Melania Really Doesn’t Care

A little over 12 years ago, Melania Trump logged on to Twitter, uploaded a picture of a cheery-looking beluga whale, and added the caption, “What is she thinking?” The tweet was classic Melania, which is to say that it was cryptic, minimalist, and only lightly in focus. Unlike her husband, Melania Trump undershares on social media—if she isn’t there to hawk baffling NFT collectibles or patriotic Christmas ornaments, she doesn’t typically have much to say. But over the past few weeks, as she’s soft-launched her new memoir, Melania has been posting a series of short videos, each one its own inscrutable puzzle. Mistily obscured through what seems to be a Vaseline-smeared camera lens, she gives brief statements on subjects including cancel culture, her immediate attraction to “Donald,” and her apparent belief in a woman’s right to choose. Her head is stiffly tilted, her gaze steadfast. As she talks, a string section in the background pulses with momentum, as though these clips are actually trailers for the climactic final season of a show called America!

What is she thinking? First ladies, by the cursed nature of the role, are supposed to humanize and soften the jagged, ugly edge of power. The job is to be maternal, quietly decorative, fascinating but not frivolous, busy but not bold. In some ways, Melania Trump—elegant, enigmatic, and apparently unambitious—arrived in Washington better suited to the office than any other presidential spouse in recent memory. In reality, she ended up feeling like a void—a literal absence from the White House for the first months of Donald Trump’s presidency—that left so much room for projection. When she seemed to glower at her husband’s back on Inauguration Day, some decided that she was desperate for an exit, prompting the #FreeMelania hashtag. When she wore a vibrant-pink pussy-bow blouse to a presidential debate mere days after the Access Hollywood tape leaked, the garment was interpreted by some as a statement of solidarity with women, and by others as a defiant middle finger to his critics. Most notoriously, during the months in 2018 when the Trump administration removed more than 5,000 babies and children from their parents at the U.S. border, Melania wore a jacket emblazoned with the words I really don’t care, do u? on the plane to visit some of those children, the discourse over which rivaled the scrutiny of one of the cruelest American policies of the modern era.