How Melania Trump Spent the Pandemic in The White House Is Relatable To Most Americans

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Melania Trump might be one of the most enigmatic first ladies because she didn’t really want the unpaid position to begin with. The very spotlight-heavy role at the White House involves a lot of tradition and duties that she really wasn’t interested in. However, a new detail about her time in Washington, D.C. might make her more relatable to Americans because she fell victim to the fashions dictated by the stay-at-home orders at the height of the pandemic.

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While Melania wasn’t wearing sweats and yoga pants like the rest of us, she enjoyed spending “all day” in her “elegant robes” in 2020. Katie Rogers, author of American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden, revealed that wardrobe detail on the Somebody’s Gotta Win podcast — and it’s a pretty epic scenario that she described. Rogers revealed the source of Melania’s COVID-19 style was the first lady’s former adviser, Stephanie Grisham, who revealed that she loved soft, terry-cloth robes, similar to the ones you would find at a spa.

Rogers noted that it wasn’t unusual to find Melania lounging in her robe while visiting Donald Trump’s suite each night — yes, they had separate bedrooms — and listening in on his White House business phone calls. To keep herself business during the lockdown period, Melania was also into scrapbooking her work as a first lady. Rogers said that she spent a lot of time “assembling photo albums of her aesthetic contributions to the White House.”

Melania made waves more than once for her fashion choices over the years. Her “I really don’t care, do u?” jacket that she wore to visit migrant children at a shelter in McAllen, Texas in 2018 caused a ruckus for what many people considered a careless message on an official visit. Grisham revealed in her book, I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House, that Melania dismissed the situation by saying, “It’s just a jacket,” even though many critics found the wording rather cruel. It’s a piece of fashion history that is still discussed almost six years later — and it will always be controversial.

Kate Andersen Brower, the author of First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies, described Melania’s approach to her White House duties as “radical.” “She’s the most obviously unknowable first lady,” she explained to The New York Times. “First ladies are expected to want to please people and I’m not sure she really cares.” Melania might have to find another source of inspiration if Donald Trump wins the White House again because it certainly won’t be her terry-cloth robe era.

Before you go, click here to see the best presidential love stories in U.S. history.

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