How Melania Trump is approaching the public role of first lady
She’s seen but rarely heard
Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Krissah Thompson.
Soon after President Trump’s inauguration, Melania Trump retreated from the public eye. The first lady returned to their Trump Tower penthouse in New York for nearly six months, tending to her young son, Barron, while slowly hiring a small staff to help her run her White House office.
For a while, it appeared that she would be as publicly disengaged from her husband’s administration as she had been from his campaign, when she gave few speeches and rarely traveled to his events. There was grumbling around Washington: Could the White House function well without the president’s spouse on site? Would she make any use of the platform that comes with her title?
Trump answered those questions after she moved to Washington over the summer.
While still largely avoiding public speaking, she has spent her first year communicating her support for her husband with her silent presence and a stream of curated images and short statements posted on social media.
“She is a ceremonial first lady,” said Myra Gutin, a communication professor at Rider University and author of “The President’s Partner,” a study of modern first ladies. “They had the Easter Egg Roll, a Hanukkah party, Christmas parties; she had the congressional spouses over to the White House. That’s all pro forma. . . . The advocacy for a project or policy initiative, I still really don’t see.”
The first lady’s communications director, Stephanie Grisham, said Trump’s approach suits her. “She is very focused on her own role and her own time as first lady. . . . Mrs. Trump has actually spoken publicly on several occasions both domestically and internationally, and she looks forward to more speaking roles when appropriate.”
Grisham has said that Trump hopes to use her time at the White House to help children, and she is frequently photographed with young people. One of her first solo outings as first lady was a surprise visit to a New York hospital where she read a Dr. Seuss book to sick children. There have also been visits to child-care centers, and one to a West Virginia drug recovery center for infants, intended to bring attention to the opioid epidemic.
Her voice for children
Trump’s most extensive public remarks thus far came at a luncheon she hosted for the spouses of world leaders during a United Nations General Assembly in September. In a seven-minute speech, she condemned bullying and roughly outlined an interest in boosting the well-being of children.
“No child should ever feel hungry, stalked, frightened, terrorized, bullied, isolated or afraid, with nowhere to turn,” Trump said. She added: “We must teach each child the values of empathy . . . kindness, mindfulness, integrity and leadership, which can only be taught by example.”
But she did not outline any specific policy suggestions at the time.
Her predecessors
Trump has not yet launched any formal initiatives or programs to advance her interests.
- Laura Bush, a former librarian, hosted the first National Book Festival during her first year in the White House — an event she said could highlight the key role of literacy in supporting a democracy.
- Michelle Obama planted the White House garden in her first year, a precursor to her “Let’s Move!” program to reduce the childhood obesity rate.
- Betty Ford helped lobby state legislatures to ratify the proposed Equal Rights Amendment.
- Nancy Reagan didn’t fully move into advocacy until her second year as first lady, when she launched her “Just Say No” campaign to complement the federal government’s anti-drug policies.
Social media
Trump’s professional background as a model comes through in the photos, said Jennifer Golbeck, an associate professor at the University of Maryland at College Park and an expert in social media. Golbeck has analyzed the first lady’s postings on Twitter and Instagram over the past year.
If he is the Twitter president, she is the Instagram first lady.
“She’s very comfortable in front of a camera,” Goldbeck said. Her use of social media is “very formal. She’s trying as much as she’s comfortable to give a personal glimpse of herself, but it is clearly hyper-controlled. . . . There are a lot of [photos of] her impeccably dressed with perfect hair — that’s what I get from the imagery.”
In one of her more recent Instagram posts, Trump seemed to be trying to lighten her image — offering a wide-eyed smoochy face with a photo filter that superimposed a Santa hat and dancing golden reindeer. It quickly became one of her most-liked photos.
Popularity ratings
On the whole, Trump’s reserved approach seems to be working.
First ladies are typically more popular than their husbands, and a Gallup poll released in December showed that her favorable rating is 54 percent, up 17 points since January.
The same poll showed that her husband is viewed unfavorably by 56 percent of Americans.
Melania Trump is slightly less popular than Michelle Obama, who was viewed favorably by 61 percent of Americans in the fall of her husband’s first year in office, and Laura Bush, who had an approval rating of 77 percent during the same period of her husband’s presidency.
“Perhaps Melania Trump’s approval rating is higher than her husband’s precisely because she withholds so much,” Johanna Blakley, managing director of the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
Blakley compared the first lady’s personal social-media feed @MelaniaTrump, which has not been updated since the election, to her @FLOTUS accounts on Twitter and Instagram and found a stark difference.
Before becoming first lady, Trump shared “personal preferences and observations that feel quite intimate” — enough so that a stranger could feel comfortable picking out a gift for her, Blakley said in an email.
“That is what’s so powerful about these social platforms: they can make you feel as if you really know someone.”
Paolo Zampolli, a New York businessman and longtime friend of the Trumps who has visited them in the White House, said Melania Trump is still adjusting to the public component of her life as first lady. She has time to refine her approach.
