According to MSNBC's opinion writer Hayes Brown, the demolition of the White House's East Wing highlights an "absentee First Lady," as Melania Trump remains silent on "her husband's decision to bulldoze her office space in favor of a massive golden ballroom."
"The rapid demolition of the White House’s East Wing, meant to clear the way for President Donald Trump’s massive, gilded ballroom, has annihilated the office space traditionally assigned to the first lady and her staff," Brown writes.
Melania's silence, Brown says, "highlights her approach to much of her husband’s second term — and how little she likely cares about the ways her husband’s unnecessary vanity project will affect her potential successors."
The East Wing became the traditional home for the offices of the first lady and her staff, starting with Eleanor Roosevelt. An office formally dedicated to the first lady was established during the Rosalynn Carter administration.
Former staffers to Melania's predecessors told East Wing Magazine that seeing their former offices demolished was “’jarring,’ ‘a gut punch’ and ‘revolting,'" Brown writes.
But, as Melania's now infamous jacket said, "I really don't care, do you?" and Brown says it's evident she doesn't.
Her return to Washington, Brown says, "been defined less by her chosen projects than by her frequent absences from the public eye."
During her husband’s first term, it was clear Melania "didn’t love the traditional roles and duties foisted on the first lady," he says, and that sentiment has "only increased in frequency over the years," Brown notes.
"This time around, Melania Trump has been even more private and less inclined to spend time at the White House. During the first 100 days of this administration, according to The New York Times, she spent fewer than 14 days there," Brown says.
The First Lady has also "massively downsized her staff compared to the first term," with CNN reporting “only five full-time staff members as of July.”
Though her presence in the White House is rare, she did show up last month for an A.I. education task force meeting, telling the attendees that “the robots are here” and that “it is our duty to treat A.I. as we would our own children — empowering, but with watchful guidance.”
With her social office now gone in the demolition of the East Wing, "it was unclear whether permanent office space for the first lady has been incorporated into the designs for the 90,000-square foot ballroom set to occupy the former East Wing’s grounds," Brown says.
If the move back to the Executive Mansion becomes permanent, it would be a regressive move that literally moves the Office of the First Lady away from the office and back into the home, Brown says.
" It would at least be an on-brand decision from a White House that has rapidly rolled back decades of women’s rights and empowerment," he notes.
But it's the First Lady's silence that is most telling, he says.
"The lack of comment at all from Melania Trump on that shift underscores that, much like her husband, she has little interest in how her choices affect anyone other than herself," Brown writes.