The Quiet Radicalism of Melania Trump

On the first anniversary of his inauguration, President Trump spent the day blasting Democrats for the government shutdown, suggesting that women marching in protest of his presidency were somehow celebrating it, and embroiled in allegations that he paid off a porn star to keep her quiet about their relationship. Melania Trump, meanwhile, commemorated the anniversary by tweeting a single photo of herself on Inauguration Day on the arm of a Marine. Her husband was nowhere in sight, and she did not mention his name. A few days later — on what happened to be the Trumps’ 13th wedding anniversary — she canceled her plans to accompany Mr. Trump to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

She may not be progressive. She may not be political. And yet Mrs. Trump may end up doing more than any of her predecessors to upend our expectations of the slavish devotion a first lady must display toward her husband.

.. With the exception of the Clintons, there has not been a more complicated first couple in modern history: Mrs. Trump is the third wife of a man who once told the radio host Howard Stern he would “give her a week” to lose the baby weight after their son, Barron, was born.

.. First ladies are expected to accept their husband’s infidelities and cruelty and to remain their strongest champions, no matter what the circumstances

.. They are expected to be adoring.

.. The day after President Clinton testified before a grand jury and came clean to the country, Mrs. Clinton marched across the South Lawn together with Bill, their daughter, Chelsea, standing between them, holding both of her parents’ hands, as they headed for Marine One to embark on their annual summer vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. It was the photo-op the president needed.

.. Mrs. Obama was also the first first lady to challenge people to accept a woman who refused to play the role of the saccharine, adoring spouse. “I can’t do that,” she said in 2007 Vanity Fair interview. “That’s not me. I love my husband. I think he’s one of the most brilliant men I’ve ever met, and he knows that. But he’s not perfect, and I don’t want the world to want him to be perfect.”

.. This quiet rebellion started with her decision not to move into the White House until five months after her husband took office. It gathered force when she swatted her husband’s hand away on an airport tarmac in Israel last year. By the time the Trumps leave the White House, Mrs. Trump may have done more to change our notions about this archaic position, which has no job description and no pay, and comes with impossible expectations, than most of her predecessors.

Would it have been beneficial to Donald Trump for his wife to stand beside him in Davos and show a united front, as we have come to expect from first ladies? Absolutely. Does she care? Probably not.

‘He Has a Very Sensitive Ego’: Howard Stern Says Presidency Will be ‘Detrimental’ to Trump’s Mental Health

SiriusXM radio host Howard Stern talked about his old friend Donald Trump on his show this week, and he said that he’s worried the presidency will have a damaging effect on Trump’s mental well-being.

Trump is known to be highly concerned about his public perception, and Stern said on Wednesday that he wasn’t sure what that will mean for Trump now that he will face presidential levels of scrutiny. Trump is still a subject of protests and relatively low approval ratings, and Stern said that he told the mogul that he didn’t think it would be “a healthy experience” getting involved in politics:

.. “I personally wish that he had never run. I told him that because I actually think this is something that is going to be detrimental to his mental health…He really does want to be loved, he does want people to really love him, that drives him a lot. I think he has a very sensitive ego.”

Even though Trump currently has a tense relationship with the press and various liberal celebrities, Stern suggested that Trump is more deeply wounded by the negativity than he lets on:

“He’s now on this anti-Hollywood kick. He loves Hollywood. First of all, he loves the press. He lives for it. He loves people in Hollywood. He only wants hobnob with them. All of this hatred and stuff directed towards him. It’s not good for him. It’s not good. There’s a reason every president who leaves the office has grey hair.”

Confessor. Feminist. Adult. What the Hell Happened to Howard Stern?

Scattered among the gleefully vulgar mainstays are now intimate exchanges that have made Mr. Stern one of the most deft interviewers in the business.

“Today, if you go on a TV talk show and give a great six or seven minutes, people will link to it, if it’s incredible,” said Lewis Kay, who oversees media for Tracy Morgan, Amy Poehler and others. “But if you kill on Stern, it moves the needle.”

.. “Aside from the fact that millions of people hear you, the cross section of who hears you is what blew me away,” said Ike Barinholtz, an actor and comedian who has appeared on the show three times since 2014. “When you have a head of a movie studio in Los Angeles and a New York City police officer both tell you that it was good when you made fun of Ronnie the Limo Driver,” — Mr. Stern’s chauffeur and an on-air regular — “you know you’re dealing with a special entity.”

 .. Conan O’Brien described himself on the show as “somewhat medicated” in a discussion about his low-level depression.
.. Mr. Stern explained to her: “I used to say bad things about everyone. I was angry, quite frankly. I was an angry young man.”

.. Friends and fans attribute Mr. Stern’s evolution in large part to his marriage, in 2008, to Beth Ostrosky Stern, a former model who not only has left him lovestruck, but turned him into an animal rescue advocate.
.. “Being a judge on ‘America’s Got Talent’ said to him, ‘You are deserving, you are legitimate.’ I think it is one reason Howard said to himself, ‘O.K., people really do like me. People really respect me.’ And maybe that chip on his shoulder is gone.”
.. Therapy has also been key. For years, Mr. Stern was in four-times-a-week psychoanalysis, as he frequently reminds listeners. (He’s since cut back.) Not only has this given him a modicum of inner peace, it has provided him with a set of tools that he uses on guests the way a well-equipped safecracker opens a vault.

.. Most of the time, though, Mr. Stern probes exactly where you would if you had the nerve.
.. These in-depth interviews are also strategic, as Mr. Stern has intuited that outrageousness won’t suffice on satellite radio, a realm without limits, and therefore a place where nothing is outrageous.