The president’s personal life has been drawn into the public’s eye since his rise to power, although even still — until recently at least — the first lady kept a relatively low profile.
The Washington Post is reporting this week, though, on how the relationship between Melania and Donald Trump has played out behind the scenes, and it underscores a preeminent point of the Trump administration that can be seen in a variety of situations — it’s about Donald Trump and little else.
According to the publication, the couple doesn’t even share a bedroom, and despite the fact that the couple’s young son Barron is in a unique position, thanks to being the first young child in the first family in decades, the president doesn’t concern himself with readying him for school or the like.
Instead, in a pattern many of us are familiar with at this point, the president wakes up each morning at around 5:30 AM, watches cable news and gets to tweeting. A short while later, Melania wakes up in her own separate bedroom and readies Barron for school, according to the publication.
When it comes to the couple’s work, The Post describes Melania as having proven distrustful of some of the president’s staff members. One individual to face such scrutiny from the first lady is the now departed former presidential adviser Steve Bannon.
Overall, the publication describes Melania as having set up a “de facto wall” between the wings of the White House hosting her and her husband’s offices. One anonymous source stated that the first lady “seldom sets foot in the West Wing.”
She has just this week taken further steps to carve out her own place in the administration’s policy platform, taking to the Rose Garden this Monday to lay out a new “awareness campaign” meant to help protect America’s children against ills like bullying and drug addiction. She has explicitly acknowledged the disconnect between her and her husband in that she is aiming to combat bullying while he is moving forward with it.
On a slightly more personal level, “several current and former aides” told The Post that the president and first lady oftentimes don’t even eat together. They have even diverged on the treatment of the residence itself, according to the report, with the president opting to show people around often and Melania more keen on maintaining some privacy.
How all of this may play into the overall trajectory of the Trump administration remains to be seen. The reported disconnect does not seem poised to alter the course of the administration’s policy platform; indeed, her recently announced “awareness campaign” seemed intentionally slanted to avoid the legislature.
Melania is, according to available polling, more popular than the president. In a poll released this past January by CNN, the first lady finished with a 47 percent approval rating while the president’s was at only 40 percent.
In a more straightforward administration, these sorts of reports might be poised to take off further than they will now.
However, even in the context of the president’s personal relationships, his behavior is weighing down on his administration, with him currently fielding very public allegations of affairs from two women, former Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Featured Image via Win McNamee/Getty Images
