President Donald Trump's foreign policy is being partially delegated to an entirely inexperienced adviser not to himself, but as a documentary producer for First Lady Melania Trump, according to a recent report.
"Marc Beckman made his name selling sneakers, soda and fashion," reported MS NOW's Felicia Schwartz and Vaughn Hillyard on Thursday. "Now he spends much of his time helping Melania Trump with her public image, including negotiating with Russia and producing her multimillion-dollar Amazon documentary."
Schwartz and Hillyard, "He has labeled himself her 'exclusive senior adviser,' an amorphous title that over the past year has also included diplomacy on her behalf. Beckman and Trump were the top American representatives at a White House ceremony on Nov. 5 commemorating a humanitarian ceasefire in one of Ukraine’s hardest-hit frontline cities in the war. Top Russian and Ukrainian officials involved in the limited ceasefire efforts were also there and credited Beckman — a little-known Trump adviser with no official U.S. government role — with bringing the effort over the finish line."
The MS NOW journalists noted that Beckman even helped Melania Trump obtain positive public relations in terms of the ongoing war in Israel.
"Beckman said he had also helped with Trump’s work on Israeli hostages captured by Hamas," they wrote. "He hosts his own podcast where he has interviewed former Israeli officials as well as Aviva Siegel, wife of released hostage Keith Siegel. He said he got involved with work on antisemitism after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel."
They continued, "Beckman interviewed Aviva Siegel on his podcast in 2024 and said he was involved in Trump’s meeting with Siegel and her daughter in January 2025, while her husband, Keith, was still in captivity. The private meeting in New York was shown in the Amazon documentary."
Outsiders have noted that Beckman, though not widely known, clearly has tremendous power in the Trump administration.
"Power in the East Wing is inherited," Michael LaRosa, former spokesperson for the former First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, posted on X on Thursday. "But inside the White House, the first lady’s authority is understood to be separate but equal from the West Wing’s. A first lady can exercise power quietly and shrewdly because in every administration, she has one distinct advantage: Nobody in the White House wants to be the one to tell the first lady 'no.'"
In her 2026 documentary "Melania," the First Lady talked about her life preparing to begin Trump's second term. She also talked about visiting attending President Jimmy Carter's funeral, although the documentary declined to state Carter's low opinion of the Trump administration. The 39th president expressed this views to this journalist for Salon in 2018.
“I think that under Trump the government is worse than it has been before,” Carter told this journalist for Salon at the time. “This is the first time I remember when the truth is ignored, allies are deliberately aggravated, China, Europe, Mexico and Canada are hurt economically and have to hurt us in response, Americans see the future worse than the present, and immigrants are treated cruelly.”
