USA TODAY US Edition

2018 could be Melania Trump’s coming-out party

With a low-key first year, she has remained elusive

- Maria Puente

Melania Trump’s first year as first lady is coming to an end, and she remains as elusive and enigmatic as she was when she moved into the White House in June.

We will see more of her in 2018, if for no other reason than that she’ll be a full-time first lady for a full year. And she’s in the midst of planning her first big event, a state dinner early in the year, although she’s mum on details.

But it’s an open question whether she’ll exert more influence in 2018, or whether we’ll get to know her even marginally better, FLOTUS watchers say.

“She is more popular than her husband (most first ladies are), but not as popular as some past first ladies at this point,” says Myra Gutin, a firstlady historian at Rider University in New Jersey. “No one knows the extent to which she influences her husband’s decisions.”

That’s because Melania Trump, 47, is not about letting it all hang out or preening in the spotlight that comes with her position. Trump is first and foremost a reserved woman, accustomed as a former fashion model to affecting a neutral, even blank face at all times so as not to distract from the clothes or, now, her husband, President Trump.

She is approachin­g the ill-defined job of first lady unlike any of her predecesso­rs, recent or antique. But in her firm but unflashy manner, she is setting a marker: She’s doing the FLOTUS thing her way — and she’s still figuring out what that means.

“I think Mrs. Trump will continue to be true to herself as she said she would early on in the transition and soon after the election,” says Anita McBride, who was chief of staff to former first lady Laura Bush and now studies first ladies at American University in Washington. “Her priority continues to be, as it should be, her young son, Barron, and his adjustment to life in Washington and the White House.”

As a mother to an 11-year-old, Trump has been clear her primary focus is on him, making sure he’s settled in at his new school and getting to soccer practice while including him in public events such as taking delivery of the White House Christmas tree.

Her vision for her job in 2018 is still to be determined; she gives little away.

“She is very self-possessed, and I don’t think she worries about pleasing people or meeting preconceiv­ed notions about what a first lady should or should not do,” says Kate Andersen Brower, author of First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies.

English is not Trump’s first language — that would be Slovenian; she is the first immigrant FLOTUS in 200 years — but her command of English is good in more intimate, low-pressure settings. So far, she has done no high-pressure, on-therecord interviews with print or TV media. She doesn’t do social media much, let alone let loose with strings of newsmaking tweets, as her husband does.

She has delivered few major speeches about substantiv­e matters aside from an address at the United Nations in September in which she condemned bullying. She has been on multiple foreign trips but seems happiest, judging from her relaxed and smiling pictures, in lowkey encounters with children at hospitals or holiday events. And, of course, her fashion choices are avidly followed.

“There was no political activity, almost no advocacy,” Gutin says. “Mrs. Trump has been a ceremonial first lady. This probably sits well with half the country; the other half looks at the fact that she is not utilizing the White House podium to voice concerns or push an initiative.”

Or not yet, anyway. So far Trump’s approach to her position has been methodical, careful and unobtrusiv­e, informed by her own research and advice from experts and her small staff, and generally indifferen­t to the operatic hullabaloo and Twitter twaddle that often rages around her and the president.

Social media warriors have used her to bash him, mocking her for not moving into the White House right away and making a viral video of her seeming to swat his hand away from hers on their first foreign trip. They criticized her for her choice of clothes, shoes and a gift of Dr. Seuss books to school libraries. They even at one point debated whether the woman standing next to him on the White House lawn was a “body double.” (She wasn’t.)

As the two have often said, when he’s hit, he hits back 10 times as hard. She shares her husband’s disdain for the media; however, she is usually more subtle and thus maybe more effective.

After Britain’s The Daily Mail and a Slovenian magazine published false articles suggesting she worked as a highend escort when she was a model, she sicced her lawyers on them — a first for a first lady. The publicatio­ns capitulate­d, retracting, apologizin­g and paying up big bucks.

“I don’t think that we’re going to see a huge change in her over the next year — in fact, I think a lot of this has to do with her husband and her feeling that he is being unfairly persecuted,” Andersen Brower says. “There is a bunker mentality that can develop in times like these.”

Her plans for an anti-cyberbully­ing campaign are still on hold, either because she is being careful about launching an initiative or it’s difficult to fight cyberbully­ing when her husband so often uses Twitter as a cudgel. Meanwhile, she has dived into the anti-opioid movement, decrying especially its often tragic effect on children and families.

“This is an important way to use her unique platform and podium, and with the right support, I believe her efforts and voice on this issue can make a difference,” McBride says.

Andersen Brower says Trump has been most effective, and happiest, when she has been out of the country. “I think she should focus on her strengths in 2018: empathizin­g and spending time with children and doing more work to tackle the opioid crisis.”

Gutin agrees Trump’s best moments so far have been with children.

“Any (future) project that includes children might work well, as these interactio­ns seem to bring out her natural warmth,” Gutin says. “This could be a turnaround year if she increases her public presence and invites media in.”

Given the Trump White House’s relationsh­ip with the media, that’s not like- ly. Still, the first lady has stepped up to center stage for traditiona­l White House events and on foreign trips. We can expect more of the former and possibly more of the latter, McBride says.

“She has successful­ly presided over major events in the White House that are traditiona­lly the purview of FLOTUS — the Easter Egg Roll and Christmas — that are always highly anticipate­d,” McBride says. “She has also shown that she is comfortabl­e on the world stage.”

Trump did not carry out a traditiona­l FLOTUS duty in her first year — planning and hosting a state dinner at the White House, a major diplomatic and social undertakin­g, and the first time in decades an administra­tion did not hold such an important event in its first year.

The White House says the administra­tion hopes to schedule a dinner “early” in 2018; neither the first lady nor White House spokeswoma­n Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said which country will be first to be fêted. But Trump and her social secretary, Anna Cristina “Rickie” Lloyd, are experience­d party planners: Trump organized her own wedding at Mar-a-Lago in 2005, a million-dollar affair with more than 350 guests.

“I don’t think she worries about pleasing people or meeting preconceiv­ed notions about what a first lady should or should not do.” Kate Andersen Brower Author of First Women

 ??  ?? The first lady, 47, has focused much of her energy on her 11-year-old son, Barron, and his adjustment to life in Washington. MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES
The first lady, 47, has focused much of her energy on her 11-year-old son, Barron, and his adjustment to life in Washington. MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES
 ??  ?? Melania Trump greets the daughter of a military family last month at a Toys for Tots event at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, D.C. JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP
Melania Trump greets the daughter of a military family last month at a Toys for Tots event at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, D.C. JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP

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