There were no grip-and-grin photos of the meeting between Michelle Obama and Melania Trump and no indication of how well they interacted.
Still the meeting of the current and future first ladies was a moment to consider both the fraught public relationship between the two and their differing styles.
Michelle Obama played an unprecedented role in the failed campaign to elect Hillary Clinton, traveling the country to make the case that Donald Trump was a poor role model for the nation’s children and unfit for the presidency.
Melania Trump was less involved in her husband’s campaign. She rarely gave public speeches, saying she preferred to stay home in Manhattan and care for her young son, Barron.
Mrs. Trump’s most prominent moment of the campaign came during the Republican National Convention when she gave her first speech before a large national audience. It was well received – until a journalist discovered that several phrases had been plagiarized from a 2008 Michelle Obama speech. Trump’s campaign later explained that Melania was an admirer of Michelle’s.
