How Melania Trump Influenced Her Husband's Foreign Policy Decisions For Years
- 4.08.2025, 19:37
The Telegraph publication The Telegraph reported on the "quiet force".
US President Donald Trump's wife Melania played a key role in the decision to launch airstrikes on Syria during his first term. The Telegraph wrote about this on August 4.
According to the publication, the U.S. first lady was struck by video footage of children dying in Khan Sheikhoun after a chemical attack by the regime of then-Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in 2017, and it was she who influenced her husband's decision to renege on a campaign promise not to intervene in the Syrian civil war. Trump has launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the Mediterranean Sea at a government airbase in Syria.
The publication's interlocutor, a former White House staffer, suggested that she reacts to human suffering like a mother, without a political filter or strategic approach, and shares that with her husband.
Recently, while returning from a trip to Scotland, Trump told The Telegraph that he discussed images of starving people in Gaza with his wife. She thought it was horrible, Trump noted.
The publication also mentions Trump's conversation with his wife about Russia's war on Ukraine. Trump then said he had a "good conversation" with Vladimir Putin. Melania responded by saying that Russian Federation had just shelled another Ukrainian city.
This immediately made her a heroine in Ukraine, the publication said. She was dubbed "Agent Melania Trumpenko," and memes featuring Ukrainian symbols on her clothes quickly spread.
Trump's wife has been low-key during her husband's second term and has rarely appeared in public, raising questions about whether she remains first lady. But her influence can be seen in Trump's policies, the publication said, and insiders believe she is the "quiet force" behind the president's tougher stance on Russia.
A professor of history at Ohio University and an expert on the role of first ladies, Catherine Jellison, said Mrs. Trump performs her role in an unconventional way, rejecting the traditional role of simply appearing by her husband's side at public events. She may actually have more influence on her husband's opinions on various issues than the general public might think, she said.