MELANIA TRUMP’S | Sof Power T
he fbi’s august 2022 raid on mar-a-lago led Melania to withdraw even further from the public eye.
While the Trumps were away, heavily armed
agents ransacked her personal wardrobe, rifl ing through her designer gowns and even her under- garments in a humiliating display that screamed political persecution, all under the pretense of searching for classifi ed documents that Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton seemed to have misplaced without consequences. “I never imagined my privacy would be invaded
by the government here in America,” Melania de- clared in a poignant video. “It made me angry. Yes. Invasion of privacy. And the way it was done . . . I was really surprised.” Said Bennett, “Melania was understandably
scared after the FBI got into her home, went into her personal space, and as a result, she has be- come much more guarded with the media.” Still, Melania’s desire to stay out of the spotlight
in an era of unprecedented media saturation (in- cluding rejecting several requests to contribute to this article) can at least partly be attributable to a worldview that doesn’t prioritize approval from the press, according to Bennett. “Her motivation doesn’t come from trying to
gain the approval of the media — but has always come from what she knows best — being a moth- er — and caring about kids and opportunities to improve their situations, not just in America but around the world. “She is fi ercely independent and doesn’t engage in or tolerate the usual political games.” The October 2024 release of her memoir Mela-
nia, which became a New York Times bestseller, provided further insights into her independent thinking — most notably drawing attention for her stance on abortion rights, asserting that it’s a woman’s “fundamental right of individual liberty,” diverging from her husband’s pro-life views. Speaking as someone new to politics, Melania
told Newsmax in its 2016 cover profi le that she un- derstood from the start that the press wasn’t after the truth — they only had one goal: to bring down her family. “Many of the stories written about me have been
inaccurate and sometimes malicious,” Melania told Newsmax. “I’ve been misrepresented as a mannequin and
a socialite who doesn’t do anything. The media is after my husband, me, and my family. It comes with the territory. Only I know the true story. And I have a thick skin.” Still, after the two assassination attempts on
her husband during the 2024 campaign, following years of intense anti-Trump rhetoric, Melania sug- gested she lives in a constant state of fear that the next public event could be her husband’s last. “We are dealing with much more danger — es-
pecially as we see what’s going on in the world and the threats that we get — and my husband, what he went through in the last few months,” she said in an October 2024 interview. “Every event that has happened, I’m thinking,
‘What is next? What are they trying to do?’ You al- ways fear the worst. And that it happened. “It was really frightening, and life stops in that few minutes, [it] was really very diffi cult.”
How Will Melania Rate? With three years remaining, it is still too early to predict how historians will refl ect on the unusual term of Melania Trump. Still, compared with Melania’s record
of achievements, other fi rst ladies widely regarded by historians as infl uential seem to fall short. Eleanor Roosevelt, ranked No. 1 in ex-
pert surveys for her U.N. work and civil rights advocacy, operated in a predigital era without the tools for instant global infl uence. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton pushed
for healthcare reform, but it faced politi- cal setbacks, and Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign aimed to fi ght obesity, yet childhood obesity skyrocketed during her time in offi ce. Melania’s record is expected to im-
prove further over the next three years, as she will continue to play an active role in Ukraine and carry on her consequential work to improve the well-being of chil- dren worldwide. Added biographer Pozar, “History
will defi nitely not forget her. I think she will end up among the Top 5 fi rst ladies in the U.S.” However, regardless of the polls, it
is clear that the public wants more of Melania. In January, reports revealed that Me-
lania signed a $40 million deal with Am- azon to produce a documentary about her life. Directed by Brett Ratner, creator of Rush Hour, it is scheduled for release later this year, with the report suggesting the deal could lead to multiple projects.
MICHELLE
ELEANOR
HILLARY
JANUARY 2026 | NEWSMAX 75
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