Politics - News Analysis

Melania Has Apparently Been ‘Studying Foreign Affairs’ in Preparation for Her Second Stint as First Lady

That's more than her husband's been doing.

The inauguration has come and gone, and we’re largely getting exactly what we expected from Donald Trump. A profound misunderstanding of what a “mandate” is, a fundamentally flawed view of his own power, and a singular desire to mold the country to his will and take over as much of whatever he can as possible.

None of that is good, of course, but it’s not unexpected. Those of us who have been paying attention always knew he wasn’t bluffing on Greenland or mass deportations or pardoning even the Nazis who carried out the worst assault on the Capitol since the 1814 Burning of Washington by the British.

But a report from CNN has me a tiny bit worried that the “I Don’t Really Care, Do U” half of the White House power couple might assert herself a little more than to complain about decorating for Christmas this time around.

The passage from the CNN piece that has me on edge is this:

President Donald Trump and his team are returning to office with a deeper understanding of how to use the levers of federal government to enact their agenda. Similarly, the first lady is signaling that she has learned from her first term and the subsequent four years — and that she is preparing to take on a more prominent role.

Melania Trump spent the two months between Election Day and Inauguration Day engaged in intense preparation for a return to the White House, sources told CNN, studying foreign affairs, preparing on her own and joining her husband for dinners with VIPs at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

That first sentence has already proven true. He hasn’t just been using Executive Orders in a frenzied rush to enact as much of Project 2025 as possible before anyone notices. He’s even sneaking stuff in to completely bypass normal governmental protocols. Again, that’s expected, especially now that he’s got more serious handlers.

But finding out Melania — who has absolutely no business whatsoever having any sort of influence on the American government — has been “studying foreign affairs” in preparation for a job she should definitely not be assigned is a slap in the face to our democratic experiment.

I understand if a First Lady takes an interest in, or is even strongly involved in, the machinations of government, if she’s always been involved in that kind of way. Eleanor Roosevelt. Rosalynn Carter. Michelle Obama. These First Ladies were all already more than “share pictures and recipes and be relatable to housewives” kinds of women like Laura Bush or Nancy Reagan.

And lest you think I’m being sexist and saying that WOMEN shouldn’t be allowed to meddle in the government (as if you haven’t read a thousand articles of mine and already concluded that I’m not a sexist): The only defense I’d allow of Doug Emhoff actually being involved in the government if Kamala Harris had won would be the fact that he’s at least a lawyer. I still wouldn’t like it much, since his area of law is media and entertainment and intellectual property and the like. No political experience.

The only reason I keep saying First Ladies is because that’s all we’ve had so far.

But being involved in government is not a thing you study for over the course of a few months. There are no Cliff’s Notes for running America. You don’t pick out the perfect hat and dress combo to solve the Middle East crisis.

What’s even more worrying is that whatever political meddling she does, it looks like it will largely be of the same tone and tenor as her husband. When she sat down with Ainsley Earhardt before the inauguration, she was already in full-on “blame it on the Bidens” mode for the interview:

The difference is I know where I will be going, I know the rooms where we will be living. I know the process. The first time was challenging, we didn’t have much of the information.

The information was upheld for us from previous administration.

Say that last sentence in your best Boris and Natasha voice, complete with the exactly transcribed quote. The sentence she meant to say was “The information was withheld from us by the previous administration.”

The two things wrong with that statement are that she’s been in the United States for nearly 30 years and barely bothered to learn English, so how is she supposed to learn governing overnight? And nothing was withheld by the previous administration — Trump wouldn’t complete the paperwork for a proper transition.

All I know is, I’m not particularly excited about the prospect of a semiliterate liar taking over any responsibilities at the White House just because she took a crash course in memorizing the names of current world leaders.

meet the author

Andrew is a dark blue speck in deep red Central Washington, writing with the conviction of 18 years at the keyboard and too much politics to even stand. When not furiously stabbing the keys on breaking news stories, he writes poetry, prose, essays, haiku, lectures, stories for grief therapy, wedding ceremonies, detailed instructions on making doughnuts from canned biscuit dough (more sugar than cinnamon — duh), and equations to determine the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow. A girlfriend, a dog, two cats, and two birds round out the equation, and in his spare time, Drewbear likes to imagine what it must be like to have spare time.

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