Melania Trump’s quiet return to the White House

In the past year, more has been revealed about Melania Trump’s life than in the previous eight. Yet, she remains a complete enigma. The Slovenian model who entered the White House in 2016 and left in 2020 is returning to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue this Monday, though few would have predicted it four years ago.

The presidential residence was never to her liking, but her husband’s electoral victory has drawn her out of her luxurious residences and placed her in the frigid climate of Washington, D.C. Once again, no one knows what role she will take on, how she will influence her husband’s decisions, or what she will do next. As always with Melania Trump, everything remains shrouded in speculation.

The first lady released a memoir last October, which she claims was a huge success. This success has now led to her next project: a documentary with Prime Video. Currently being filmed, the documentary will focus on her life and her early days in the White House, as she revealed to Fox News — the channel aligned with Trumpism and the only one she grants interviews to, albeit very few.

“My fans and people would love to hear more from me. So I had an idea to make a movie, to make a film about my life,” she told Fox journalist Ainsley Earhardt last week. “My life is incredible, it’s incredibly busy, and I told my agent, go out and make a deal for me. We started the production in November, and we are shooting right now, so it’s a day-to-day life, what I’m doing, what kind of responsibilities I have. People they don’t really know, and they will see it. It’s day to day from transition team to moving to the White House, packing, establishing my team, the First Lady office, moving into the White House, what it takes to make the residence your home, to hire the people that you need.”

The deal was a lucrative one: according to industry sources, it was valued at around $40 million. The documentary will be directed by Brett Ratner, who has been virtually blacklisted from Hollywood for a decade due to allegations of sexual harassment and his history of homophobic remarks.

While the film has no official release date, it appears to follow a similar trajectory as her memoir. As the saying goes, much ado about nothing. Days before the release of her slim memoir, the former model knew how to make waves: in the final stretch of the electoral campaign, she shifted her position and publicly defended women’s right to abortion and control over their own bodies. Expectations were high, but when the book finally arrived, it offered little substance. It provided a sugary recounting of her childhood summers in Croatia, her career as a model, and her first encounters with her husband, along with a superficial review of her time in the White House — barely addressing any of the significant issues.

But that is Melania (née Knauss), and that is how the public has known her for years. If her husband is verbose, she is silent. If he lives in a parallel, alternative reality, hers remains a mystery. While he is constantly active on social media, even creating his own platform, she posts very little content.

She believes that people have not always fully understood or accepted her: “Maybe some people, they see me as just a wife of the president, but I’m standing on my own two feet, independent. I have my own thoughts. I have my own yes and no,” she told Fox & Friends. “I don’t always agree what my husband is saying or doing, and that’s OK. I give him my advice, and sometimes he listens, sometimes he doesn’t, and that’s OK.”

Whatever Melania whispers in Donald’s ear remains, of course, unknown. Her public messages are few and far between and, at most, conveyed through her fashion choices.

Unlike other first ladies who, once in the spotlight, have embraced the media attention, Melania Trump, 54 (22 years younger than her husband), seems to shy away from it. She appears only to be interested in promoting the cause she champions: Be Best, a platform dedicated to combating cyberbullying among children. This is one of the few certainties surrounding her new role as first lady in the presidential mansion — that she will continue to advocate for a cause that hits close to home, as she witnessed firsthand how her son Barron was harassed on social media during Trump’s previous tenure.

“I will expand BeBest,” she said in the Fox News interview. “I started the first in the first administration. I didn’t have much support from anyone. I invited all of the streaming platforms to the White House. I had the roundtable, and I didn’t have much support from them. And imagine what we could do in those years if they would rally behind me and teach the children what to do to protect them about social media and their mental health,” she said with a hint of resentment.

Barron, who will turn 19 in March, has always been Melania Trump’s top priority. He spent part of his childhood in the White House, but now, as an adult studying at New York University, he has no intention of returning to live with his parents in that gilded cage.

“I think he will come and visit,” Melania Trump said in the Fox News interview, adding that he is also welcome to bring his friends. “Whatever he would like to do,” she said. “I feel that children, we have them ‘til they are like 18, 19 years old. We teach them, we guide them. and then we give them the wings to fly. And I always respect Barron’s yes and no and what he likes to do, where he would like to be.” And the White House doesn’t seem to be that place.

The Trumps will arrive at the White House on Monday, and their transition team will have just five hours to move in — from the time the Bidens leave and they enter, between 8:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., when the inauguration ceremony begins.

As for the first lady, she says she will primarily live in Washington, though not exclusively. “I will be in the White House. And you know when I need to be in New York, I will be in New York. When I need to be in Palm Beach, I will be in Palm Beach. But my first priority is, you know, to be a mom, to be a first lady, to be a wife. And once we are in on January 20, you serve the country,” she said on Fox, with her signature smile.

Although she describes herself as “incredibly busy,” Melania Trump arrives at the White House more relaxed. She is no longer a rookie, as she herself has acknowledged, and has even taken a jab at the Obamas, claiming that during her first visit, they had very little information because “it was withheld from us by the previous administration.”

“But this time I have everything: I have the plans, I could move in, I already packed, I already selected the furniture [...] it’s a very different transition.” The former model will need to hire some more members of her team, but plans to keep it minimal, so as not to spend “too much taxpayers’ money.”

This time, she will have another advantage: she will be both the mistress and the lady of the house. There will no longer be another royal family in the shadows, as Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the president’s daughter and son-in-law — key advisers during his first term — will not be in Washington. The White House is entirely hers. Whether she likes it or not.

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