On Thursday, First Lady Melania Trump and President Donald Trump will open the South Lawn of the White House to trick-or-treaters of all ages.

Thousands of children and their parents are expected to attend the event that will include trick-or-treating on the South Lawn and decorations such as the harvest moon on the South Portico of the White House.

The event will take place from 3:30 to 7 p.m. local time and is open to ticketholders, including military families, law enforcement families, foster and adoptive families, and administration officials with children.

The president and first lady will hand out commemorative candies on the South Drive for a portion of the event to the music of the United States Air Force Strolling Strings playing traditional Halloween songs and modern tunes.

The event will also include the U.S. Postal Service providing toy mail trucks and a BE BEST post card station for children. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will have a giant pumpkin photo opportunity and hand out mini pumpkins from American farmers. The U.S. Department of the Treasury will hand out coloring books. The International Fresh Produce Association will provide apples from Michigan, and the National Confectioners Association will provide treats.

Treats will also be given out by America 250, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Park Service, U.S. Mint, U.S. Secret Service, and the Center of Science and Industry—which is providing a STEAM science-experiment kit for children.

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Calendar

Oct. 27, 2026

The East Wing: First Ladies & the Power Behind the Presidency

The First Ladies Association for Research and Education on October 27, 2026, at 7 p.m. ET, presents “The East Wing: First Ladies & the Power Behind the Presidency” with journalist and author Azadeh Moaveni. The discussion will be moderated by author Heath Hardage Lee.

For generations, the White House East Wing served as more than an office for America’s first ladies and their staffs. It was a center of influence where presidential spouses shaped public policy, advanced social causes, navigated political challenges, and helped define the evolving role of the first lady.

In her new book, The East Wing: Power, Intrigue, and the Untold Story of America’s First Ladies, Azadeh Moaveni draws on original reporting and extensive interviews with former East Wing staff to reveal the personalities, partnerships, rivalries, and behind-the-scenes decisions that shaped this uniquely American institution. Heath Hardage Lee, historian and author of The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington’s Most Private First Lady, will moderate this fascinating conversation about the women, relationships, and institutional power that shaped the history of the East Wing. View here

Oct. 28, 2026

In Pursuit: Eleanor Roosevelt with Allida Black and Jon Meacham

What can Eleanor Roosevelt’s life and legacy teach us about leadership, citizenship, and the ongoing pursuit of a more perfect union? The Clinton Foundation presents on Wednesday, October 28 at noon, an in-person America250 conversation with Allida Black, the 2024 Lewis L. Gould Award winner, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham, moderated by Michael Cooper, executive director and executive vice president of the American Society of International Law.

Drawing on Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton’s contribution to More Perfect’s “In Pursuit” essay series, which explores Roosevelt’s leadership, and Meacham’s recent book, American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union, the discussion will explore Roosevelt’s enduring influence and the democratic values that continue to shape our nation. Read more

Oct. 29, 2026

The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon

The Watergate Museum from 6 to 8 p.m. on October 29, 2026 presents a conversation with Heath Hardage Lee and Gilbert Klein on the life and times of Washington’s most private First Lady, Pat Nixon.

Heath Hardage Lee is an award-winning historian, biographer and curator who specializes in women’s history. Lee’s latest book The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: Washington’s Most Private First Lady is the first commercial biography of First Lady Pat Nixon in almost 40 years and was a finalist of the Biographer’s International’s Plutarch Award and the Library of Virginia’s People’s Choice award in Nonfiction.

Gil Klein, author of Trouble in Lafayette Square: Assassination, Protest and Murder at the White House, and Tales from the National Press Club, is a career journalist and journalism educator. Read more

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Oct. 29, 2026

Adams Speaker Series: John and Abigail Adams

The Adams Presidential Center in partnership with Revolutionary Spaces presents a conversation exploring the remarkable leadership and enduring contributions of John and Abigail Adams and their relevance to America today. Renowned historians and civic education leaders Colleen Shogan, PhD, and Kurt Graham, PhD, will come together at Boston’s historic Old South Meeting House for an insightful discussion of the Adams family’s leadership, civic values, and lasting impact on our constitutional democracy. Read more

Nov. 4, 2026

Laura Bush’s Birthday at the Bush Museum

Join the George W. Bush Presidential Center on November 4, 2026 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. local time in celebrating former First Lady Laura Bush’s 80th birthday! Enjoy a surprise treat, photo opportunities, and special artifacts on display. Read more

Nov. 9, 2026

Reconcilable Differences

The JFK Library will present on November 9, 2026 at 7 p.m. ET, author and historian Barbara Perry, co-chair of the Presidential Oral History Project at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, to discuss her new book, Reconcilable Differences: The Unlikely Political Alliance of John F. Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt. Perry explores the remarkable partnership between two American icons who found common bonds on civil rights, women’s rights, and the Peace Corps. USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page will moderate. Read more

Nov. 10, 2026

White House History Live: Culinary Diplomats: The Gastronomic Legacy of White House Executive Chefs (1961-2024)

The White House Historical Association presents in the next episode of White House History Live guest curator Ethan McNamara discussing his exhibit, Culinary Diplomats: The Gastronomic Legacy of White House Executive Chefs (1961-2024), which celebrates the White House Executive Chef position and kitchen commanders who elevated White House dining to luxury-hotel standards. Read more

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Nov. 13, 2026

Legacy Lecture: Abigail Adams, Liberty & Legacy

The National First Ladies Library & Museum presents at noon ET on November 13, 2026, the birth of America through First Lady Abigail Adams’ eyes at this virtual performance of award-winning actress Sheryl Faye’s, Liberty & Legacy. A bold new chapter in ‘Sheryl Faye Presents Historical Women,’ Liberty & Legacy is a multimedia live performance that brings the words, wit, and wisdom of Abigail Adams vividly to life. Read more

Nov. 17, 2026

First Lady, Author and Mother: An Introduction to Julia Dent Grant

Julia Dent Grant was known to many people in the 19th century as the wife of General and President Ulysses S. Grant, but she was significant in her own right. She traveled more than 10,000 miles during the Civil War visiting her husband on the battlefield while also caring for their four children. As first lady, Julia was a popular figure in Washington D.C., known for her interest in world affairs. Towards the end of her life she wrote an autobiography, becoming the first, first lady to write a published memoir about her life. In this program with Historian and Curator Nick Sacco, learn about one of the most important first ladies in our country’s history as part of the celebration of the 200th anniversary of her birth in 1826. This program is being offered as an online webinar. Read more

Nov. 19, 2026

Third Thursday: Leadership & Legacy

The National First Ladies Library & Museum presents from 6 to 8 p.m. on November, 19, 2026, the story behind one of its most iconic artifacts—First Lady Betty Ford’s exclusive Frankie Welch scarf.

Custom-made by celebrated American designer Frankie Welch, the scarf reflects a decades-long friendship through thoughtful details, including Betty Ford’s favorite flowers, colors, and even her signature. Attendees will discover what this unique piece reveals about Betty Ford’s life before the White House and how she navigated diplomacy, public service, and the ever-evolving role of first lady in this in-person event. Read more

Nov. 25, 2026

First Ladies on the Page Book Club: White House Memories 1970-2007

The National First Ladies Library & Museum presents from 7 to 8 p.m. ET on November 25, 2026 First Ladies on the Page Book Club exploring 37 years of presidential history with White House Memories 1970-2007: Recollections of the Longest Serving Chief Usher by Gary J. Walters. This richly illustrated memoir allows readers to glimpse into the lives of seven of America’s first families through behind-the-scenes moments Walters’ witnessed during his career. The discussion will explore life inside the executive mansion during the eras of First Ladies Pat Nixon, Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush through a staff-led discussion. Read more

Send calendar items, press releases and announcements to jtaylor@eastwingmagazine.com.

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In writing about President George Washington’s American vision in January, former President George W. Bush stepped off a series of ongoing essays distilling the leadership lessons from America’s presidents and selected first ladies during this 250th anniversary year of the founding of the United States.

On Tuesday, the lessons from the In Pursuit essays series will be presented in a new documentary In Pursuit: Lessons of American Leadership, that will premiere at 10 p.m. ET (check local listings) on PBS, PBS.org, and the PBS app.

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“Public media plays an important role in helping audiences better understand the stories that have shaped our nation,” said Margaret Ebrahim, Senior Director, Programming & Development at PBS in a press release, adding that the documentary “brings history to life through the voices of respected leaders, scholars, and historians, inviting viewers to reflect on the leadership that continues to shape our country.”

The film, produced by Retro Report, weaves together interviews and archival material in a storytelling format.

“Presidents and first ladies provide an accessible window into American history,” said Colleen Shogan, CEO of In Pursuit and former Archivist of the United States, in the release. “This film brings those lessons to life in a way that is both entertaining and deeply relevant. As we celebrate our 250th anniversary, we hope it sparks a national conversation about what we can learn from the past to write the history of America’s future.”

The In Pursuit essay series—an initiative by More Perfect and published weekly on Substack throughout 2026—features contributions from three living former presidents and first ladies, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and seven Pulitzer Prize winners. In addition to President George W. Bush writing about George Washington, President Barack Obama wrote about Abraham Lincoln and President Bill Clinton wrote about Theodore Roosevelt. Michelle Obama wrote about Jacqueline Kennedy, Hillary Clinton about Eleanor Roosevelt and Laura Bush on Lady Bird Johnson.

The special and digital series feature segments inspired by the essays and interviews of some of the nation’s most respected voices, including retired General Stanley McChrystal, who reflects on Ulysses S. Grant as a model of leadership grounded in service rather than personal ambition. Secretary of the Smithsonian Lonnie Bunch considers Martin Van Buren’s role in building the modern American political system. And documentary filmmaker Ken Burns reflects on Franklin Roosevelt’s empathetic leadership during the Great Depression and World War II.

Additional insights feature Chief Justice John Roberts on William Howard Taft, Judy Woodruff on Rosalynn Carter, Douglas Brinkley on Barack Obama, David Brooks on Ronald Reagan, Anita McBride on Bess Truman, Sean Wilentz on Bill Clinton, and Lindsay Chervinsky on John Quincy Adams.

“We call it the ‘American Experiment,’ but we could do far more to learn from our past to improve our country’s future,” said John Bridgeland, Founder and CEO of More Perfect, in the release. “These essays and this film share powerful lessons relevant to leadership, democracy, and character, and can serve as guides to a more perfect union.”

In addition to the broadcast special and digital series, Retro Report has developed free educational resources tied to the In Pursuit project, available at retroreport.org, designed to bring civic learning into classrooms nationwide. The In Pursuit essay series is accompanied by a companion podcast, “In Pursuit with Colleen Shogan,” produced by PRX and available on all major podcast platforms.

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The Weekly Wrap

The Weekly Wrap is a collection of headlines from the past week. Some publications have paywalls.

East Wing Magazine

Melania Trump Brokers a Ceasefire in One War-torn Ukrainian City on the ‘Brink of Disaster’

Oct. 23, 2026 – Reports of elderly people and young children in urgent need of medical attention, medicine, food and clean water prompted First Lady Melania Trump to broker a ceasefire in the Ukrainian town of Oleshky where fighting in the Russia-led war against Ukraine has been concentrated, her office announced on Friday. Read more

USA Today

White House Shares Aerial Footage of Progress on Ballroom

Oct. 23, 2026 – The White House is sharing an update on the controversial construction of the East Wing Ballroom. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino Jr., on Wednesday, Oct. 21, shared an aerial view of the East Wing as construction is underway on the ballroom, taken from Marine One. Read more

In Pursuit

Pat Nixon by Heath Hardage Lee

Oct. 22, 2026 – Soon after Richard Nixon became vice president under Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953, the new president recognized one of his VP’s best diplomatic assets: His wife Pat. Read more

High Stakes

High Stakes with HRC: Trump, Putin and Washington’s Corruption Crisis

Oct. 21, 2026 – Corruption is now one of voters’ top concerns. If Dems take the midterms, Kara and the Secretary break down what a Democratic Congress should investigate first. Plus: Hillary looks back on her time as a young lawyer during the Nixon impeachment inquiry, and the two weigh in on Trump’s push to rename New Mexico. View here

IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson

Mahershala Ali on Faith, Family, and His Unexpected Journey to Hollywood

Oct. 21, 2026 – Michelle and Craig are joined by two-time Academy Award-winning actor Mahershala Ali for a deeply personal conversation. Mahershala takes them back to his childhood in the Bay Area, where he grew up racing BMX bikes and playing competitive basketball before earning a scholarship to Saint Mary’s College. He reflects on how his mother’s devotion to faith, his father’s career in the performing arts, and his own love of poetry helped shape the person and artist he would become. View here

The Contrarian

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden — or Women’s Health Research

Oct. 21, 2026 – On Monday, President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump presided over a bizarre ceremony in the Rose Garden where she made rare public remarks and he signed an executive order, Advancing Women’s Health to Improve Outcomes in All Phases of Life. Read more

East Wing Magazine

The East Wing: A Window to Its Past

Oct. 20, 2026 – The first images of the long arm of an excavator raking large chunks off the White House East Wing facade surfaced one year ago today. They showed a portion of the building’s clean, white exterior scraped off and twisted roof shingles exposing the underlayer of its now weakened structural integrity. Entirely untouched, for the moment, was a second-floor window that appeared left gaping open. Read more

East Wing Magazine

Melania Trump Renews Push on Women’s Health

Oct. 19, 2026 – Melania Trump is the next consecutive first lady to champion the bipartisan issue of women’s health. Read more

The Grio

Ladies Night: Michelle Obama, Megan Thee Stallion and La La Anthony Link Up in Unexpected LA Outing

Oct. 17, 2026 – Michelle Obama, Megan Thee Stallion and La La Anthony make for an unexpected trio, but the three women apparently have no problem sharing a dinner table. Read more

George W. Bush Presidential Center

Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries Opens 2026-2027 Grant Application

Oct. 14, 2026 – The Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries has opened the application for grants to help school libraries update and diversify their book collections. Since its inception in 2002, the Laura Bush Foundation has awarded $24 million to over 4,200 schools across the country.

Eligible schools include any Title 1 public school, including charters and magnets, and any private or parochial school with at least 50% of their student body qualifying for financial aid. All schools—public, private, or charter—must also have a school library. The application period will remain open until December 31, 2026. For further information and to submit an application, please visit www.bushcenter.org/lbf. Read more

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Reports of elderly people and young children in urgent need of medical attention, medicine, food and clean water prompted First Lady Melania Trump to broker a ceasefire in the Ukrainian town of Oleshky where fighting in the Russia-led war against Ukraine has been concentrated, her office announced on Friday.

The ceasefire, expected to start on October 29, was agreed to by both nations and will temporarily stop all military action in Oleshky, a town that was captured by Russia in the initial outset of the war, to allow for humanitarian aid to enter and to prepare a civilian evacuation through a designated safe passageway, according to the White House.

“The situation in Oleshky is dire. Oleshky is a front-line war city on the brink of disaster. Oleshky’s remaining population is comprised primarily of elderly residents who urgently need medica…

Read more

The first images of the long arm of an excavator raking large chunks off the White House East Wing facade surfaced one year ago today. They showed a portion of the building’s clean, white exterior scraped off and twisted roof shingles exposing the underlayer of its now weakened structural integrity. Entirely untouched, for the moment, was a second-floor window that appeared left gaping open.

Penny Adams, far removed from Washington, D.C., and disturbed by the midday reports, remembers staring at the darkened void filling the casement until it sank in:

“Oh my God, that’s my office,” she recounts.

That’s the memory seared in her mind about that fateful day—October 20, 2025—when crews, over several days, razed the East Wing, the secure bunker beneath it, the East Colonnade and the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden to make way for a massive and a more modern East Wing with a 22,000-square-foot ballroom that President Trump envisioned.

Adams never expected her final remembrance of her historic workplace would be its demolition. In a recent interview with East Wing Magazine, Adams, all these months later and with a tone of resignation, says: “It makes me want to cry even talking about it.”

‘The cutest little office’

On a late October day in 1969, Penny Adams walked through the Grand Foyer of the White House and saw a Halloween party in full swing. There, dressed in costumes, she spotted Julie and Tricia, the daughters of President Richard Nixon and First Lady Pat Nixon. All around there were other children also taking part in the festive atmosphere in the seasonally decorated space.

Adams, though, was there on more serious business—an interview with Connie Stuart, Pat Nixon’s staff director and press secretary. It was the first time she entered the White House and was somewhat in disbelief that she landed this opportunity. “I was just absolutely overwhelmed,” she says.

Within two weeks, Adams was offered the job of radio and television coordinator under Stuart, who was in the midst of restaffing positions in the East Wing. Not long thereafter, Adams was given her own office and would go on to work in the East Wing for four years in her position that eventually elevated to deputy press secretary.

“I had the cutest little office,” she recalls.

In it, she remembers how the second-floor window looked out over East Executive Avenue at the Treasury Department building. She was allowed to decorate it any way she saw fit. Aside from her desk, she remembers a little settee, for which she selected the upholstery; a small glass-top table; and a couple of chairs. On the walls she hung framed, signed publicity photos of celebrities she encountered over the years as she also worked with entertainers at the White House.

She vividly remembers the first time the landline phone rang at her desk.

“I picked it up and I said it was Mrs. Nixon’s office,” says Adams, recalling a man barking on the other end of the line.

“‘Where is Helen? Where the hell is she?’” she recalls the West Wing staffer saying. “And I’m like, ‘What?’”

She fumbled over her words, aghast at the man’s harsh utterances. She didn’t have a clue where Helen McCain Smith, another staffer or “East Winger,” was at the time. Assuring she would try to find her, Adams hung up the phone and thought, “Good Lord, is this how it’s going to be?”

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Thankfully, it never happened again. But the four years she spent working in the East Wing left her with the kind of experiences one witnessing and crafting behind-the-scenes history would have. Her first assignment, she recalls, was to take care of the American comedian and actor Bob Hope, who came to the White House with a group of singers, dancers, and comedians for a performance before traveling with his cast to entertain troops in Vietnam for Christmas.

“Right off the bat, I’m in charge of Bob Hope. Like, oh my God!” Adams says. “But you just do what you have to do.”

Turns out, her memory of the endeared entertainer tarnished when the glitz and fame faded to flashes of anger he aimed at her upon his arrival. He was frustrated because his makeup artist hadn’t arrived right away, possibly slowed down at the gates of the White House, she recalls. The incident, to this day, left Adams wondering if maybe that was her fault.

“I don’t know,” she says. “He got over it and they put on a great show in the East Room.”

That same year, Debby Sloan started as an assistant to the social secretary working under Lucy Winchester. She would go on to work in that position until 1972 when she left to have a baby. She describes being “starstruck” about working in the East Wing even though she didn’t make it to her first day on the job due to a stomach virus. Situated away from the press offices, the social staff handled things like official White House invitations. “I remember just thinking, I’m living in a dream,” she says.

Her first big event was the State Funeral for former President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Among the events, the President and Mrs. Nixon hosted a diplomatic reception at the White House for visiting leaders including Charles de Gaulle, the president of France, and Pierre Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada.

“Oh my gosh, these are people I’ve read about in my history books,” Sloan recalls thinking at the time.

There were other unforgettable historic moments, too, that Adams and Sloan helped facilitate from the East Wing, including when Prince Charles and Princess Anne came for a visit.

But inside the building that was originally built in 1902 during the Theodore Roosevelt administration and remodeled with a second floor in the 1940s under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the atmosphere of the women working in the East Wing during the Nixon era was described as “congenial” and “welcoming.”

That expectation was passed down by First Lady Pat Nixon, herself, who during that time period did not work from the East Wing. Instead, she worked from the White House second-floor Residence. Mrs. Nixon was very clear, Sloan recalls, the White House was never to be called the “Mansion.” It was the “People’s House.”

“She wanted everyone, every American, to feel welcome there. She wanted us to be kind to everyone and she exemplified that,” Sloan says.

Outside of their day-to-day work, Adams and Sloan were mostly shielded from the higher up warring East Wing vs. West Wing staff encounters. Instead, the East Wing office environment in their minds was cherished. The staff was driven to help get the word out about the hard work of their first lady, which included extensive humanitarian travel, White House preservation and public advocacy. Both Adams and Sloan left before the Watergate scandal prompted President Nixon’s resignation on August 8, 1974.

“If I had to give you one word, I would say ‘joy’,” Adams says about her time in the East Wing. “We all had a mission. We were all thankful to be there. We realized how fortunate we were to be in that place at that time working for the first lady who we all adored.”

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A professionalized East Wing

The first time Anita McBride entered the White House East Wing she remembers lit candles in all the East Wing windows. It was during the 1981 Christmas holidays. She was a student attending American University and it was President Ronald Reagan’s first year in office. She was invited to a reception by a friend who worked there.

She distinctly remembers walking up the driveway of East Executive Avenue when access to the White House was less closed off. She entered through the East Wing and when she stepped on to the State Floor of the White House, there was the most elaborate display of flocked Christmas trees she had ever seen. “It was stunning,” she recalls.

It would be the first and last memory McBride had seeing the White House East Wing and the Residence through an uninitiated lens. Not long thereafter, McBride was hired by the Reagan administration and worked in White House correspondence review. She eventually rose to the position of White House personnel director, a role she remained in through the George H.W. Bush administration. When George W. Bush was elected in 2000, McBride served as assistant to the president for White House Management and eventually chief of staff to First Lady Laura Bush from 2005 to 2009.

Her memories from both White House wings stand in stark contrast.

“It was such a different feel from being in the West Wing, which is a lot of frenetic activity,” McBride says. Part of that, McBride explains, was because public White House tours ended by 1 p.m. and then it was quiet unless there was an event scheduled.

“The East Wing was always calm and serene. That was the sense I had of it,” she adds. “It was beautiful. The sun was always pouring through the windows.”

By the time Laura Bush stepped into the role of first lady, the White House East Wing operations had expanded significantly since the days Penny Adams and Debby Sloan worked there. The administration was slow to start because of the delayed outcome of the 2000 election results that were tied up for weeks in recounts and legal battles. Just a few months later, operations were complicated by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Mrs. Bush set up her primary office in the East Wing after her predecessor First Lady Hillary Clinton, for a time, worked out of an office in the West Wing. By the end of President Bush’s second term, Mrs. Bush had an East Wing staff between 24 and 26 people. Among the signature accomplishments by the first lady and the East Wing during the second term, was a secret trip requested by Mrs. Bush and facilitated by McBride to Kabul, Afghanistan, in the midst of the U.S.-led war against the Taliban to support the rights of Afghan women.

And it was the first lady’s office that McBride remembers as a gathering place for staff meetings, birthday celebrations and meetings with outside visitors. The space was the only area large enough for the staff to gather around a conference table.

“People loved coming there, loved being invited to a meeting there,” McBride says.

At the same time, she recalls space in the East Wing began to feel tight, adding, “It was not conducive for when you had big events and had to bring in a lot of people to work there.”

Traditional White House events had grown with volunteers descending on the White House to help decorate it for Christmas and Easter. Storage space for things like gift bags was hard to come by.

“All of us loved working in the East Wing. It was wonderful. But, we knew the limitations and we knew the difficulties of space that was really chopped up,” McBride says.

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Gone

On October 23, 2025, wrecking crews finished off what was left of the White House East Wing. Dramatic images showed a crude opening into a stunted East Wing corridor precariously close to the Residence and aerial photos of the ground gouged and heaped with rubble.

Azadeh Moaveni, like the rest of the nation, was astonished.

That summer there had been rumblings from President Trump of a proposed ballroom and even a press briefing with then-White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt holding up renderings of what he envisioned. It was somewhat confusing about how such a proposal would move forward or if it would even happen. There was no warning that the East Wing would be torn down aside from suspicions about trees on the east side of the complex that were reportedly removed ahead of the unannounced demolition.

Moaveni, a journalist and author specializing in gender and women’s quest for political leadership, had been working for more than a year on the soon-to-be released book The East Wing: Power, Intrigue, and the Untold Story of America’s First Ladies. Its demolition had a compounded effect on her.

Apart from being shocked and devastated that it was destroyed, she had not yet visited the East Wing. “I had never imagined for a single second that it could be vulnerable or potentially lost,” says Moaveni, an associate professor of journalism at New York University, where she directs the Global Journalism program.

In her research, she prioritized interviews with elder East Wing staffers, believing she could eventually tour the White House. The demolition, as a result, put her book on a faster track for publication.

Particularly troubling about the demolition, Moaveni says, was the violent end of what was considered a site of women’s history. Specifically, she notes, it was a site that represented women’s work in Washington and in the White House as well as it being a conduit for women gaining power through working for the first lady—all of which contributed to transforming the presidency.

“The way it was demolished without any announcement or public consultation seemed to signal a disregard for the struggle for equality that was at the heart of what that site was at this moment in our culture,” she says.

At the start of the second Trump administration, the president named, for the first time, a female White House chief of staff in Susie Wiles who was previously one of his campaign managers. The destruction of the East Wing occurred at a time when a woman had successfully pushed themselves into the very inner sanctum of power, Moaveni says, adding “but doing something that perhaps disregarded or undervalued the journey that many women had taken in order for that possibility to become a reality.”

That journey began with First Lady Melania Trump’s predecessors, but particularly Rosalynn Carter who in 1977 carved out a physical workspace for herself and future first ladies in the East Wing during a second women’s rights wave. The Equal Rights Amendment was in play and Mrs. Carter pushed through legislation that created a budget and a framework for hiring staff in the Office of the First Lady. Moaveni in her forthcoming book identifies Eleanor Roosevelt as the chief “architect” of the office.

The demolition triggered a reverberating public pain. For many, the ruin metaphorically represented an open wound.

Former First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, the last first lady to fully occupy the East Wing office, writes in her memoir View from the East Wing, “I felt a sense of loss and grief with every blow from the wrecking ball. The innards of the East Wing were spread out for everyone to see, like a rare and precious animal that had been hunted down and killed.”

People were responding to the cultural loss by projecting onto the demolition the state of their anxiety and concern about where “women are fitting into this very divided national moment,” Moaveni says.

The mostly silent Mrs. Trump, who distanced herself and reportedly called the demolition her husband’s project, enraged many. Moaveni, on the other hand, considers Mrs. Trump very astute.

“My interpretation would be that simply refusing to back it or put a sheen on it or to in any way lend her credibility to it is actually quite striking,” Moaveni says. “Maybe that’s her stealth dissent.”

Debby Sloan and Penny Adams tried to no avail to get out ahead of the plans for a new ballroom when in the summer of 2025 they contacted and sent letters to the National Capital Planning Commission in Washington, D.C., in opposition of the project.

“It never occurred to me that they would start demolishing the East Wing without permission from anybody,” Sloan says.

Permission, it turns out, was not required for the demolition, according to the White House. Hearings were held with an overwhelming majority of the public speaking out against the project that did not stop the Trump-appointed commissions from advancing the ballroom. The legal battles were quick to follow, but in the end preservationists lost when the Supreme Court did not stop the administration from constructing what later evolved into a five-story, subterranean military complex—complete with a hospital—and on top a ballroom with costs ballooning from $200 million to $400 million. Early on, the president announced that the project would be paid for completely by donors and later pivoted to saying taxpayers would pay for it, too.

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An indestructible East Wing

Plans presented for the new East Wing earlier this year showed a new Office of the First Lady suite. It would be located on the ground level underneath the ballroom and adjacent to a new large commercial kitchen.

The former working hub of the first lady was its own building with her space on the top floor. Other areas in the old building housed the military aides, visitors and calligraphers offices. This new iteration, yet to be seen, is drawing mixed reactions.

“It sounds like the East Wing is being overlooked … like you’re a second-class citizen if you’re in those offices,” Sloan says. “It feels like you’re being squashed into the ground.”

Then, for a moment, she reminisces about the gardens that had existed off the Colonnade connecting the East Wing to the Residence. It was there sitting on a bench with her future husband, Hugh, who also worked in the West Wing, where the two got engaged all those years ago.

There is symbolism in considering the previous stand-alone building and the planned new location of the Office of the First Lady, Moaveni says. The East Wing offices will be a corner in a structure that is now going to be dominated by and associated with industrial-level entertainment, she adds. The ballroom is expected to hold 1,000 people.

“It can no longer be the heart of the first lady’s domain anymore,” she says. “It just dwarfs it. It is the space of the industrial ballroom.”

Those feelings are also entwined with optimism about the site.

A year later, Anita McBride, who also serves as the director of the First Ladies Initiative at American University, is hopeful about the new East Wing.

“I’m a realist. I’m resigned to it. It’s happening,” she says.

The history of the White House is one of tumultuous change, she adds, noting how this change was startling and stark at the time it happened.

“But being realistic as someone who worked in those spaces, it needed changing. It needed upgrading. It needed to be expanded,” McBride says. “My hope is that it is a beautiful new space worthy of an important office and sets of offices that are not only doing the internal work for the first lady and her projects, but also is the place to which the public enters and sees their White House.”

In her book out later this year, Moaveni traces a legacy of the East Wing that is indestructible. It’s a legacy of women and their achievements that parallel women’s history.

If the past is truly prologue, the evolving Office of the First Lady can take the lessons of its predecessors and with it shape the next.

Updated October 20, 2026

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Melania Trump is the next consecutive first lady to champion the bipartisan issue of women’s health.

In a signing ceremony in the White House Rose Garden on Monday, President Trump signed the executive order “Advancing Women’s Health to Improve Outcomes in All Phases of Life,” led by the first lady, to strengthen research, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care for women and girls throughout every stage of life.

In fact, Mrs. Trump pressed her husband’s administration to make women’s health a higher priority, USA Today reported, noting that the first lady set up meetings herself that included workin…

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A former first lady and Texan paid tribute to another former first lady and Texan on Thursday in an essay focused on their shared dedication to environmental conservation.

Laura Bush, wife of George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States, described how Lady Bird Johnson’s nationwide “beautification” initiative left an imprint on the country. It also strengthened the conservation movement in the 1960s, Mrs. Bush writes in the latest essay written for the In Pursuit series, a nonpartisan civics initiative by More Perfect, spotlighting the leadership lessons of American presidents and selected first ladies.

In her essay, When You Plant a Seed, You Beautify a Nation, Mrs. Bush details how Mrs. Johnson championed the Highway Beautification Act, also known as “Lady Bird’s Bill,” which spiffied up the appearance of the nation’s expanding highway system that became “littered with billboards, junkyards, and overgrown invasives.”

Over time, scholars have noted how the term “beautification” diminishes the vision and work Mrs. Johnson pursued through her initiative. Even Mrs. Bush saw through the simplistic and feminine framing of the term when, in the essay, she addressed critics of that time who dismissed Mrs. Johnson’s ideas “as trivial” in comparison to the unfolding Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War.

Mrs. Johnson believed all neighborhoods “deserved to be attractive” regardless of their affluence.

“She knew that beauty and justice were not separate concerns,” Mrs. Bush writes. “A neglected environment mirrored a neglected community. And by restoring beauty, she believed, a nation could restore dignity.”

Mrs. Bush credited Mrs. Johnson for the opportunity millions of Americans have had for decades now to see that “conservation and beauty were not niceties, but essential parts of a healthy, civil society.”

From her pilot city of Washington, D.C., her satellite project in Austin, Texas, to hundreds of other communities across the country, Mrs. Johnson inspired other beautification initiatives in the 1960s. Some instances documented involved turning vacant urban lots into neighborhood pocket parks and planting native flora and coordinating non-mowing cycles allowing wildflowers to re-seed. Mrs. Johnson, herself, worked with the American Association of Nurserymen to protect wildflowers and eventually she promoted the planting of wildflowers along America’s highways.

Mrs. Bush recognized the significance of Mrs. Johnson’s initiative long before she served as first lady.

“I had always admired Lady Bird, the first Texas first lady, and had been so proud that she recognized the great natural beauty of our home state and nation,” Mrs. Bush wrote in her 2010 memoir Spoken from the Heart. “When we drive our vast highways, past waving grasses and blooming flowers, acres of bluebonnets or black-eyed Susans or Queen Anne’s lace, that is the legacy of her touch, of how she worked to beautify America with native plants and wildflowers.”

Read the In Pursuit essay

The Weekly Wrap

The Weekly Wrap is a collection of headlines from the past week. Some publications have paywalls.

IMO With Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson

Kylie Kelce on Parenting with Jason, Coaching, and the Responsibility of Staying Near Family

Oct. 14, 2026 – Kylie Kelce—podcast host, field hockey coach, and mom of four girls—talks about the choices that shape a life, from growing up with a strong connection to family to figuring out what it means to build a family of your own. View here”

High Stakes

The Affordability Episode: Gas, Groceries, and the 2026 Fight for Congress

Oct. 14, 2026 –High Stakes, is a limited series from Kara Swisher and the former Secretary of State herself: Hillary Clinton. For the next six weeks, the two will break down this year’s most consequential races, highlight the biggest issues on the ballot, and prepare listeners for the midterms elections… and what comes next. View here

East Wing Magazine

Melania Trump Unveils New ‘Super Intelligence’ Name for Presidential Challenge

Oct. 13, 2026 – The artificial intelligence boom that began in the early 2020s has evolved into a hotly debated issue in elections nationwide and in conversations across the globe with growing community concerns about the rapid proliferation of data centers to possible doomsday scenarios from the technology’s own industry. Read more

Go Erie

In Erie, Michelle Obama Offers Message of Hope, Optimism

Oct. 13, 2026 – Former First Lady Michelle Obama made no mention of Democrats or Republicans or the upcoming midterm election. And although she had a few choice words for him, not once did she utter President Donald Trump’s name. Read more

Coast TV

Dr. Jill Biden Joins Gov. Matt Meyer to Mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Oct. 13, 2026 – Gov. Matt Meyer joined former first lady Jill Biden and state health officials at Wilmington Hospital to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month and highlight the importance of early detection and access to care. Read more

The Hill

Hillary Clinton Recalls Viral Moment With Obama: ‘I Really Hope That Donald Trump Is Watching’

Oct. 12, 2026 – Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the weekend discussed a viral moment she shared with former President Obama a few months ago at an event after former First Lady Michelle Obama noted her husband’s Nobel Peace Prize. Read more

East Wing Magazine

Michelle Obama Announces $1 Million for Girls From Global Initiative

Oct. 12, 2026 – Michelle Obama has long advocated for the advancement of girls through her Girls Opportunity Alliance and Let Girls Learn initiatives. On Sunday, the former first lady announced a new investment of $1 million from the Girls Opportunity Alliance into 25 organizations in 15 countries. Read more

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Michelle Obama has long advocated for the advancement of girls through her Girls Opportunity Alliance and Let Girls Learn initiatives. On Sunday, the former first lady announced a new investment of $1 million from the Girls Opportunity Alliance into 25 organizations in 15 countries.

“It’s not only the right thing to do, but it’s the smart thing to do to ensure a brighter future for all of us,” Mrs. Obama said in a social media post.

The Girls Opportunity Alliance, established in 2018 through the Obama Foundation supports organizations that educate, empower and advocate for the rights of adolescent girls around the world. Mrs. Obama’s Let Girls Learn initiative was established in 2015 while she served as first lady.

The…

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When considering Jacqueline Kennedy, Michelle Obama set aside her iconic style and international captivation. Instead, Mrs. Obama reflected on the former first lady’s nurturing attributes that she, too, took to heart when the Obamas were stewards of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., about 45 years after the Kennedys occupied the White House.

On Thursday, Mrs. Obama in the latest essay written for the In Pursuit series, a nonpartisan civics initiative by More Perfect, called attention to, perhaps, a lesser-known story about Mrs. Kennedy, which showed the first lady trying to make her young children feel at home inside the White House and out of the limelight.

To do so, Mrs. Obama writes that she created a functioning pre-school classroom with “child-size tables and chairs” in the White House Solarium for the Kennedys’ then 3-year-old daughter, Caroline, and other…

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“Do you think you can prove it?”

That was the question historian Christopher Leahy posed to his wife, Sharon, an independent scholar, about 10 years ago when she was in the midst of translating letters written by Julia Gardiner Tyler, the wife of John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States. What was in question, though, was how past historians assessed one of the most character-defining moments of the young future first lady.

“Let me just go back … and tell you how it all came about,” Sharon Leahy tells East Wing Magazine in a recent joint-interview with her husband about the history-changing research they conducted for their co-authored, newly published biography Presidentess: The Life of First Lady Julia Gardiner Tyler.

It began, as Sharon Leahy explains, with the letters. They were difficult…

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The expanded White House Beehive and newly installed helipad will be among the areas of the White House grounds visitors will experience at the upcoming 2026 Fall Garden Tours, First Lady Melania Trump announced on Tuesday.

The White House will welcome visitors on Saturday, October 17, from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Sunday, October 18, from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

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Bess Truman avoided the spotlight and, perhaps, would have avoided becoming first lady had duty not called. History documents her outspoken reluctance to step into the activist role that Eleanor Roosevelt forged over her 12 years serving as first lady until her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in office.

Mrs. Truman’s decision to shy away from the visibility—and press coverage—that Americans had become accustomed to with Mrs. Roosevelt, didn’t mean she didn’t contribute to her husband’s presidency or to the evolution of the role of first lady. There was more to the story, according to Anita McBride, author of a recent essay published about Bess Truman for the ongoing In Pursuit series sharing the leadership lessons of America’s presidents and selected first ladies.

“This is a first lady overshadowed by history, certainly by her predecessor,” McBride, co-chair of In Pursuit and co-author of Remember the First Ladies: The Legacies of America’s History-Mak…

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Before bidding farewell to China President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan Friday morning President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump hosted the couple for tea in the White House Red Room and then accompanied them for a tour of the founding documents of the United States at the National Archives.

The first lady and Madame Peng shared a sofa underneath a Hudson River School painting with Xi and Trump sitting in chairs on either side. Tea and small plates of treats were served on the coffee table between them.

President Trump, leaning forward in this c…

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The State Visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Madame Peng Liyuan was topped off Thursday with a state dinner inside the East Room of the White House hosted by the President and First Lady Melania Trump after a day of ceremonies, talks, a separate spouses visit to the Smithsonian and tension between the administration and the press.

Upon arrival, Xi wore a formal dark grey Mao style jacket and his wife wore a full-length red bordeaux dress as chants like “free all political prisoners” and “free Hong Kong” could be heard from protesters from outside the White House gates.

The lengthy dinner guest list included Trump family m…

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First Lady Melania Trump on Monday shared details for the upcoming State Dinner with China President Xi JinPing and his wife Peng Liyuan who are scheduled to arrive at the White House on Thursday. The dinner comes more than a decade after the couple’s last visit to the White House.

The State Visit begins with President Trump greeting Xi upon the couple’s arrival at Joint Base Andrews.

Then on Thursday morning, the President and Mrs. Trump will host a State Arrival Ceremony on the South Lawn, State Floor and Rose Garden of the White House, featuring 479 military personnel, representing all branches of the United States Armed Forces.

As the arrival begins, the South Drive will be lined with the Armed Forces Full Honor Cordon lea…

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The legacies of First Ladies Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton often have been assessed together based on their historic advocacies in and after their White House tenures.

On Thursday, Hillary Clinton, in an essay written for In Pursuit, imparted a leadership lesson from Eleanor Roosevelt urging people to forgo fear for courage.

In the essay “In the Long Run, Courage Is Easier Than Fear,” Clinton talks about how the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, often referred to by her initials ER, had to confront fear during historic crises and intense social challenges including “two world wars, the Great Depression, the Holocaust, the creation of the atomic bomb, and the rise of the Cold War” as well as human, civil and women’s rights.

“It was …

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Nearly two years after Hurricane Helene spun a tropical storm through North Carolina’s Ashe County unleashing catastrophic floods killing more than 100 people, the community has come through the devastation and is looking to the future.

First Lady Melania Trump, who visited the area in January of 2025 just days after her husband President Donald Trump’s inauguration, returned on Tuesday visiting Mountain View Elementary School in North Jefferson, North Carolina, hailing the community and its leaders for their resilience and for their focus on technology and education.

“Knowledge is power. Knowledge gives everyone in this town the chance to move beyond Helene and to imagine new possibilities,” Mrs. Trump said in her remarks. “It …

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