Don't expect Melania Trump to tame Trump's Twitter habit

Melania and Barron Trump move into the White House

(Image credit: Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images)

published 13 June 2017

With little fanfare, first lady Melania Trump moved into the White House on Sunday along with her and President Trump's 11-year-old son, Barron. The president has reportedly spoken with his wife frequently during her five-month absence from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and some Trump friends suggest that having the first lady in the White House will steady the Trump presidential ship. "She is the president's never-ending barometer of reality, and she delivers candor and honesty blended with selfless love for him and his family in equal doses," said Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a close friend of the Trumps. "She is the immovable rudder to an ever-changing sea."

But Trump supporters and White House aides who view in Melania Trump "a ray of hope as the person who will finally be the one to tame the untamable president," especially when it comes to early-morning, potentially self-destructive tweeting, should hold their breath, says Maggie Haberman at The New York Times. "Those expectations are unrealistic, unfairly raise expectations, and are unlikely to be met, people close to Mrs. Trump point out."

"President Trump has been steadfast in making his own decisions about social media, overruling advice from aides," notes Krissah Thompson at The Washington Post. Thompson points to an interview Melania Trump gave to the luxury magazine Du Jour last year, in which she said he gives "a lot of advice to my husband and tell him how it is and how I see it." Trump's kids from his previous two marriages would call her after a speech, she added. "They know I would talk to him and put him in the right direction. Sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn't. He will decide what he does." Haberman recalled Melania Trump's comment to CNN's Anderson Cooper not long after her husband's Access Hollywood video surfaced: "Sometimes I say I have two teenage boys at home — my young son and my husband."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.