Author: Mary Jordan

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

ISBN: 9781982113407

There are all kinds of perceptions, opinions, and descriptions when it comes to Melania Trump. We know she was born Melanija Knavs and raised in Sevnica, a town of five thousand and located fifty miles from the border of the Italian city of Trieste.

When she arrived in the USA in 1996, she had changed her name to Melania Knavs, which she had used in her modeling career. 

It is, however, quite challenging to get a handle as to who exactly is Melania? Is she just Donald Trump's trophy wife? Does she have any influence over Donald, and does she even offer any advice to him? Some say she is a model; therefore, she must not be too bright. Perhaps, she is playing a role, and beneath the facade, we have something more than meets the eye?

Mary Jordan, who is a political journalist for the Washington Post and a Pulitzer Prize winner, mentions in The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump that in the 2000 February issue of Talk magazine, there appeared an interview with Melania conducted by Amy Brill. 

Melania was featured in a two-page photo of her in a red bikini and stiletto heels sprawled across a carpet bearing the presidential seal with the words “A Model First Lady.” It was at the time Trump was thinking about running for President and when he was in a relationship with Melania. They had split up shortly after that.

When discussing her views concerning Trump's political ambitions, Melania tells Brill in her Eastern European honey whisper, “You play a role.... It's a beez-ness.” She went onto say that “In politics, “you need to know how to deal with people. You need to choose the right people to work for you. You need to make the right decisions and stand by them, and you need to know how to run a beez-ness.” Quite impressive, as Jordan points out, Melania began talking about what type of first lady she would be more than twenty years ago when her new boyfriend started flirting with a run for the president.

Jordan further mentions she encouraged him to run, and Trump subsequently relied on her political instincts, which ultimately led him to the White House. Was this merely luck, or is Melania an astute player playing in the world of politics? 

Jordan first began writing about Melania in 2015 for the Washington Post. In writing her articles, Jordan contacted people who knew her and gleaned through magazines where Melania appeared as a model. 

The only interview Jordan conducted with Melania was on the telephone in 2016 during the presidential campaign. According to Jordan, it was far easier to interview Donald Trump than Melania. She also points out that she had to meet with Donald before receiving the green light to speak to Melania. 

Most revealing is Melania's description of herself as she tells Jordan that not too many people know her. Incidentally, Melania refused to meet Jordan in person but instead preferred an interview on the telephone. According to Melania, all the articles were written about her and what people said on the TV talk shows were all wrong. She described herself as not being shy or reserved, and that only she knows her story. People who may have briefly met her don't know her, and all they want is their fifteen minutes of fame. She further informs Jordan that she knows what she wants, and she does not need to talk and be an attention seeker. She is very comfortable in her body, and she does get involved and talk when she wants to, not when somebody else wants it. When Jordan asks her what does she want, she avoids answering. We have to ask ourselves, is this Melania, or is she acting a role that she had prepared for over twenty years ago? 

Jordan's analyses of Melania are balanced and insightful. Still, somehow I was left with the lingering question, is Melania playing a role and reinventing herself from an unknown young woman who left her native country in her early twenties and wound up as the first lady in the White House? 

I am not sure if readers will come away from this book wiser about Melania, but perhaps we may reconfirm our perception of her or completely change our minds.