Melania looks on as her husband Donald visits his campaign headquarters to thank the campaign workers on Election Day, in West Palm Beach, Florida. — Reuters
IN brief remarks introducing her husband, Donald Trump, at a rally at Madison Square Garden recently – coming after speakers derided Puerto Rico as garbage, Latinos as promiscuous and Kamala Harris as the Antichrist – Melania Trump began by invoking “strength, courage and unity” and concluded by imagining a “shared vision” for America.
United by what? Shared by whom? It’s like she knew nothing of what came before, in the rally or in this campaign, or simply pretended none of it had happened.
The dissonance between the former first lady’s words and the carnival of insults that preceded it will surprise no one who has picked up her new memoir, Melania. In these pages, Melania is unstintingly superficial, incapable of taking responsibility for any missteps and disconnected from anything beyond the small world she has fashioned for herself. Her infamous jacket – the one with “I Really Don’t Care. Do U?” on the back – could double as her book jacket, too.
In this account, even the people closest to Melania are two-dimensional creatures, depicted mainly through a series of superlatives. Introspection is at the core of a worthwhile memoir, but in Melania that core is empty.
In this account, even the people closest to Melania are two-dimensional creatures, depicted mainly through a series of superlatives. Her mother displays “innate talent and boundless creativity” and is blessed with “impeccable taste.” Her father is “confident and industrious” and enjoys an “outgoing personality.” Even her son, Barron, for whom Melania expresses fierce devotion, rates only generic descriptions, possessing “a rare combination of intelligence, charm, and diligence” and “a circle of friends, a thirst for knowledge, and a range of hobbies.”
Her self-portrait is equally nebulous. Melania calls herself a “disciplined, ambitious individual who values hard work, dedication and self-awareness.” When she looks back on the pivotal moment, decades ago, when she left behind her architecture studies to pursue modeling full time, Melania cites the “difficulty of the choice,” but gives no sense of why she opted for the runway. She later writes that as a model, she experienced “setbacks” but remained true to her values and that “while some industry encounters were difficult, I handled them with poise.”
What setbacks? What values? What encounters? Introspection is at the core of a worthwhile memoir, but in “Melania” that core is empty.
Whenever something goes wrong, Melania finds someone else to blame. When she develops and promotes a skin care product (Melania Caviar Complexe C6) that falters in production, she stresses that “the issues had nothing to do with me.” When her address at the 2016 Republican convention contained lines lifted from a speech by Michelle Obama, Melania laments that she had “relied too much on others in this crucial endeavor,” expressing outrage at the mistakes those others had made. (A speechwriter, not Melania herself, issued a statement of regret, first apologising to Melania and the Trump family, then to Obama.)
Of course, it is not clear what the responsibilities of the first lady are or should be. The role is undefined, unappreciated and unpaid. First ladies “are expected to appropriately fit every prism of our kaleidoscope of expectations of American womanhood,” writes Katie Rogers, a Times White House correspondent, in her recent history of the office. In rejecting many of the trappings of the job, Melania Trump has upended those expectations. Yet her memoir does not tell us why she did so, or even if she meant to do so.
She writes that she hoped to be a “traditional” first lady like Jackie Kennedy, yet in that role, Melania was anything but traditional. She did not move into the White House until several months after her husband became president, preferring to stay in New York, where Barron was finishing the school year. This break from precedent is worth plumbing further, but Melania simply says that “juggling two full-time roles in different locations was exhausting but rewarding, and I embraced the challenge wholeheartedly.”
Once she moved into the White House, her main preoccupation was sprucing it up. Melania was fixated on renovating at least a dozen rooms in the residence – we learn lots about scuffed floors and ragged upholstery – as well as updating the bowling alley and installing a tennis pavilion.
“My goal was to preserve the historical significance of the White House while also creating a model and inviting home,” Melania writes. (The book includes a picture of Melania cutting a ribbon at the tennis pavilion, though not one of anyone ever playing there.)
This preoccupation with appearances permeates Melania’s official duties. Readers learn more about the décor and attire at state dinners than about anything that transpires. (The book also features images of a solitary Melania arranging the place settings for the Australian and French state dinners.)
And even when she has previously made clear her scorn for some of these duties – “who gives a (expletive) about the Christmas stuff and decorations?” she asked in a 2018 conversation secretly recorded by a former friend and adviser – she does not acknowledge those inconsistencies.
“Every year, I would begin planning for Christmas, a very special holiday to me, in early July,” Melania writes, as if no one would remember her disdain.
An obsession with the look of American politics meanwhile provides Melania’s excuse for ignoring its substance. On Jan 6, 2021, the day Congress would gather to certify the results of the 2020 election, she was spending the day with a team of photographers, archivists and designers who were documenting all the White House renovations during her tenure.
Melania says she “wasn’t aware” of what was happening when, during the assault on the Capitol, her press secretary texted her to ask if she wished to publicly condemn the violence.
It takes a special kind of insularity to be first lady of the United States, in the White House on Jan 6, and still have no idea that a mob of your husband’s supporters had overrun the seat of the legislature. Naturally, she blames her staff for failing to brief her.
Naturally, she blames her staff for failing to brief her. “Had I been fully informed of all the details, naturally, I would have immediately denounced the violence,” she writes.
Once she turned on the television, Melania now explains, she decided the violence was “unequivocally unacceptable.” Left unmentioned was whether she found her husband’s role in encouraging the violence unacceptable, too.
Melania’s relationship with Donald is among the book’s haziest features. She depicts her initial attraction to him in superficial terms: She was “captivated by his charm,” “drawn to his magnetic energy” and appreciated his “polished business look.”
He was not “flashy or dramatic,” she writes, but “down-to-earth.” And though we know how he speaks about women in private, Melania writes that “in private, he revealed himself as a gentleman, displaying tenderness and thoughtfulness.”
The one example she offers of his thoughtfulness is a bit unnerving: “Donald to this day calls my personal doctor to check on my health, to ensure that I am OK and that they are taking perfect care of me.”
When Melania looks back on the day she and Donald were married, she sounds like she’s describing a product launch.
“I felt a sense of pride in the successful outcome of the wedding,” she writes.
She mentions their marriage vows, but only to say that they were “deeply meaningful.”
And even when Melania attempts to portray Donald as a doting father, she can only summon vague fuzziness. “Watching Donald interact with Barron was heartwarming,” she writes. “His connection with his son showcased a different side of him that I had not seen before. Their relationship was filled with love and admiration.”
What connection? What different side? Does Melania not want to provide any father-son anecdotes, or are none available?
The issue with Melania is not just that the writing is lazy and unimaginative, though it certainly is both. (At one point Melania recalls Donald “inspiring the crowd with his words of promise and inspiration.”)
Nowhere in the book is a ghostwriter acknowledged, though I imagine that there must have been one. But the problem with Melania is not how poorly things are said, but how little is said.
Part of the appeal of political memoirs is that we can learn what public figures were thinking during controversial or consequential moments, or at least what they want us to think they were thinking. But Melania skates past any unpleasantness.
When she describes her initiative against online bullying, for example, Melania does not wrestle with Donald’s social-media harangues, except to say that “my advocacy wouldn’t be swayed by how my husband managed his Twitter account.”
The term Access Hollywood never appears in this memoir. Nor does the name Stormy Daniels. Melania writes that “dishonesty has no place in my life,” but she says nothing about that very public bout of infidelity.
Anyone still hoping that Melania is a closet member of the resistance will be disappointed. She reinterprets her husband’s speeches as his “message of unity,” and she reaffirms her denial of the 2020 presidential election.
“I am not the only person who questions the results,” she writes, arguing both that some states were called too quickly and that others took too long to count votes.
The big reveal in “Melania” occurs in the final pages, when she asserts that “restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body.” Here, Melania joins a long line of spouses of Republican presidents, dating back to Betty Ford, who have supported abortion rights.
This material, taking up two pages of the book, is oddly disconnected from the rest of the volume, and from the legal, political and health debates over abortion. Unlike her opposition to the policy of family separations at the southern border, which she says that she expressed to her husband at the time, Melania does not contrast her views on abortion with his own position on the matter, or with his Supreme Court appointments, or with the 2022 Dobbs decision or with any state-level efforts to restrict or expand abortion rights.
Has Melania ever discussed abortion with the former president? Why is she choosing to make her views public now? There is a difference between adopting a position and truly taking a stand.
When looking back on the 2020 protests over race and policing, Melania cautions that “while racial unrest may prompt the removal of certain statues, it is imperative that we do not simply erase the less favorable aspects of our past.” Not erasing the past is a worthwhile imperative, just not one that this book embraces.
If Melania shows us anything, it is that with their shared indifference to truth and context, obsession with superficialities and reluctance to assume responsibility, Melania and Donald have much in common. They really were made for each other.
Yet even Donald seems surprised that his wife has published a memoir. “Can you believe this?” he asked at a recent appearance. “She did a book.”
Yes, she did. But barring some fleeting moments – such as her meeting with Pope Francis, who asked her if she ever prepared potica, a traditional Slovenian pastry, for Donald – it is a book with very little humanity in it.
So why write it at all? Some have speculated that Melania is hoping to soften her husband’s position on abortion or make him more appealing to female voters. But other elements of the book suggest a more straightforward explanation.
Though there is much left unexplored, the memoir does offer details about Melania’s ongoing business ventures. The photos include a digital collectible of Melania’s face (available on her website for US$150), a “Love; Gratitude” customisable necklace for Mother’s Day ($245), as well as a Christmas ornament and Presidents Day collectible.
The book also lists the websites where such items can be purchased, along with signed versions of her book and a special collector’s edition with bonus photographs, in case the 64 pages of images in the original leave some readers wanting more.
Should her husband lose this Tuesday’s vote, the appeal of the Trump brand may diminish. The timing of Melania – published four weeks before Election Day, when attention is high and remains monetisable – makes good business sense. Why should Donald be the only one hawking merch during the homestretch?
The cover of Melania is all black, save for the one-word title in white, resembling a perfume package. Along with the aroma of indifference, the book gives off an unmistakable scent of grift. — ©2024 New York Times Company
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
