E-Paper
Review: Melania by Melania Trump
While Melania Trump’s memoir reveals that she doesn’t agree with her husband, US President elect, Donald Trump’s stance on abortion and immigration, it chooses to ignore many other contentious topics
In many ways, Melania Trump stands in sharp contrast to her husband, the twice-indicted 45th President of the United States and that country’s current President Elect, Donald Trump.
To begin with, she talks in detail about how the JFK airport had two separate queues for immigration the first time she landed in the US. One of these queues was for US citizens and the other for those from non-US countries. No points for guessing which of these queues moved slower. The narrative moves back and forth in time as Melania narrates the events of November 8, 2016 — the moments of anxiety in Trump Tower leading up to the results when Trump took away the swing states — a day that marked the beginning of hyper partisanship in American politics.
The former First Lady, who returns to the job on 20 January 2025 when her husband will officially become the 47th president, is an immigrant who doesn’t acknowledge her husband’s problematic stance on border control. There is no mention of Trump’s “they [immigrants] eat cats and dogs” speech, leading up to his campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris. She also defends abortion rights passionately, in contrast to the Republican Party’s pro-life stance.
In chapter eight, titled Why was the speech not vetted?, Melania addresses her infamous speech at the Republican National Convention, which was allegedly plagiarised from an earlier speech by Michelle Obama. “My initial reaction was one of disbelief, but upon closer examination, the undeniable similarities between the two speeches left me reeling,” says Trump, who believes she was sabotaged by the RNC team, which she trusted blindly.
“From then on, I realized the importance of being intimately involved with every detail of my public life. No longer would I delegate specific tasks or trust others to ensure my reputation was protected”. She talks at length about her relationship with the media and how they slut-shamed her by publishing nude pictures from her modelling days (which subsequently resulted in a lawsuit against The New Yorker and Daily Mail). Melania’s bitterness about how she was treated by the media is palpable. It was just not possible for her to win. Whatever she did, she was heavily scrutinized, with one blogger alleging that she had worked illegally in the US. Readers will agree that Melania was subjected to relentless misogyny.
The memoir’s most intriguing revelation comes in the chapter entitled 2020 where Melania honestly shares that she did not want to travel to India to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi due to the rapid spread of the corona virus but agreed to do so rather reluctantly when Dr Anthony Fauci gave her the safety approval to board the flight. “How many corona virus cases does India have,” Melania asked Fauci in the Oval Office at the White House.
“Not many. Three”, he said. She wasn’t convinced but it turned out that refusing the invitation to the inauguration of Motera stadium wasn’t an option. Melania then goes on to describe her trip to the Taj Mahal and her visit to a school; all this shortly after Trump’s impeachment hearings.
At times, the former and future First Lady’s hypocrisy becomes apparent. “As many of you know, I support the LGBTQ+ community, but…”, writes Melania as she goes on to protest against the inclusion of trans women in women’s sports. She gives long sermons, which seem like PR handouts on ‘unity’ and ‘inclusivity’ but her reaction to ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’ being painted in front of Trump Towers doesn’t suggest that she is concerned about “history repeating itself”.
While the misogynistic, racist attacks on Melania owing to her Slovenian identity and modelling history are unwarranted (and makes the reader look at her with empathy), her stance on contentious issues is inconsistent with that of the US President Elect or is simply ignorant. Melania talks at length about how Trump handled the Covid crisis but doesn’t touch on vaccine deniers and Covidiots not wearing masks when the pandemic was at its peak.
The memoir also glosses over monumental incidents in the life of her husband. She doesn’t address Trump’s alleged extramarital affair with adult star Stormy Daniels. And she brushes off the hand swat incident as an innocent gesture blown out of proportion by the media. Simply put, Melania makes a martyr out of Trump, who is always a victim of circumstances and unfairly targeted by the media.
She does not address the Access Hollywood tape where Trump spoke about grabbing women by their genitalia either. On issues where she doesn’t agree with her husband (abortion rights, immigration) she offers no insight into how they manage to live together with such contrasting viewpoints.
All in all, while the memoir answers some questions about Melania, it leaves many others hanging in the air.
Deepansh Duggal writes on art and culture. He tweets at Deepansh75.
