Melania Trump looks to life after White House
She’s toured a school for Barron, called in the decorator at Mar-a-Lago and has plans for a book. Why the first lady is not looking back
After a turbulent four years, not many people have emerged from the Trump White House with their dignity intact. One of the few to do so is arguably the woman closest to the US President: his wife, Melania.
Now a source “familiar with Melania’s state of mind” has summed up the past four years in six short words. “She just wants to go home,” the source told CNN.
So while Donald Trump employs ever more desperate attempts to stay in the White House, Melania is planning how to get out.
“Melania has never wanted to be connected to this,” says Michael Wolff, the author of two books about the Trump presidency. “(She and her husband) are in different places as often as possible.”
Assuming that Trump doesn’t stage a sit-in at the White House, from January he and his wife will be in the same place: Mar-a-Lago in Florida, which Trump liked to call his winter White House.
After four years of Washington winters, Melania is stalking out of the White House in her high heels and heading due south to the Sunshine State.
She is thought to have started moving art, furniture and personal effects to the family’s Manhattan apartment in Trump Tower and to Mar-a-Lago, which Trump bought in 1985 for an estimated $US10m and held on to through two divorces.
The first lady is said to have instructed aides to find out whether the taxpayer would cover the cost of the removals, but was informed that they would not.
Aware that they are likely to be shunned in heavily Democrat New York, Melania has been looking at private schools for the couple’s 14-year-old son, Barron. He will leave his school in Maryland and finish the academic year in Florida.
The New York Post reported that Melania had toured Pine Crest, a private school in Fort Lauderdale, 40 minutes from Mar-a-Lago, where fees are up to $US35,150 ($46,561) a year and which promises on its website to teach pupils empathy and integrity.
Donald’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared, are expected to be up the road with their three children, having bought a plot of land on the exclusive Indian Creek Island near Miami, known as “billionaire bunker”.
At Mar-a-Lago Melania has called in the interior designers. The public areas of the 126-room, 62,500 sq ft resort are decorated mainly in gold. In the family quarters the New York-based designer Tham Kannalikham — who revamped the private residence at the White House for the Trumps, possibly to make it more gold — is said to be engaged in an “aesthetic facelift”, including fresh paint and new soft furnishings.
Significant renovations or expansion are out of the question because the estate is a National Historic Landmark and subject to planning restrictions. Kannalikham’s style has been described as classical but comfortable; she is said to be “passionate about studying historic precedent” and dedicated to the use of old-world traditions.
Laurence Leamer, the author of a book about Mar-a-Lago, has likened the Trumps’ quarters, which are closed off from the main house and grounds, to a nice hotel. Which doesn’t sound so bad, until you consider the implications of downsizing from the 55,000 sq ft White House to a comparatively poky 3000 sq ft.
“Can you imagine Donald Trump just sitting around there for six months of the year?” Leamer said. “It will start to feel confining very quickly.”
Support will come from Melania’s parents, who also have a suite of rooms at the resort and are said to have visited regularly since their daughter got married. Crucially, Trump’s bruised ego will be sure of a boost from the club’s members, some of his staunchest supporters, who stump up $US200,000 to join. Guests say that when he and Melania go down for dinner, which could be in the 20,000 sq ft ballroom or on the patio, everybody stands and the band plays God Bless America. He is entitled to be addressed as Mr President for the rest of his life.
As Melania counts the days until she leaves Washington, she is said to be focused on her legacy, including the Be Best program helping children with their wellbeing, online safety, and avoiding opioid abuse. A tennis pavilion in the White House grounds has been restored.
Her final White House Christmas decorations, she said on Instagram, “overflow with love, joy, peace, hope and faith, revealing the most important gifts of the season. The scene reminds us of the many blessings in our own lives and how grateful we are to call this beautiful land our home”.
Photographed touring the White House and giving the decorations a final once-over, Melania was in the sharp cinched-in pencil skirt and 15cm heels that have characterised her tenure as first lady.
It is unclear how Trump will spend his days at Mar-a-Lago. When George W. Bush came to the end of his term of office he took up oil painting.
Barack Obama withdrew quietly to write his memoir. His wife, Michelle, followed in the footsteps of many first ladies by writing a memoir of her own, although Melania is not thought to be planning to do the same (a coffee-table book is in the offing). There are rumours that Trump hopes to entice world leaders over for a chat, having previously hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping of China and then Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe at the resort.
He may even run for the presidency again in 2024, a prospect that Melania is said to view with little enthusiasm. This is a woman who infamously visited a child migrant detention centre wearing a jacket emblazoned “I really don’t care. Do u?” It was, her communications chief said, just a jacket.
If Melania didn’t care then, she certainly doesn’t now. She has made it out the other side, and she’s heading to her place in the sun. She could be forgiven for breathing a sigh of relief when she gets there, and not just because she can finally kick off those heels.
The Times
More Coverage
End game? Appeasing Iran will only lead to a wider regional war
After pounding Hezbollah, Israel must attack the Iran’s nuclear sites. Appeasement doesn’t prevent war, it ensures a conflict that’s infinitely more terrible than it might otherwise have been.
Downing St crisis ‘bigger than fixer’
Whitehall chiefs warn of dysfunctional Downing Street and the ousted chief of staff’s allies say male advisers felt threatened.