President-elect Donald Trump disagrees with those that predicted that Melania Trump is not going to accompany him to Washington, DC when he takes office again in January.
In his interview with Time Magazine for him Person of the Year AwardTrump said “Oh yeah” when asked if his wife would join him on the White House.
“She was very, she actually became very active toward the end, as you could see in interviews,” Trump said somewhat incoherently. He appears to be referring to his wife's activity level toward the tip of his first term, which resulted in early 2021 after he lost the 2020 election. The latest president continued by claiming that his wife does interviews “well,” “people are really watching” and “she's very popular with people.”
“No, she will be — she will be active when she needs to be,” Trump told Time, leaving open the likelihood that she can be picky about when she will likely be “active.”
Trump also appeared to defend his wife for her lack of presence during his 2024 campaign, attending only just a few events, resembling the last day of the Republican National Convention in July. Trump and Melania, his third wife, were also photographed together on Thursday visiting the New York Stock Exchange after he was named Time Person of the Year. He rang the opening bell within the trading room.
Trump told Time that individuals “like the fact that it's not in your face all the time for a lot of reasons.” …But she really, they really like her. They really love her. In fact, after I give speeches, we love our First Lady in some ways.”
Trump's comments may or may not settle questions on his wife's visibility in his upcoming term. People near the Slovenia-born former model and one in every of her biographers have previously said in reports that she disliked certain elements of life in Washington and its social/political scene during her husband's first term.
Those people said they expected she would likely keep her own “apartment” within the White House, but would only stay there when performing required ceremonial duties.
“She obviously hated being in Washington,” Kate Andersen Brower, creator of several books concerning the White House, told Axios in June.
“If Melania becomes first lady again, people will naturally expect her to move into the White House and carry out related duties,” a social source near the Trumps told People magazine last month. “Melania knows what to do, but still has a mind of her own.”
More likely, these people expected Melania Trump to separate her time between Trump Tower in New York City and Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. In fact, they said she would probably spend most of her time in New York City because her son Barron is a freshman at New York University and lives in Trump Tower. She told Fox News in September, “I can't say I'm an empty nester.”
“As much as Melania loves Mar-a-Lago and her life in Palm Beach, she will be spending more time in New York with her son, who is more important to her than anything else,” a source told People.
When Trump first took office in January 2017, it was clear that his wife, a former model and immigrant from Slovenia, would never be a standard first lady if there ever was one, her biographers noted. From the beginning, she refused to affix Trump in Washington, as a substitute staying in New York City – again due to Barron, it was reported. At the age of 10 he had to complete his school 12 months there.
But as much as Trump said his wife can be an “active” first lady — “if she needs to be” — that's not the impression she gave from 2017 to 2021. Melania Trump barely entered the East Wing, the normal base of operations for first ladies, in response to “American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden” by Katie Rogers, a White House correspondent for The New York Times.
According to Rogers, Melania Trump wasn't considered the hardest-working first lady either. She “avoided being overscheduled, and sometimes she avoided being overscheduled at all,” Rogers also said.
Her coworkers were sometimes capable of persuade her to host multiple events on days after they knew she could possibly be “camera ready, with a full designer ensemble, dewy makeup, and flawless makeup.” But they were only successful about “half the time,” Rogers said.
According to Rogers, if Melania Trump had her way, she would spend her days in her gown on the White House residence. Rogers wrote in her book that Melania was particularly drawn to “wearing elegant gowns around the clock” on the residence in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.
Melania Trump achieved lots as First Lady, Rogers reported. Like all first ladies, Melania launched an initiative to supposedly improve the lives of a certain segment of the American public. Melania's Be Best initiative was intended to advertise children's well-being and curb bullying.
But Rogers also quoted Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Melania's former adviser and good friend – with whom she had a famous falling out – as saying that “Be Best” meant little greater than just a few public appearances and “a brochure.”
Her “most lasting contributions” as first lady involved overseeing upgrades to White House facilities and amenities that almost all Americans would never see in person, Rogers said. These projects included a redesign of the Rose Garden and an upgrade of the White House Tennis Pavilion. However, each efforts were met with criticism, as were Melania's annual holiday decoration decisions, which resulted in her being caught on video telling Winston Wolkoff, “Who gives a (swear word) about the Christmas stuff and the Christmas decorations?”
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