Weekend Listen: In Defense of Melania

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

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Azadeh Moaveni (0:11)

I took this job in the States, and I thought, well, what are the wives of the big, powerful men doing here? First ladies learned that they needed to try to be apolitically political. There had to be a whole narrative about what they were doing that made it seem about soft power, about values.

Michelle Hussein (0:30)

Azadeh Moaveni, known for her journalism on the Middle East and now turning her eye to Washington. Melania Trump, do you have a sense of her being a different first lady in this second chance she has at the role?

Azadeh Moaveni (0:45)

I think she is partly misunderstood, and I don't think that the public really has a sense of the things that she is committing her time to that have actually been quite significant.

Michelle Hussein (0:57)

From Bloomberg Weekend, this is the Michelle Hussein Show. I'm Michelle Hussein.

I've known of Azadeh Moaveni's work for a number of years, first from her memoir of growing up Iranian-American, and later going to Tehran to work as a journalist, and then her wider reporting and writing on the Middle East, including writing about the women of ISIS. She is, I think, the only person who has really examined the stories of the women who made that choice, what attracted them, and the consequences. Given all of that expertise, I was intrigued to discover that her forthcoming book is about the United States and specifically about women living close to the heart of power in Washington, and indeed exercising it themselves. The book is called The East Wing, about the first ladies of the last 90 years and the women who worked for them, helping to shape their role as well as their image, and therefore the impact they could have. From Eleanor Roosevelt all the way to Melania Trump, this is a tale of influence and international affairs, and one that takes us from Washington right around the world, and from the Cold War all the way to today's Iran War. As ever, my written notes are a place where you can find the context beyond this conversation, and there is a link to those in the show notes. Azadeh and I were both conscious as we spoke that the actual East Wing, the place where first ladies have traditionally had their offices, has now been bulldozed to make way for President Trump's new ballroom, and you will hear us talk about that early on. So, let's dive in. Here's what happened when Azadeh Moaveni came into the New York studio to talk to me.

So of course, Azadeh, I'm interested in your broader thoughts, obviously, at a moment like this, because this has been such a seismic year. It has.

Azadeh Moaveni (3:06)

It has, yes. I actually took on this book project because I thought, oh, well, Iran is very quiet. Let me explore a different milieu for my themes and got started on this. And then of course, it turned into a big, turned into like the big next war.

Michelle Hussein (3:21)

Yeah. What first got you interested in the stories of the first ladies and their staffers? Was it one of those that's percolating for a long time? Or was there a particular moment that started you off?

Azadeh Moaveni (3:31)

You know, it was not a particular moment so much as working on that exact same approach, but in a different context. Before I was working in Lebanon, writing a report about how the UN had a plan to try and diffuse the conflict in Lebanon by bringing together the wives of all the big political leaders and warlords and all the big sort of sec leaders. So it was very much focused on the wives, recognizing them as influential. And then I took this job in New York and I landed in the States and I wanted to work on something that was US based and I thought well, what are the wives of the big powerful men doing here?

And then actually saw that they're not really written about in a very sort of political way. They're sort of covered as celebrities or there's biographies of them, of course, but sort of looking at them as almost in the way that we would look at the Queen Mother in monarchial systems. They have a lot of power through their familial linkage to the throne.

Michelle Hussein (4:34)

They're in the presidency and in the key place. And I also like the way you foreground the staffers as well, because they are really even more hidden, if you like, behind the scenes.

Azadeh Moaveni (4:45)

They're completely, I believe, unobserved in history, even though the chiefs of staff of the president are superstars, there are documentaries about them, there are books about them, there's a lure about the chief and the chief is this, and, you know, he's handed down and they get together, and they're so the object of attention as the kind of engine that runs the presidency.