Usually private, Melania Trump steps into the spotlight after the midterm election
FORT RUCKER, Ala. (AP) — There's a scene in Melania Trump's documentary in which she enters the room as Donald Trump is rehearsing his inaugural address.
When he says the line about how “my proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker,” she offers a quick, verbal edit.
“Peacemaker and unifier,” she tells her husband to say instead.
But Melania is the Trump who is credited with recently bringing peace, if only for six days, to one war-torn city in southern Ukraine — an unusual intervention into an active war by an American first lady. Two days after Republican losses in the midterm elections knocked the president out of the spotlight, Melania Trump hosted Russian and Ukrainian officials at the White House to celebrate the temporary ceasefire.
It's part of a burst of public activity by a first lady regarded as among the most private women to hold the role, and it comes just before the Nov. 20 release by Prime Video of “Melania: The Series,” a follow-up to the first lady's documentary from January.
On Thursday, the first lady headed to Alabama to address U.S. troops — her third big event since the election. It follows a trip to Louisiana last weekend to announce a multimillion-dollar private endowment to fund scholarships for college students once in foster care.
The first lady has made support for military families part of her portfolio. Her latest trip has taken her to Fort Rucker, an Army post in southern Alabama, with Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President JD Vance, a former Marine.
Before a backdrop that included a duo of Apache and Blackhawk helicopters, both women during the early Thanksgiving visit on Thursday thanked an assembly of hundreds of soldiers and their families for their service to the nation.
“The sacrifices of military families don’t make the headlines, but you are the foundation for the world’s most capable military,” Melania Trump said, urging Americans who will spend the holidays with loved ones to “take a moment to think of America’s service people.”
After their remarks, both women spoke with members of the crowd, pausing to shake hands and take photos.
Later, they would spend time with elementary students attending school on the base. Last year, both women marked the Thanksgiving season with a similar visit to Marine Corps members in North Carolina, thanking them for their service and recognizing the sacrifices their families make.
On Wednesday, they both accompanied their husbands to Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, for the annual Veterans Day observance.
The White House announced in late October that the first lady had brokered a temporary ceasefire in the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky in southern Ukraine as it faced a starvation crisis. The pause gave time for about 800 people to leave the city and allowed for deliveries of humanitarian aid to those who chose to stay.
On Thursday, Usha Vance called the first lady "a powerful voice for peace." Last week, Melania Trump brought together at the White House officials from Russia and Ukraine who helped implement the ceasefire and talked about her role.
“I was involved in every stage of the planning," she said. "I reviewed demining plans, aerial images, assessed roadways and discussed evacuation routes, hospital access, vehicles and medical resources. I was made aware of the preferred dates and timing of the operation.”
She thanked the Russian and Ukrainian presidents for their cooperation and said Oleshky could be the model for peace between their countries.
“Let Oleshky be the modest spark that grows into a lasting flame of peace,” she said. This week U.S. officials held talks with Russian and Ukrainian counterparts in the United Arab Emirates, but there was no breakthrough.
After the White House announced her role, President Trump said his wife is “doing better than the professionals” on his team whose shuttle diplomacy between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy has yet to bring the nearly 5-year-old war to a close.
Her work on Oleshky followed her outreach to Putin last year as she took on the matter of helping reunite children and families separated by the war. She so far has helped return nearly three dozen children to their families.
The first lady will head to New York City next week for the world premiere at Lincoln Center of “Melania: The Series.” The two new Prime Video episodes are billed as showing new aspects of her roles as wife, mother and first lady that weren't in her documentary.
The first lady described the episodes in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” as having “more conversation, one-on-one, with me.”
The episodes, which begin streaming Nov. 20, are supposed to include some surprises, too.
“There are some private questions that I will answer that people never heard before,” she said in the interview. “So it’s kind of exciting.”
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Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard contributed from Columbia, S.C.
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