Melania Trump knows you have questions about her. She wants you to stay tuned.
After a summer spent out of the public eye, the enigmatic first lady popped up in New York City this week with a few autumnal announcements. In an interview with “Fox & Friends” released on Wednesday morning, the first lady said that she will be answering “private questions” in a two-part documentary series set for release later this year, calling the venture “exciting.”
She wants us to know that she has also been very busy with more traditional duties. She has planned the state dinner for Xi Jinping, the president of China, scheduled for Thursday. She is counting on the Senate to pass legislation that will expand federal benefits to children in foster care, one of her signature initiatives.
“You don’t see me everywhere,” Mrs. Trump told a docile panel of cable-news interviewers. “But behind the scene, I’m working nonstop.”
Later, she appeared on another Fox program, “The Big Money Show,” and declared that she was too busy to read books or binge-watch TV. She said she reads executive orders.
“The other day, somebody asked me ‘what book you reading?’” Mrs. Trump said. “I said ‘executive order.’ It’s coming next, in next two weeks, that’s what I’m reading: executive order.”
In reality, Mrs. Trump is, like her husband, a voracious consumer of all news and commentary related to her work and whereabouts, according to people familiar with her media diet. (“I heard you missed me,” she told a crowd in the Rose Garden last month after spending weeks away from the public.) The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about which executive orders the first lady has been reading.
This burst of activity, following a seemingly fallow period, has become Mrs. Trump’s hallmark. Now nearly halfway into her sixth year as first lady, Mrs. Trump has learned to turn a natural inclination for privacy into a scarcity-economics strategy that grabs global attention for worthy causes but also generates a seven-figure income.
On Tuesday, Mrs. Trump was at her husband’s side as he began his rounds. President Trump kicked off his time at the United Nations General Assembly by berating a CNN reporter whom he had barred from the White House. Mrs. Trump stood by the president, her eyes drifting to cameras further afield.
She sat in the audience later, when Mr. Trump wondered aloud during a speech if he should annihilate the nation of Iran — a disturbing soliloquy about a war he started and can’t seem to end, even by his standards. During that speech, Mr. Trump complimented Mrs. Trump for her work to reunite Russian and Ukrainian children displaced by a war. Her verdict? “I told him he had a great delivery,” Mrs. Trump said on “Fox & Friends.”
Otherwise, Mrs. Trump kept to her own schedule. She held a luncheon dedicated to her child-focused initiatives, and announced that several private companies, including Amazon, Zoom and Google, had pledged to expand the availability of technological tools, many of them artificial-intelligence based, for children across the world. Mrs. Trump is interested in allowing children to access robotics and artificial intelligence tools in the classroom.
But Amazon is also a prime source of income for Mrs. Trump, who made over $10 million from a licensing deal to distribute a movie, released in February, that showed her preparing to move to Washington for a second time. The company’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has multiple business interests that could be affected by administration policies.
A person familiar with the coming doc-series said that this new project would also be streaming as a follow-up series through Amazon, and that Mrs. Trump did not have a documentary crew with her in New York. Mrs. Trump said on “Fox & Friends” that the series should be ready in November.
U.N. General Assembly: Live Updates
Updated
- After a warm meeting with Trump, Venezuela’s leader is set to address the U.N.
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- Zelensky warns that Russia’s war will expand if it is not ended soon.
At the U.N., Mrs. Trump was treated as a celebrity, and she stood in receiving lines to shake hands and take pictures.
“I don’t even have time to talk about her time now as a movie star, as a best-selling author,” said Michael Waltz, the ambassador to the United Nations before he introduced Mrs. Trump at the luncheon. Mr. Waltz had spent more time listing off Mrs. Trump’s more substantive accomplishments, which included working to pass legislation, called the Take It Down Act, which mandates social media platforms remove sexually explicit images and videos of others that were taken or posted without consent.
While in New York, Mrs. Trump allowed a CNN reporter to cover at least one of her events and continued a long-running household cable-news allegiance divide, which began early in Mr. Trump’s first term. Back then, he tried to ensure that Mrs. Trump’s televisions were tuned to Fox News. Mrs. Trump quickly let it be known that she watches whatever she wants.
On Wednesday, Mrs. Trump rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange in celebration of a women’s leadership event scheduled for later in the day. At the event, Mrs. Trump gave a speech that urged her audience of women to invest in other women.
“Be intentional with your purchases,” she said. “Invest in one another, invite another outstanding woman into the boardroom. Help an entrepreneur land the first big customer. Found new ideas that should exist.”
Mrs. Trump said on “Fox & Friends” that the president, who is raging against his sinking approval rating, is working hard, too.
“He’s very focused. He has a lot on his plate,” she said. It’s very different what’s going on around the world now. And — but I think he’s doing the best that he can.”
Both Trumps are focused on this week’s state visit in honor of China, which comes at a moment when Mr. Trump appears to be overlooking serious national security issues to build a better diplomatic relationship with Beijing. Mrs. Trump will take Mr. Xi’s wife, Peng Liyuan, to a Smithsonian museum later this week to highlight the cultural connections between the United States and China.
In addition to Mr. Xi, both Trumps have embraced another world leader accused of authoritarianism, militaristic aggression and the restriction of human rights. Mrs. Trump is proud that her direct appeal to Vladimir V. Putin, the leader of Russia, has reunited dozens of Ukrainian and Russian children with families that were separated after Mr. Putin began invading Ukraine in 2022.
On Wednesday, Brian Kilmeade, a “Fox & Friends” co-host, suggested to the first lady that she was trying to “undo” Mr. Putin’s strategy to snatch Ukrainian children from their families and indoctrinate them as Russians, with new Russian families.
“Correct,” Mrs. Trump replied. “And we are working together and we have a very positive relationship and they understand what we want to achieve.”
According to the White House, at least 34 children have been returned to their families, but officials have not said how many children were returned from each country.
In 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Putin for war crimes, saying he bore criminal responsibility for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children. Since the beginning of the war, Ukraine has accused Russia of abducting more than 19,000 children, according to humanitarian groups.
Later Wednesday, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, said that Mr. Putin had been invited to attend the Group of 20 summit hosted by Mr. Trump in Florida later this year. The first lady announced that she will be hosting her own event there.
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