Melania Trump: Enigmatic and fiercely independent first lady is back

Some commentators have questioned whether she enjoyed the role of first lady at all.

One of her biographers, former CNN reporter Kate Bennett, maintains she did despite her early reluctance.

“She liked all the accoutrements that go with being first lady and living in the White House,” Ms Bennett told People magazine in 2021. “I think she actually really enjoyed it.”

In her memoir, Mrs Trump wrote that she has a “strong sense of duty to use the platform as First Lady for good”.

And she said in a 1999 interview that if her then-boyfriend Trump ever ran for president, she would use former first ladies Jacqueline Kennedy and Betty Ford as role models, calling them “very traditional”.

Mrs Kennedy was a fashion icon who was dedicated to the preservation of the White House, while Mrs Ford was known as a trailblazer who advocated for abortion rights and women’s rights.

After relocating to Washington, Mrs Trump started taking on first lady duties, such as hosting luncheons and state dinners for visiting world leaders. She also focused on White House aesthetics, ordering extensive renovations and overseeing ambitious Christmas decorations (and was once secretly recorded complaining about that last task).

Her clothing was the subject of media fascination and controversy, particularly after she was spotted wearing a jacket with the phrase “I really don’t care, do you?” during a trip to a migrant child detention centre in 2018.

She said the jacket was a message for “the people and the left-wing media” who were criticising her.

Mrs Trump came under fire again after being secretly recorded by her former friend and senior advisor. She was heard expressing her frustration at being criticised for her husband’s policy to separate migrant children from their families.

She later revealed that she had been blindsided by the policy, and had told Trump privately that she did not support it. The policy was dropped by the president in June 2018 after a firestorm of controversy.

Prof Vigil says one of the biggest challenges that Mrs Trump faced in her first term was her political inexperience as well as a revolving door of staff, who were equally inexperienced and at times disloyal.

But Mrs Trump kept quietly busy regardless, Prof Vigil adds, advocating for issues like children’s welfare through her Be Best campaign against online bullying.

She was forced to defend that campaign given her own husband’s aggressive use of social media, telling CBS in 2016, external that how he conducted himself online got him in trouble – and boosted his followers.

She also advocated for children affected by the opioid crisis, and has since started a foundation that raises education funds for children in foster care.

Many expect for that work to continue once she moves back to Washington, though it remains unclear if she will live there full-time.

Prof Vigil says the role of first lady has evolved over the years and Mrs Trump will “make choices about how active in public she wants to be”.

“And I think she’ll do that much more intentionally.”