Melania Trump hadn’t been spotted at the White House for more than a month. But as her husband prepared for a high-stakes Alaska summit with his Russian counterpart in pursuit of an end to the war in Ukraine, the first lady was practicing diplomacy.
“Dear President Putin,” she wrote in a direct appeal to the Russian president. “Every child shares the same quiet dreams in their heart, whether born randomly into a nation’s rustic countryside or a magnificent city-center. They dream of love, possibility, and safety from danger.”
It underscored, those who know and observe the first lady say, the understated but influential role she has played in Donald Trump’s second term as president, despite her physical absence from Washington.
The first lady is rarely seen publicly. She did not accompany her husband when he delivered her letter to President Vladimir Putin during last week’s summit in Anchorage, nor was she present at the White House days later when he hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders. She’s made public appearances just 19 days so far this term, compared to 40 at this point during the previous. Her East Wing staff this time around is a fraction of her first-term team and that of her predecessors.
But Trump is in frequent communication with her husband, often in texts or calls exchanged throughout the day, according to sources familiar with the matter. And much like her husband, the first lady consumes a steady diet of news coverage. By Donald Trump’s account, Melania Trump has provided a healthy dose of skepticism after previous conversations with Putin.
“I tell the first lady, ‘You know, I spoke to Vladimir today — we had a wonderful conversation.’ She said, ‘Oh, really? Another city was just hit,’” Donald Trump recounted during a July Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
The moment offered a rare window into how the Trumps communicate.
“I think that a lot of people underestimate how normal of a couple they are. … He listens to her and seeks her counsel,” said a source familiar with the dynamic who requested anonymity to speak freely. “She only wades in when she really will go to the paint on something – and she really cares about kids.”
Melania Trump’s office did not respond to multiple inquiries from CNN.
A behind-the-scenes influence motivated by children
In her letter to Putin, Trump obliquely referenced the “darkness” around children impacted by war, telling the Russian leader he has the power to “singlehandedly restore their melodic laughter.”
She did not specifically name Ukraine, but thousands of Ukrainian children have allegedly been abducted by Russia since the war began.
While the president’s recent comments about his wife’s strong reactions to watching the war unfold on TV have sparked criticism from Russian state media, they’ve also spawned appreciative “Agent Melania Trumpenko” memes in Ukraine. And after her letter to Putin, Zelensky hand-delivered to Donald Trump a letter from his wife to the US first lady.
Melania Trump hasn’t stated any public position on Ukraine or Gaza, but her reactions – as described by the president – have offered a kind of reality check on the wars that he has promised, but has so far failed, to end.
“She thinks it’s terrible,” Donald Trump said last month of the images coming out of Gaza, which Israeli Prime Minister Bejamin Netanyahu has denied showed starvation.
“And she sees the same pictures that you see, that we all see. And I think everybody, unless they’re pretty cold-hearted — or worse than that, nuts — there’s nothing you can say other than it’s terrible when you see the kids.”
The common thread has been the threat to children.
“Mrs. Trump has been consistent in her focus on the safety of children and their future,” said Anita McBride, former chief of staff to first lady Laura Bush and director of American University’s Legacies of America’s First Ladies Initiative.
Melania Trump also approached her Putin letter from her unique background: she was born in what was then communist Yugoslavia in 1970.
“She brings another level of credibility having grown up in a Europe under the control of Russian aggression before successfully gaining their country’s freedom,” McBride added.
And her engagement is not without precedent: McBride noted that Nancy Reagan spoke directly to Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev to seek peace and wrote to his wife on the eve of a key meeting. Jackie Kennedy wrote to Soviet Union Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev expressing hope for peace after her husband’s death. And Laura Bush addressed reporters in the White House briefing room, admonishing the regime in Myanmar after a deadly cyclone.
“First ladies have a unique moral authority. … I applaud Mrs. Trump for using her platform this way on things that are important – especially in this critical moment in world history,” McBride said.
Issues related to children have also motivated Trump’s limited involvement in domestic policy — from advocating for legislation against deepfake and revenge pornography to a $25 million investment for foster youth that the White House says she secured in the president’s budget. That interest has also shaped where she’s chosen to embrace the public role of first lady. Last month, for example, she comforted young girls impacted by catastrophic flooding in Texas Hill Country, where she was gifted a friendship bracelet and prayed with campers.
“She genuinely does care about tragedy and things that have involved children. I believe in her authenticity when she does participate,” said Kate Bennett, a former CNN journalist who covered the first lady and author of “Free, Melania.”
Still, Trump’s use of her massive platform is selective – marking a departure from most of her predecessors.
“People expect or anticipate there will be a participation on behalf of the first lady of the United States, no matter who is in the office, no matter what political party,” Bennett said.
“It is patently clear that for Melania Trump, at least for now, this has been a pick-and-choose kind of role.”
Whither Melania
A key part of that choice, this time around, has been a relative absence from Washington.
Trump splits her time between New York and Palm Beach, with weekslong gaps between her trips to the nation’s capital. Her last known White House appearance was July 11 as she departed with the president for a trip to Texas.
During her husband’s first term, she didn’t announce her full-time White House residency until June of 2017. This year, with son Barron in college at New York University, her appearances have been far less regular.
She has stood by her husband’s side at more than a dozen public events, joined him on a pair of tours after extreme weather damage, and held three solo events. But she’s been seen in public less than half of the days she was at this same point in the president’s first term, when she’d attended multiple Oval Office meetings and news conferences with world leaders and made trips to seven countries.
And she’s skipped the kinds of symbolic moments traditionally attended by her predecessors, like a flagpole unveiling and magnolia planting on White House grounds. Her husband has even overseen the renovation of a reimagined, paved Rose Garden, and the West Wing unilaterally announced plans for a $200 million East Wing ballroom expansion that will directly impact the first lady team’s office space.
“I don’t think it’s anything interpersonal,” the source familiar told CNN, adding, “It’s just – she’s not interested” in the trappings of the role.
She’s gone to significant lengths to protect her reputation in recent weeks, threatening legal action against those who have tried to tie her to Jeffrey Epstein and earning a retraction and apology from the Daily Beast.
In Washington, she employs a skeletal staff compared to her first-term team of approximately 11 staffers.
As of July 1, the first lady had five full-time staff members, according to a report sent to Congress, whose salaries totaled $634,200 per year. One key role, the White House social secretary, who plans and coordinates all official and personal social White House events, remains unfilled.
A similar report sent July 1, 2024, reflected more than 20 staffers working in first lady Jill Biden’s office, with their salaries totaling nearly $2.5 million per year. Michelle Obama had 12 full-time staffers in July 2016.
In a rare interview with Fox News before her husband’s return to office, Melania Trump said she didn’t want to “rush in” to hiring and wanted to ensure her employees are “serving me,” not their own agenda — perhaps reflecting some apprehension after key staffers resigned in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
That hesitancy could stem from a series of public betrayals by former staffers, including Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former longtime friend and senior adviser who secretly recorded tapes of the first lady and wrote a memoir about their relationship.
Onetime chief of staff Stephanie Grisham, who resigned on January 6, testified before the House panel investigating the attack and went on to endorse Kamala Harris at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.
But without a substantial staff, Trump has yet to lay out any new policy goals or expansion of her first-term “Be Best” campaign. She has not participated in any solo foreign or domestic travel. She has not announced plans for any official state visits to the White House.
Still, her recent – albeit indirect – comments about two intractable conflicts have offered hints of her influence.
“When she speaks, people do listen – and whether or not that’s because it’s so infrequent, I’m unsure, but she definitely has a platform. She should lean into that,” the source familiar said.
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