The Trump-Branded Woman

Even as a husband and father, the president is brokering deals

- Nina Burleigh

WHEN PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP TOOK the stage at the New York Hilton Midtown on election night in 2016, he had just wiped the floor with Hillary Clinton, who had expected to be the first female president of the United States. American women were left not with a second-wave role model headed for the White House but with a man leading a clan of female camp followers engaged in the sort of transactional relationship feminists hoped had gone the way of the corset. The Trump woman was as branded as the New York buildings bearing his name.

Looking at his third wife, Melania, and his eldest daughter, Ivanka—gleaming, towering replicas of each other—many were asking themselves the same question: Could their support for Trump, a man caught on tape belittling and objectifying women, be genuine?

Ivanka—educated at the finest schools and a friend to Manhattan’s liberals and culturati—was considered the one person who could curb her father’s crasser and more reactionary instincts. But in the year after the election, it became clear that she would offer little in the way of tempering Trump; in fact, her views appeared to become more aligned with his.

Melania was more of a mystery, confounding many with her seeming reluctance to accept the first lady role. She took months to move into the White House and has gone her own way on various issues. Social media enthusiastically share GIFs of Sad Melania. She never looked more comfortable than on a recent solo trip to Africa, where, channeling Katharine Hepburn, she posed majestically in front of the pyramids of Giza. But despite rampant rumors that she had intended to divorce him before the election, she has stuck by Trump, the father of their son, Barron.