Politics - News Analysis

Trump Supporter Claims Melania’s IQ is Much Higher Than Michelle Obama’s — So We Looked Into It

Trump supporters seem to be obsessed with Melania Trump’s IQ.

As the first lady, she remains a bit of an enigma shrouded in the cloak of wealth and privilege. A woman who rarely gives interviews, Melania’s IQ has been a source of speculation since her husband, Donald Trump, began his run for the White House back in 2015.

A popular meme amongst Trump supporters has been one purportedly showing Melania Trump’s IQ versus Michelle Obama’s IQ.

Take a look:

Where shall I begin??

First, the meme is simply disgusting. It’s such complete nonsense that it falls under Poe’s law: I honestly can’t tell whether it was put together by a Trump supporter, or someone trying to parody Trump supporters.

Now, in response to the question itself: we don’t know.

Bluntly, the nature of Melania Trump’s life and career is such that we can’t make any kind of reasonable assessment of her intelligence.

Much is made of the fact that she speaks several languages, which is fine, but also far from uncommon in much of Europe. Also, experts have suggested in the past that Melania’s claim of speaking 6 languages is mostly likely false.

She apparently attended college, but dropped out after one semester to pursue her modeling career, and every piece of her subsequent career was based around that.

Being a promoter for various products, or actually having product lines named after her are all knock-down impacts of being a successful model, as is marrying a much older rich guy (for love, of course).

She married a guy, for whatever reason, and has essentially done little since then that would indicate any level of intelligence. She says little, seemingly has no opinions that disagree with her husband’s, not common in any marriage. Her primary job seems to be standing around looking decorative allowing her elderly husband to have some arm candy.

In an interview with DuJour magazine, Melania herself said, “I’m not only a beauty, I’m smart. I have brains. I’m intelligent” when the topic of public scrutiny regarding her appearance was brought up.

In fact, some might claim Melania isn’t as intelligent as she claims, especially considering that she has been accused of plagiarism twice now.

Her 2016 Republican National Convention speech was compared to Michelle Obama’s “One Nation” speech from the 2008 Democratic Convention, which sounded very similar.

An analysis of these speeches concluded that Obama uses longer, more complex sentences, and are aimed at “an audience with a higher level of education.” Trump, however, used shorter sentences that were easier to understand, but with a richer vocabulary. But this could be a result of English not being her first language.

She was accused again of plagiarism when she started the “Be Best” campaign, with people noticing that the graphics and texts from the booklet she distributed bore a crazily similar resemblance to those from the booklet handed out by the Obamas.

There’s also the question of how she obtained her “Einstein visa,” which allowed her to permanently settle in the United States.

This “elite” EB-1 program is usually reserved for people with “extraordinary ability,” like international business executives, Oscar-winning actors, and academic researchers.

When she got a green card in 2001, “her credentials included runway shows in Europe, a Camel cigarette billboard ad in Times Square and — in her biggest job at the time: a spot in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated, which featured her on the beach in a string bikini, hugging a six-foot inflatable whale.”

If Trump were to take the immigration screening test proposed by her husband, it’s very likely that she would fail. Plus, the Trump administration is trying to restrict the H-1B visa, which is exactly how she entered the United States.

None of this to say that Melania is dumb, just that it doesn’t reveal much about her intelligence one way or another. She could be a genius, she could be a fool, we wouldn’t be able to tell either way. She doesn’t have the kind of academic or business record or record of writings that would allow us to even guess how smart she is.

Michelle Obama, on the other hand, we can draw some very strong conclusions about her intelligence.

She was salutatorian of her high school, graduated with honors from Princeton, got her law degree from Harvard, and had a successful legal career until she decided to devote her full-time energies to her husband’s rapidly advancing political career.

Michelle Obama is very clearly a highly intelligent and driven woman (the numbers that meme gives for her IQ and her GPA are laugh-out-loud funny). The only people who could possibly deny her intelligence are people who are painfully misinformed or really, really desperate to believe that she’s not smart.

So, who’s brighter? As I say, it’s impossible to say. Michelle Obama is highly intelligent. It’s possible that Melania is just as bright, but we’ve yet to see any public sign of it.

meet the author

Nicole Hickman James is a lifelong Democrat and political activist who first cut her teeth as a teenager volunteering for Mike Dukakis’ presidential campaign. She has worked and volunteered for John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, HFA (Hillary For America), and Organizing For Action. She’s passionate about liberal and progressive causes and considers President Obama her favorite president ever. She holds her Bachelor’s from Boston College in Economics and her Master's from Columbia, also in Economics. When not working as a writer, she enjoys traveling and spending time with her three college-aged children.

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