At times, Trump has the narrative instincts of a hound in a fish store, following her nose from one exciting scent to the next, beginning anecdotes only to abandon them. More than once, I found myself flipping back and forth between Kindle pages, wondering if a paragraph had gone missing. She begins one section with, “It was a Saturday in October, a seemingly normal weekend, when my memories of 9/11 came flooding back.” There have been no memories of 9/11 discussed thus far in the narrative, though she does mention seeing the Twin Towers standing “proudly against the horizon” upon her 1998 arrival to New York. The anecdote to follow moseys first through an explanation of the difference between weekends and weekdays in the White House, and then a scene in which her husband invited her to the situation room during a mission to kill the ISIS militant Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. (President Trump himself has seemed to conflate Hamza and Osama Bin Laden with al-Baghdadi.) It ends with Trump’s memory of giving a medal to the Belgian Malinois, Conan, but the 9/11 connection remains unexplored.
“It was not an easy process,” she writes of gaining US citizenship, declining to elucidate further. In a description of a trip to Japan she mentions that she doesn’t eat raw fish. Why not? I still don’t know. In a chapter detailing her experience of this July’s assassination attempt, she writes that “it had been a relatively quiet Saturday in Bedminster. Barron played sports outside. I was working on finishing my project.” Which project? Couldn’t say. Repetitions abound: “‘I think it’s very sexy for a woman to be pregnant,’ I told the readers of Vogue, making clear that I believe that a pregnant woman is very attractive.”
In at least one place, she has ripped language from previous interviews and statements without attribution: her description of her whereabouts on January 6 replicate, verbatim, an interview she gave to Fox News in 2022: “Several months in advance, I organized a qualified team of photographers, archivists, and designers to work with me in the White House to ensure perfect execution. As required, we scheduled January 6, 2021, to complete the work on behalf of our Nation.”
Trump strides easily through contradictions. “Despite Slovenia being part of communist Yugoslavia, the communism there was different from that of the Soviet Union. Growing up, I felt more connected to our neighbors in Italy or Austria than to other communist countries in Eastern Europe.” Later, she writes, “Growing up under a communist regime, the pervasive surveillance of the state shaped my childhood experience.” She takes aim at trans athletes before making the sweeping statement that, “as many of you may know, I fully support the LGBTQIA+ community.” Even her insistence on the “mess” of the 2020 election begins with a strange couching: “Going into November, I did not know if Donald Trump would win the election. In elections as close as this, it’s difficult to say,”
Her reluctance, in some instance, to use proper nouns renders various anecdotes strangely elliptical: “After lengthy negotiations, the CEO of a multinational investment bank decided to terminate discussions about a proposed ‘Melania Trump Technology’ Special Purpose Acquisition Company.” While writing about the Black Lives Matter protests, she doesn’t call George Floyd by name, instead describing him as “a Black Minneapolis resident.” Certain familiar figures, including former Vice President Mike and Karen Pence, are entirely absent.
She rehashes dull and years-old disputes, including a cosmetics distributor who flubbed a contract to put out the defunct skincare line, “Melania Caviar Complexe C6.” (For all her vague gesturing to “all we hoped to accomplish in a second term,” her most concrete goal described in the book: “I hope to have the opportunity to bring excellent skincare products to market in the future under more favorable circumstances.”) She quibbles with not being allowed to take measurements of the White House prior to moving in, and blames the “I really don’t care do u?” jacket incident on Stephanie Grisham, whom she refers to throughout only as “my press secretary.”
She describes the time, during the aforementioned trip to Israel, when video of the Trumps and the Netanyahus walking together showed Melania swatting—there really is no other word for what she calls “a minor innocent gesture”—her husband’s hand away as he reaches to take hers. She says it’s because all of them couldn’t fit on the red carpet they were walking down, and that she was happy to walk behind them. “When he reached out to offer his hand, I declined, indicating that I was perfectly content walking on my own.” It is a relationship that maybe exists outside the bounds of regular spacial laws, since contrary to the account, the video shows her picking up the pace to walk, definitely, next to him.
If the Trumps ever have meaningful conversations, you won’t find them here, though Melania continues to translate what was left unsaid. Of the 2016 election night, “When we finally returned home on election night, the hour was so late and my exhaustion so profound that any deep discussions about the momentous events—or our suddenly transformed future—seemed beyond reach.” When they do finally have a “private moment,” she remembers telling him, “‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘What an achievement. All those other people…and you won. You’re the president of the United States of America.” He replies, “And you’re the First Lady…Good luck,” which Melania translates for readers as “I know you’ll excel. Let’s get started.”