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Melania Trump: What Kind Of A First Lady She Will Be?
Incoming first lady of the United States (FLOTUS), Melania Trump took an unusually low-key role during the electoral campaign, leaving many wondering what kind of FLOTUS she will be.
For a start, here are three things that make Melania Trump historic.
1. She is the first foreign-born FLOTUS in 191 years. Born in the small town of Sevnica in 1970, she is the first lady not born in the USA since Louisa Adams, wife of President John Quincy Adams. Her native language is Slovenian but she also speaks four other languages: English, French, Serbian and German.
2. She is the first former fashion model. Melania's modeling career took her to Milan and eventually to the USA. She met Donald Trump in a fashion party and they got married in 2005. She has even posed nude twice. The New York Post ran one set of images in July of her in her birthday suit in 1995, when she was 25. British GQ ran a set of images from 2000, in March and again online on Tuesday, of her sprawled on a fur throw, wearing only jeweled bracelets and a handcuff.
3. She is the first wife no. 3. Past Presidents have had multiple wives but never has a President-elect been married and divorced twice before marrying for a third time. The couple have one son, Barron.
Trump has delivered only a handful of speeches but she did lay out in broad terms what her priorities would be as first lady in the final week of the campaign.
"People have asked me, 'if Donald is the president, what kind of first lady will you be?' It will be my honor and privilege to serve this country," Ms. Trump said. In addition to "helping children and women," she said combatting cyber bullying will be "one of the many focuses" of her work as first lady, in her speech.
There have been a flurry of opinions by experts suggesting what kind of FLOTUS Trump will turn out to be with many agreeing she might take after Jackie Kennedy.
Jean Wahl Harris, who studies the role of the first lady at the University Scranton told USA Today that she sees Trump going back to a Jackie Kennedy model of first lady. Jackie Kennedy wanted to protect her children and herself. According to Harris, Melania will be like that and won't like talking in public.
Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University also sees Trump as the next Jackie Kennedy. "Somebody who has a keen eye on fashion, who doesn't interfere with policy-making in a public way. She will travel and be courted around as someone who is glamorous..There's no advantage for her to get involved in politics in a visceral way," he told USA Today.
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