Of all the people in the White House not to end up on the wrong side of, outside of President Trump, I would put Melania Trump at the top of the list.
Very private and not at all liking politics (although far too classy to constantly whine about it, unlike a certain former first lady), Melania Trump has taken a very low profile. But that doesn’t mean she is uninvolved.
Too bad for Vladimir Putin that he didn’t get the memo. Now the Russian president is paying the price.
In fact, Trump himself revealed the first lady is not buying Putin’s soft-soap routine. USA Today reported that when the president told Melania about Putin’s desire for peace, she quickly noted that Russia had just bombed another city, killing more civilians. In response, Russia’s ham-handed propaganda machine went on the attack, peddling nasty gossip and calling her a “danger to Russia.”
But the first lady was not about to engage. To all appearances, she had a far more shrewd and effective response in mind. Her letter to Putin was a clear shot at the Russians. In the letter, she essentially says that Putin and the Russians abducted Ukrainian children, and she wants them released. Melania did not call Putin a war criminal, but that conclusion is just a step away.
Has Putin figured out his attack dogs blundered? There is evidence to suggest just that. Putin compounded the Russian propaganda mistake with an even more serious blunder, possibly to make up for insulting the first lady.
At the Anchorage summit — which was a success for Trump, since he didn’t give anything away and forced Putin to confer on a U.S. Air Force Base on American soil — Putin was an obsequious as he could be. But in doing so he went a step too far, agreeing with Trump that he would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump had been president.
For over three years Putin has claimed to the Russian people and the world that he is in a civilizational fight and battling Nazis in Ukraine. And that is a lie. Putin’s invasion was opportunistic. He started the war because he thought he would win easily. Of course, it’s one thing for a national leader to lie (happens all the time), and another thing to admit it — and make your loyalists look like fools.
Even more problematic for Putin are his inner circle and the security state that surrounds him. Tied to Putin, his sheepish sycophancy to Trump is a humiliation for them as well. Instead of a proud, patriotic Russia fighting for its survival, Putin has portrayed himself and Russia as supplicants to Trump. Pretty humiliating, if you ask me.
Putin is the main power in Russia, but he is not a dictator in the style of Kim Jong Un. There are other power centers in the country, and his personal control still relies on the support of Russia’s security state. Expect Putin to pivot to a more aggressive posture in order to regain some semblance of pride and control — which will undermine his position with Trump.
Of course, these complexities are utterly beyond the understanding and interest of a Western media that is obsessed with loathing Trump — and by proxy anyone associated with him, including the first lady. Instead of recognizing the subtle and substantive moves of Melania Trump, the progressive left immediately sought to demean her letter. Salon’s pages snarked like an overqualified freshman English teacher. Others claimed it was an AI paste-up job.
But even if the letter wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea or not quite the Gettysburg Address, that’s beside the point. The significant revelation is that Putin and his thugs may well have created an implacable foe in the White House who cannot be displaced.
Too focused on their mission to throw mud at anything and everything Trump, the establishment media and leftist echo chamber are unwilling (or unable) to amplify Putin’s humiliation and fuel discontent within Russia. It all makes their support for Ukraine ring hollow, to say the least. When push comes to shove, there is no principle that supersedes hatred for Trump.
Time will tell on this latest burst of diplomacy. It is more likely than not that Putin is in too deep to offer any compromise that could be remotely acceptable. His own propaganda and ultra-nationalist allies may well have put him in a box he cannot get out of. Not that this circumstance should surprise anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of Russian history. There is a reason Russian autocrats almost never survive losing a war.
This war will most likely not end until Putin is removed from power and a new Russian leadership can start over, blaming the dead man for all of the mistakes — another classic Russian trope. If and when that happens, Melania Trump will deserve some credit.
Keith Naughton, a longtime Republican political consultant, is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm, and a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant.
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