The Secretive And Influential Melania Trump

A New Approach to the Role of the First Lady of the United States.

Robots have already made their way into human life, and it's the duty of Americans to prepare their children to coexist with artificial intelligence. That's the message America's first lady Melania Trump addressed participants in a working group on AI and education on Thursday, writes BBC.

"Our future is no longer science fiction," Melania Trump continued. - At this stage, it is our duty to treat AI like our children: supportive, but also carefully monitored and guided."

This White House working group meeting was one of only a handful of public events the first lady has attended. Since her husband's return to the White House, Melania Trump has demonstrated that she is both secretive and powerful.

The former model Melania Knavs, now wife of U.S. President Melania Trump, was born in Slovenia (then Yugoslavia) 55 years ago.

She was often described as enigmatic. She was less likely than her predecessors - the wives of presidents - to appear in public, make speeches and participate in various events.

As her husband's campaign in 2024, she repeatedly disappeared from view for long periods of time, and newspapers issued one article after another with headlines like "Where is Melania?"

She is still not often seen in the White House: they say she spends most of her time in New York and Florida.

At the same time, since Donald Trump returned to the presidency this January, Mrs. Trump has, according to some commentators, taken a different - more active and focused - approach to the role of first lady, which is generally spelled out rather vaguely and changes with each new president and his wife.

Children, AI, and "pornography"

Melania is now focusing a lot on the topic of children, continuing the work she did as part of the "Be Best" initiative during Donald Trump's first term. This was a program to combat online bullying and drug addiction.

She is also tackling the topic of AI, and was instrumental in passing a bill called the Take It Down Act, which would criminalize the publication of real or AI-generated intimate images on the internet without the consent of the person depicted.

The initiative was supported by congressmen from both parties, a rarity in the current situation of divisiveness in American politics.

This law Melania Trump was the first in the history of the United States publicly signed together with her husband.

Professor Einav Rabinowitz-Fox, a specialist in the history of the first ladies of the United States, notes that the spouses of presidents often dealt with the topic of children and youth, but Mrs. Trump chose a slightly different approach.

"First ladies have often focused on topics considered more feminine - children's education, for example," Professor Rabinowitz-Fox told the BBC. - But Melania's approach is unusual: not on the maternal, feminine side, but more on the business side."

The Take It Down Act, for example, emphasizes sanctions against platforms that host "revenge porn": they are now required to take down such content within 48 hours, or else they will be penalized, the researcher said.

This Thursday's event at the White House focused on education - but Melania was surrounded not by children, but by members of the government, administration officials and representatives of big business, such as IBM and Google.

Anita McBride, director of the First Ladies Program at American University and former chief of staff to first lady Laura Bush Anita McBride, said such events show how attitudes toward Melania Trump have changed since her first term as First Lady.

"Outside players who may have been reluctant to work with her before are now willing to work with her. During her first term, she was reluctant to meet with them. She had a hard time assembling roundtable discussions. She didn't have a strong networking system around her," McBride said.

Anita McBride believes that by focusing on the technological, commercial and legislative aspects of education and child welfare, Melania Trump is "setting a tone of urgency" to the problems of rapidly evolving new technologies.

"Now she is using her position effectively, usefully and meaningfully. She's becoming a player who can really help get legislation passed," McBride said.

Letter to Putin

In July, Donald Trump told reporters in passing that he discussed his conversations with Putin with his wife, and she appeared to be skeptical of trying to negotiate peace with Putin, according to Trump. In August, Melania Trump, through her husband, delivered a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin urging him to protect children in a war zone.

This attempt by the first lady to get involved in foreign policy - while emphasizing the plight of children - did not go unnoticed. Later, the wives of Ukrainian and Turkish presidents Elena Zelenskaya and Emine Erdogan wrote to her.

First ladies have been involved in shaping U.S. foreign policy before. Nancy Reagan, for example, corresponded with Raisa Gorbacheva, while Pat Nixon and Rosalynn Carter traveled the world on humanitarian missions and engaged in shuttle diplomacy.

In Anita McBride's view, the fact that Mrs. Trump has written to Putin shows that she wants to be involved in matters that interest her, even if she shows up in public less often than her predecessors.

"She was born in a country that was under Soviet influence," argues Anita McBride [that's not quite true, Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito was not a complete satellite of the USSR. - BBC], - and senses some things that others may not. She doesn't need to be involved in every issue, but she wants to be involved in things that she's interested in and can influence."

McBride believes that in her remaining three years in the White House, Melania Trump will be just as extremely selective about what she chooses to do as first lady.

"She does it on her own terms. She's for quality, not quantity," McBride believes, "She's not going to look back at how others have behaved in her shoes in the past.

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