Louise Linton is aware you probably know her from that photo where she's touching newly printed cash with leather opera gloves with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, now her husband, or that luxury-brand-tagged Instagram post of her stepping off a government jet. And she's very sorry for those "rookie mistakes," Linton told Los Angeles Magazine's Maer Roshan over three interviews at her Bel Air mansion. The U.S. Mint was cold, she'd been warned, and she immediately regretted "that awful Instagram post."
Linton said she mostly lives in L.A. now instead of Washington, D.C., for work — she's an actress and producer. Moving to D.C. was hard and she "never got much guidance," she said. "The partners of ambassadors and congressional spouses get to go to a training camp! Cabinet spouses get nothing. Being married to someone so high up in government, it surprised me that there was no one there to step in, as I'm sure they do, for the first lady or for Meghan Markle or Kate Middleton!"
She and Mnuchin "notoriously" don't host "D.C. society dinners," Linton said, but she does "very small ones with good friends like Mike and Susan Pompeo," or Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Secretary of State Pompeo is "gregarious" and "such great fun," she said, "Ivanka is like a movie star," and "Jared is incredibly kind, polite, and kind." Linton carefully said she doesn't agree with the Trump administration's policies on gay rights or animal and wildlife issues, but she won't criticize them and she discovered she can't really shape policy. "Cabinet spouses are not allowed to lobby other Cabinet members," she said. "It's against the rules."
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"Donald Trump Jr. is not in the administration," Roshan noted. "He's a big advocate of big-game hunting — lions and elephants. Do you feel uncomfortable going to dinner with him?" There was a long pause. "Yes, I feel uncomfortable," Linton said, then quickly moved on. Read the entire interview at Los Angeles Magazine.
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