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The first ladies club is so exclusive that only five women are a part of it right now after Roslyn Carter passed away in 2023. It doesn’t matter where they stand politically, there is a kinship there because so few people will ever experience life in the White House like they did. However, there is a slight rift between Melania Trump and the rest of the first ladies, but it seems that Dr. Jill Biden did her best to extend an olive branch to her in the most subtle way.
In 2021, the White House transition was anything but normal on the heels of an insurrection and Donald Trump’s administration not willingly making the process easy. Melania did not invite Jill for the traditional “tea and tour” that had been in place since 1952 when Bess Truman invited Mamie Eisenhower to get a look at the place she would be calling home. That less-than-warm welcome started a rather frosty relationship between the two women, according to Katie Rogers’ upcoming book, American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden, via an excerpt in The New York Times.
Even when Melania left a rather perfunctory note to Jill when she moved in, Jill said that it was a “typical good-luck letter” without sharing any insight into what she would experience living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The new first lady didn’t exactly love that it was typed and not handwritten, which would have exuded some type of warmth. “I do a lot of correspondence,” Jill said as an avid letter-writer herself. “I know how important it is.” There’s not a lot of love between the Bidens and the Trumps, but several sources shared that Jill tried to open the door for Melania with a small gesture.
Jill sent Melania a birthday card in April 2021 which reportedly touched her because it was an unexpected surprise. When the first lady turned 70 two months later, Melania reciprocated with her own good wishes. The end result may shock everyone, but the lines of communication have stayed open ever since, according to Rogers’ book.
Kate Andersen Brower, who authored the book, First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies, told SheKnows last year that she believes Jill and Melania have more in common than people would realize because they “revolutionized” the way the first lady role is perceived.
“Melania Trump revolutionized it in an unusual way because she didn’t move into the White House right away,” Brower explained. “She didn’t do what we all wanted. She didn’t seem to care about making the public like her.” On the flip side, “Jill Biden is working, which no First Lady has ever done, [and] it’s remarkable to think about,” Brower added. Their approaches to the unpaid position are drastically different, but perhaps they’ve found some middle ground over their shared experience as one of the five living first ladies after all.
Before you go, click here to see the best presidential love stories in U.S. history.
