Now in D.C., Melania Trump still no social butterfly
WASHINGTON — Two weeks into her new life as a full-time Washingtonian, Melania Trump is staying true to her reputation as more homebody than social butterfly.
Not that she hasn’t been busy fulfilling her duties as first lady and first mom.
Her top priority has been settling in 11-year-old son Barron — the first boy in the White House since John F. Kennedy Jr. more than 50 years ago.
Even the smallest details of every recent Barron sighting have drawn interest: his T-shirt reading “The Expert,” his grasp on a popular fidget spinner toy as he exited Air Force One, his pivot to take a picture of the Marine One helicopter as the family returned from a Father’s Day weekend retreat at Camp David.
Trump told “Fox and Friends” this week that she’s enjoying White House life so much that she doesn’t really miss New York. Barron is “all settled” and “loves it here,” she said.
In her first lady role, Trump has played host to her counterpart from Panama for a lunch upstairs in the private quarters of the White House. She also accompanied President Donald Trump to the hospital to visit a Louisiana congressman and others who were shot at baseball practice and helped plan a picnic for members of Congress on the White House lawn. She’s also preparing to accompany the president to Poland and Germany after the Fourth of July. Questions remain, though, about what kind and how social a first lady Trump will be. Will she dine out at the city’s trendiest restaurants? Pedal up a sweat at SoulCycle spinning classes? Try to go incognito on a Target shopping run?
“I don’t know anybody in New York who knows her or ever sees her socially, and I suspect that will be the same here,” said Sally Quinn, an author and Washington hostess.
Even the president has described his third wife, a 47-year-old former model and native of Slovenia, as more happy at home than working the social scene.
“She would go home at night and didn’t even want to go out with people,” the president said of his wife’s life in New York. “She was a very private person.”
Trump and Barron continued to live at Trump Tower after the Jan. 20 inauguration so he could finish the school year in New York. The first lady announced their June 11 move to Washington with a tweet.
Like some presidents, first ladies complain about the constraints of White House life even as they try to find ways to cope with Secret Service agents guarding them around the clock. Michelle Obama once jokingly described the mansion as a “really nice prison.” But it’s much easier for first ladies than presidents to venture out in public because they travel with far less security and staff.
Carl Sferrazza Anthony, a historian with the National First Ladies’ Library, said the current first lady may not find White House life to be all that confining.
She traded life in an expansive, three-story Trump Tower penthouse for a 132-room mansion with a bowling alley, outdoor swimming pool, tennis courts, gardens and “a lot of spaces that would allow her full privacy both indoors and outdoors.”
“It’s just hard to imagine that it’s going to be frustrating,” he said.