularity, and the West Wing, where her husband and Ivanka Trump, her eldest stepdaughter, have offices.
While she goes to the West Wing for official duties, she does not walk down the hall, pop her head in and see how the president’s day is going.
“She seldom sets foot in the West Wing,” said one person with first-hand knowledge.
Yet, many political analysts believe that Trump will need Melania at his side if he wants to win again in 2020.
The Trumps have broken the traditional mold of a presidential family from the moment he was sworn in. While Melania stood beside the president at the Capitol, his two ex-wives, Ivana Trump and Marla Maples, sat in the crowd.
Trump is the only president to be married three times. Melania is 48, and the president is 71.
Rather than move into the White House with her husband, Melania stayed in New York for six months to allow Barron to finish his school year there. That delay initially put Melania at a disadvantage, according to a friend who said the rhythm of the White House had already been established, and left her out of the mix. Some staff positions from the first lady’s office were diverted to the West Wing - including to support Ivanka, who is a presidential adviser, according to a person close to the first lady.
Ivanka, 36, and Melania, both former models, do not have a close relationship and are very different from one another, several people who know them said. Grisham said it was not only wrong to say Melania was not close to her stepdaughter but “hurtful.”
Noticeably, Melania’s presence is growing as Ivanka’s fades.
Last year, an official White House statement described Ivanka as holding an “unprecedented role for a first daughter” and she has at times taken on the duties of a first lady. Ivanka acts as the president’s policy adviser, has travelled the globe as her father’s surrogate, and sat down with world leaders at the White House. But recently her public profile has been reduced.
First ladies often have had considerable influence, as an informal adviser to the president and the person closest to him. They have been the hidden hand in policy decisions and hiring and firings. And, they can command attention for causes.
Melania has borrowed books from the White House Historical Association to study the first lady’s role and plans to outline on Monday a new initiative about children.
Several polls have shown that as she becomes more visible, her popularity is rising.
In many ways the image she projects is the least like Trump’s of all the Trumps.
Her focus all along has been children and this launch is meant to formalise what her role will be for the next three to seven years. Stephanie Grisham, Melania’s spokeswoman