The Real Story Behind Melania’s “I Really Don’t Care” Jacket Is Truly Funnier Than Anyone Knew

It was never a question of whether she cared. Obviously she did. By the principles established by basic psychology, William Shakespeare, and that one meme about T-shirts, we know that wearing a jacket with the words “I really don’t care” printed on it is going to lead people to infer that you kinda do care. Instead, in the six years since Melania Trump wore that infamous army-green jacket (military style, so appropriate for an IDGAF war) on her way to visit migrant children who had been separated from their families, the main mystery has been who or what she was trying to subtweet when she did it.

We may finally have an answer, thanks to a new book about first ladies that the New York Post obtained an advance copy of. In the book, New York Times White House correspondent Katie Rogers reports that the message’s intended audience was none other than Melania’s stepdaughter Ivanka Trump, making this Charlotte’s Web–Zara mashup the best stepmother-stepdaughter drama since Hans Christian Andersen.

Apparently, Melania and Ivanka had been engaged in a power struggle since Trump had entered the White House, with Melania fuming over what she perceived as Ivanka attempting to usurp her role as first lady. According to Rogers’ reporting, after Melania took her time moving into the White House, Ivanka swooped in and suggested taking over some of the first lady’s territory, arguing that it should serve “the entire First Family.” The tension continued as Ivanka and her siblings seemed to be front and center throughout the administration, and Melania started referring to Ivanka as “the Princess.” In June 2018, when Melania wore the jacket, the main issue was that the two “were locked in a quiet competition for press coverage,” Rogers’ book reports.

Melania and Co. have given various flimsy justifications for the jacket over time. Initially, Trump officials said the jacket was meaningless, implying that the media were reading too much into the literal words the first lady had worn on her back. Then they changed their story—actually, “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” had been a kiss-off aimed at Melania’s critics in the press, she said in a TV interview. According to another article about Rogers’ book, this was Trump’s idea: At one point after Melania donned the jacket, he reportedly pulled his daughter and wife into a room and “yelled at them, and then decided that the official explanation for the jacket would be that Melania was speaking directly to the media.” This didn’t make much sense at the time, but to be fair, neither does the real story, if this new reporting is accurate: What was to be gained by all this? Ivanka is intimidated by the scary jacket and gives up? If Julia Roberts taught us anything, it’s that combining fashion and the written word to settle petty grievances rarely leaves the person behind the message smelling like roses.

There was no explanation that was going to make Melania look good, but that the firestorm the jacket caused turns out to have been all over Ivanka is particularly funny. This lady was so consumed by feuding with her own stepdaughter that she either neglected to consider or just didn’t care how it would look to wear an item of clothing with the words “I don’t care” on it en route to see migrant children her husband’s policies had ripped from their parents’ arms. Sometimes political types get overly concerned with “optics,” but if there were ever a time to care (to really do care!), it would have been then!

Hopefully, all is forgiven now. The nice thing about the jacket being from Zara is that it probably disintegrated years ago—tough for the Smithsonian, but for the best for Melania and Ivanka’s relationship.