The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump

by Mary Jordan

Overview

This revelatory biography of Melania Trump from Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post reporter Mary Jordan “deftly, and without agenda, decodes Melania [Trump]” (NBC News) who is far more influential in the White House than most people realize.

Based on interviews with more than one hundred people in five countries, The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump draws an unprecedented portrait of the first lady. While her public image is of an aloof woman floating above the political gamesmanship of Washington, behind the scenes Melania Trump is not only part of President Trump’s inner circle, but for some key decisions she has been his single most influential adviser.

Throughout her public life, Melania Trump has purposefully worked to remain mysterious. With the help of key people speaking publicly for the first time and never-before-seen documents and tapes, The Art of Her Deal looks beyond the surface image to find a determined immigrant and the life she had before she met Donald Trump. Mary Jordan traces Melania’s journey from Slovenia, where her family stood out for their nonconformity, to her days as a fledgling model known for steering clear of the industry’s hard-partying scene, to a tiny living space in Manhattan she shared platonically with a male photographer, to the long, complicated dating dance that finally resulted in her marriage to Trump. Jordan documents Melania’s key role in Trump’s political life before and at the White House, and shows why he trusts her instincts above all.

The picture of Melania Trump that emerges in The Art of Her Deal is one of a woman who is savvy, steely, ambitious, deliberate, and who plays the long game. And while it is her husband who became famous for the phrase “the art of the deal,” it is she who has consistently used her leverage to get exactly what she wants. This is the story of the art of her deal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982113407
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	06/16/2020
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Mary Jordan is a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter for The Washington Post and a bestselling author. Her book, Trump on Trial, coauthored with her husband and Washington Post colleague Kevin Sullivan, features reporting from dozens of Washington Post journalists, and traces the investigation, acquittal, and aftermath of the impeachment of Donald Trump. Jordan’s New York Times bestselling book, The Art of Her Deal, an unauthorized biography of Melania Trump, was published in June 2020. Jordan and Sullivan are also authors of the #1 New York Times bestseller, Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland, the story of Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, who were kidnapped in Cleveland and held for a decade. They previously wrote The Prison Angel: Mother Antonia’s Journey from Beverly Hills to a Life of Service in a Mexican Jail. They were the Washington Post’s co-bureau chiefs in Tokyo, Mexico City, and London for fourteen years.

Table of Contents

Prologue: "I have an opinion" 1

1 Olive Branch? 13

2 Chasing Melania 25

3 Face of the Year 47

4 Making Her Way in Manhattan 81

5 "He wanted my number, but … I didn't give it to him" 99

6 First White House Run 127

7 Melania or Kara? 151

8 "Aren't I lucky?" 169

9 Jewelry and Caviar 199

10 "We give a space to each other" 221

11 Be Best 231

12 "The Protector" 253

Acknowledgments 283

Notes 287

Photo Credits 325

Index 327

Editorial Reviews

07/06/2020

In this brisk and largely flattering biography, Washington Post reporter Jordan (coauthor, Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland) portrays first lady Melania Trump as “independent, highly focused, and acutely aware of her own power and when to deploy it.” Contrary to reports that Melania didn’t want her husband to run for president and cried the night he was elected, she was actually one of the few people in Trump’s inner circle who believed he could win, Jordan writes, and had an influential role in key decisions such as selecting Mike Pence for vice president. Jordan tracks Melania’s journey from the former Yugoslavia (present-day Slovenia), where she was born Melanija Knavs in 1970, to modeling gigs in Milan and Paris, where she “stayed away from the drugs and hard party scene” and “left few traces,” and New York, where she starred in a Camel Light ad campaign before meeting Trump sometime in 1998 (accounts of precisely when and where vary). Though some anecdotes strain plausibility, especially the claim (based on a third-hand source) that Melania told Trump she was angry about the Access Hollywood tape leak because it meant he might have lost the election “for us,” others (including tensions with stepdaughter Ivanka Trump and the securing of improved prenup terms before relocating to the White House in June 2017) ring true. This detailed yet credulous account adds depth to the prevailing portrait of Melania as merely an “elegant accessory” to her husband. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"Well-reported...[Jordan] brings new information about this unconventional first lady to the surface."
— New York Times

"An extraordinary work of discovery and empathy...The Art of Her Deal is beyond all doubt an extraordinary book. It is impeccably reported and written — light, clear, engaging and honest throughout."
— Salon

"Far from the helpless stereotype that has become a running punchline, Jordan’s research reveals something larger: the personality and strategy required to become a successful despot’s wife. ... Jordan deftly, and without an agenda, decodes Melania."
— NBC News

"Impressively reported... Mary Jordan has pulled back the veil. It reveals the first lady to be a power player in her own right, one driven by a very clear sense of her own self-interest."
— Karen Tumulty, The Washington Post

"[THE ART OF HER DEAL] adds depth to the prevailing portrait of Melania as merely an 'elegant accessory' to her husband."
— Publishers Weekly

"A new, scrupulously reported biography by Washington Post reporter Mary Jordan... [argues] that the first lady is not a pawn but a player... and a woman able to get what she wants from one of the most powerful and transparently vain men in the world ... The result is a convincing case that those 'who dismiss her as nothing more than an accessory do not understand her or her influence.'"
— NPR

"Jordan diligently assembles the facts on the Access Hollywood scandal, the Stormy Daniels affair, the plagiarized convention speech, and the bizarre jacket at the border, among other events. The author’s presentation often achieves the simple elegance her subject aspires to. Interesting and fair—as complete a portrait as we can expect of the current first lady."
— Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2020-06-27
How a determined Eastern European model reinvented herself as one of the most prominent women in the world.

As Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post reporter Jordan clearly demonstrates in this meticulously researched biography, her subject shares many similarities with her husband. “She is seen,” writes the author, “as the good-hearted princess who needs to be saved from her rapacious and bullying husband, the vulnerable immigrant swept up in his presidential ambitions who cried the night he was selected, the vapid and shallow model with nothing much to say about the world, the lucky beauty who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Yet she is none of these things.” Jordan spent five years uncovering the truth, some of which has been carefully hidden along the way and some of which remains in dispute. For example, was she actually successful as a model? Was she washed up by the time she encountered her future husband? Or, as one insider claims, was her career “really cut short by her meeting Donald Trump”? Even before Trump, “Melania had perfected the art of sealing off different parts of her life.” Via her interviews with more than 120 subjects in five countries, the author steams open the seals. The hypocrisy of Trump’s position on “chain migration” has never been made clearer than it is here: Melania brought her parents to the U.S., and she dines with them daily; her parents and her son speak Slovenian at home; her mother cooks and even does the dishes. As for her purported fluency in Italian, French, and German, the author notes that those who have worked closely with Melania have “never heard her use more than a few words in those languages.” Jordan diligently assembles the facts on the Access Hollywood scandal, the Stormy Daniels affair, the plagiarized convention speech, and the bizarre jacket at the border, among other events. The author’s presentation often achieves the simple elegance her subject aspires to.

Interesting and fair—as complete a portrait as we can expect of the current first lady.

Kirkus Reviews