How much power does Melania Trump have?

The ongoing disaster in Ukraine is a nightmare. But it’s not the nightmare I expected.

For months, civilians have been slaughtered nightly in Kyiv as Vladimir Putin wages an illegal drone war on civilization itself. Despite Moscow’s inability to effectively advance militarily even given the loss of an administration that largely championed Ukraine, Putin has toyed with Donald Trump over the outlines of a ceasefire that the Russian dictator never intends to honor or, possibly, even accept.

However, I assumed far worse was coming, an assumption that has served me well in this regime.

Just as I expected that Stephen Miller would wage war on America’s immigrants in the worst possible way, I expected Putin-fanboys JD Vance, Don Jr., and Tucker Carlson to push Trump into not only abandoning Ukraine but also joining Putin in waging wars in various forms against Europe. And frankly, I didn’t think it would take much pushing.

The feeble attempt to humiliate Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office looked precisely what I feared—theater designed to trigger our complete abandonment of Ukraine and the cause of self-rule. However, what has happened since has, thankfully, not made any sense to me whatsoever.

Trump’s comments against Putin have grown more confrontational, and his regime’s lust to cut off help to Ukraine seems to have been somewhat stymied.

There are several explanations for why Trump hasn’t entirely ditched Ukraine, and I’m out of my depth trying to assess the contours and meaning of all of them. But they’re worth considering.

1. It’s all an act.
   The first explanation is the most cynical, as this regime and time deserve: It’s all a front and a pantomime for a slow-motion caving to Putin that requires boiling the frogs in the GOP who recognize the disaster of letting Putin prevail in his first invasion of a European country. So the worst nightmare is coming, just in the sloppiest way possible.
2. It backfired.
   The stunt in the Oval Office lit a fire under Europe’s bottom. The leaders recognized they needed to supercharge their strategy. They flashed back with solidarity and relentless support of Kyiv while also engaging in a charm assault designed to trigger Trump’s receptivity to ass-kissing and zero-sum hierarchical thinking. And that’s enough to keep Trump in the game and disappointed with Putin, who doesn’t have to kiss Trump’s ass. It’s not enough to take the necessary steps to defend democracy on the continent, but it's not a total disaster.
3. Melania.

Trump may have given the game away last week when he said:

"I go home, I tell the first lady, 'You know, I spoke to Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation.' And she said, 'Oh really? Another city was just hit,'" he said during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office.

Could the explanation be as simple as “Trump hates looking weak. Trump no want to look weak in front of wife. Trump mad at Putin!”

Probably not.

But clearly, Melania has his ear at least somewhat. And as someone who grew up in the former Yugoslavia, she doesn’t seem to share the same affection for a former KGB agent who wants to recreate the Soviet Union as Trump does. 

That’s a sensible read of what’s happening here on the surface. However, this suggests several startling things that are, frankly, hard to believe. 

Foremost among them is that Donald and Melania appear to have a functioning relationship, and that Melania genuinely cares about people beyond herself.

Here I’m going to demand of myself the same realism I expect from anyone who dares to suggest in any way that Melania may be an ally against Trump. Yes, she probably hates her husband. But she hates us much more. And that’s what unites them.

So what’s going on? 

Does she sense that her husband is being toyed with by Putin? Has the rise of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal put Trump on the heels in their relationship? Could this freaky twist of fate be what ultimately saves Ukraine and Europe?

One can only hope.

The truth is that Putin has constantly been toying with Trump, even as he helps him. That’s a massive theme of Marcy Wheeler’s work and the Ball of Thread series we did together.

Marcy even suggests that Putin may have purposely kicked off the Trump/Russia scandal by getting Mike Flynn to essentially demand that the Obama administration act like a Russian agent on phone lines that everyone would know are being monitored. 

Who knows what’s real in this game?

As Trump said in 2024 when he was hedging about releasing the Epstein Files after telling Fox News he would, “there’s a lot of phony stuff in that whole world.”

But I do have a theory based on nothing but having to spend much of my life watching video footage of these freaks from the last decade: They’re back together, as much as they can be.

My fiend fiction as them rekindling their relationship through his New York felony trial. Their shared hatred of their opponents and us flared, and they were attracted to each other’s hackles. Melania loved the way Barron was brought into the fold during the 2024 campaign, with their son’s interests and connections providing crucial help in navigating the “manosphere” media that had helped convince young men to become proud Trumpists. It’s one of those ups in a long marriage that no one ever expects.

In this fantasy, even his taxpayer-funded birthday parade was largely about impressing Melania.

Now, the Epstein stuff threatens to return the coldness that had been evident in their relationship for years, with months of humiliating details about what a sick pig Trump is. 

Trump doesn’t want that, and Melania is the one human alive who can make his life miserable on a whim. So his ear is open to her on Ukraine, and she’s a far better advisor on the subject than any of his other fascist flying monkeys.

Again, who knows? This whole read makes sense in my imagination. And probably just there.

What we do know for sure is what the United States should be doing right now as Putin—like Benjamin Netanyahu—gleefully makes a mockery of any sense of decency and international order. Since I got you this far, I’m going to quote at length from a must-read piece in the Kyiv Post by Lord Ashcroft:

Russia’s greatest vice is that it always pushes one step too far. That hubris inevitably comes back to bite. In March 2022, just as the West thought that Kyiv was safe and the battles on the distant frontline in Ukraine were having little progress, it started to lose focus, questioning the need for further sanctions. Then came Bucha – with all its horrors and cases of inhumane war crimes committed against peaceful civilians. Russia revealed its true face to the world, prompting a renewed European effort and push for heavier arms supplies.

Now is the time to push the Sanctioning Russia Act through Congress. This vital legislation has the capacity to cripple Russia’s ability to illicitly trade crude oil and would directly impact its close allies, India and China. Russia’s economy is already under pressure with signs of internal decay growing. In the space of a week, one prominent oil executive mysteriously fell to his death, and the former transport minister was found dead shortly after dismissal – without explanation or investigation. These are not anomalies. They are symptoms of a regime in slow collapse.

Next, America should arm Ukraine to the teeth – with more air defense missiles and systems, more rounds of ammunition, more fourth-generation fighter jets.

Could someone please get that to Melania?

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