“Here we go again.” Those were the opening words to , the $75m Amazon film capturing the days leading up to the First Lady’s triumphant return to the White House. Now a follow-up from the same makers, a two-part docuseries, rather than a film, will arrive on 20 November.
The first episode will be called “Family & Trust” and the second, “Pride and Honor”. In the newly-released trailer, Melania Trump says: “Everyone wants to be close to power and sometimes it can be very dangerous”. She also claims her son Barron is “my priority. He will always be my priority”.
Is this a coded message from the First Lady after her husband’s midterm shellacking? Is Melania, like JD Vance with his critique of the Iraq war, trying to declare her independence from the President?
That would be too sweet. The series has been long in the making and would appear to focus on the early days surrounding her return to the White House.
However, there is no doubt that Melania has been following her own course lately. You could say she is the only person to emerge from the second Donald J. Trump presidency with her reputation unscathed – largely because she has almost completely absented herself from the process. She hasn’t just checked out mentally from the White House chaos, but seemingly physically as well (although she did engage in a profitable meme coin venture).
Melania briefly popped up at the World Cup final in July, stayed away from campaigning in the midterm elections and wisely skipped all the fun of results nights with a furious Trump at the White House as the scale of the Republican rout became clear. Perhaps, like much of America, she has come to regard her husband as a loser. But for now he can still provide her with a stage and a purpose.
Indeed, relative to her usual light workload, Melania has been busy recently. Unlike Trump, who recently boasted of the “conquest of Venezuela”, she has actually achieved some results as a peace-maker. Thanks to her intervention (and Pope Leo XIV’s), there was a temporary ceasefire in Russian-occupied Oleshky last week, which enabled 800 people to be evacuated to safety, while the remaining 1000 obtained desperately-needed food and medical relief.
Bravo Melania. If only she had stopped there. But no, she had to take a victory lap at the White House on Thursday with envoys from Ukraine and Russia, who presented her with gifts. She received the Order of Princess Olga, First Class, conferred at the behest of President Zelensky, while Kirill Dimitriev, Putin’s back-channel negotiator and head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, gave her a drawing with pink hearts and the words “I love Melania” from an Oleshky girl who – according to Dimitriev – “chose” to live in Russia.
Melania’s sentiments at the podium were admirable. “We have chosen humanity over war,” she said. “I hope Oleshky inspires greater peace. Every significant transformation begins with a small spark.”
But there was something about her use of the personal pronoun that grated.
“I became aware… I acted immediately… my role as exclusive intermediary was memorialised in written agreements,” she said, revealing a love of self-promotion almost as strong as her husband’s.
Suddenly I was struck by a dark suspicion. Is the relief of Oleshky going to provide the basis of a third Melania documentary? We haven’t been told, but Melania is a true Trump in her ability to mix self-interest with duty.
Working with Melania on the Oleshky ceasefire was her long-haired guru, Marc Beckman, who goes by the title “exclusive senior adviser to the First Lady”. He also negotiated Melania’s record-breaking $40m deal with Amazon and serves as her film producer. It would be almost negligent to pass up on the opportunity.
One person who won’t feature in the new docuseries is the adult film star Stormy Daniels. At the same time as Melania was at the White House celebrating her achievement in Oleshky, her husband’s lawyers were in court appealing his 2024 conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to paying Daniels $130,000 in hush money to conceal their alleged affair. Trump no longer faces any punishment after being re-elected president but still bears the stain of being a convicted felon.
On the surface at least, Melania is supremely indifferent to any alleged misdemeanors by her husband. She has stuck by him through the ups and downs of his business and political career and will likely remain at his side for the final lame duck years of his presidency.
Trump will be 82 when he leaves office, while at 58, Melania will still be in her prime. Will she finally seek a divorce? That would delight plenty of Melania-watchers, but seems unlikely. For better or for worse, for richer or poorer – and the Trumps have become a great deal richer – Melania has found a way to make the marriage work for her.