|
|
"A collaborative political resource." |
Melania Trump’s Legacy: Missteps, Mystery and, in the End, Absence
|
| Parent(s) |
Candidate
-
|
| Contributor | IndyGeorgia |
| Last Edited | IndyGeorgia Jan 26, 2021 07:34pm |
| Category | Analysis |
| News Date | Jan 19, 2021 12:00pm |
| Description | WASHINGTON — Melania Knauss Trump came to her role as first lady as an enigma. No one knew how the former Slovene model who became Donald J. Trump’s third wife would adapt to the role her predecessor Michelle Obama had redefined.
Even as Mrs. Trump’s husband ignored the traditions of his predecessors, she at first tried to follow hers after arriving in Washington from New York months after Mr. Trump: hiring a staff, talking about child care as the mother of a young son, and finding her own causes while any attention she got tended to be for the designer clothes she wore at every public appearance.
But as the years went by, her efforts lost steam, undermined by a series of public spectacles created by her husband as well as her own self-inflicted public relations disasters and the hostility she felt from the news media. Like the president, she began to pay less attention to traditional niceties, most memorably when leaked expletive-filled audio surfaced of her saying how much she could not stand the White House Christmas decorations.
Described by White House officials as in a state of shock after the election, Mrs. Trump joined with her husband in insisting that he had actually won. But by the New Year, she was house hunting in Florida and was emotionally checked out well in advance of the mob’s attack on the Capitol and the day that her husband’s false claims were finally put to rest. |
| Article | Read Article |
|
|
