Why an unenthusiastic Melania Trump is being dragged back into the spotlight

With her husband trailing Kamala Harris badly among women, Melania Trump is being trotted out to launder her husband’s reputation, writes John Bowden

Melania Trump appears on the final day of the Republican National Convention in July (Getty Images)

Call it Donald Trump’s attempt at manufacturing an October Surprise.

The release of a memoir from Melania Trump with less than a month left in the presidential election cycle feels like the epitome of a Hail Mary. An obvious, direct appeal to the one demographic — women — among whom her husband is bleeding support the most. A call to return to the fold aimed at conservative women turned off by the ugliness of Trump’s campaign and the battle over abortion rights, which has become a weight around the former president’s neck.

The only question is why anyone thinks this will matter, given the infrequency of her public statements and appearances.

Let’s dive into it: Melania Trump, having taken a firmly backstage role over four years of her husband’s presidency and three of his post-presidential “golden years”, is suddenly lurching back into the spotlight. And it is a sudden change: the former First Lady was notably absent from all but the most essential performative aspects of the Republican National Convention in July, when Donald Trump was selected as the GOP’s nominee for a third time. She gave no onstage address, no interviews with Trump-friendly cable news networks or YouTube channels.

But now she’s back. With just weeks to go in the election, Melania has given her first sit-down interviews in months: two of them, both to Fox News. A request for a third, from CNN, was declined. She’s back in a familiar role, doing the absolute bare minimum to help her husband’s presidential bid despite her obvious discomfort with the idea.

One cannot feel her heart in the matter. Her latest interview — an appearance on Fox News Sunday — aired this past weekend. Her robotic responses to questions about the first of two attempts on her husband’s life were barely recognizable when contrasted with stepson Eric Trump’s onstage assertion at a recent rally that Democrats were behind the attempts on his father’s life.

No, this very much feels like Melania Trump going through the motions.

In the book, she almost monotonously addresses the critiques of her made by liberal commentators, including complaints about a speech she gave at the 2016 Republican National Convention which appeared to be partially plagiarized from Michelle Obama. This rewriting of her reputation is the crux of the reason why Trump would go on in the book to tackle the abortion question.

“A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes,” she wrote. “Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body.”

She does the same with immigration, backing away from the “family separations” launched by the Department of Homeland Security early on into the Trump presidency, wherein adults and children of all ages were separated upon detention in the US for an illegal crossing.

“I immediately addressed my deep concerns with Donald regarding the family separations, emphasizing the trauma it was causing these families …Donald assured me that he would investigate and, on June 20, he announced the end of the family separation policy,” she writes, leaving out the fact that his administration was facing a lawsuit over the practice which resulted in a court order days later.

Also left unaddressed is how Melania Trump reconciles the supposed heartfelt concerns she has about the more draconian aspects of conservative abortion and immigration policies with her husband’s past and future plans. Stephen Miller, architect of the family separation policy, hasn’t gone away. He was an official surrogate for the Trump campaign at his debate with Kamala Harris. JD Vance and the conservative hardliners who want to see abortion bans expanded around the country remain very much attached to the Trump campaign as well.

In the end, this is a memoir that serves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, as a vessel for the Trump campaign to spin a few semi-positive news cycles at a time when it desperately needs them.

The former First Lady’s book is titled Melania. A better title would perhaps be Remember Melania? — as that is clearly the message Donald Trump and his campaign are trying to send.