Melania Trump: ‘I Was Taken Aback’

The president calls for the shut down of USAID while the first lady in new memoir describes how education conditions in Malawi in 2018 ‘weighed heavily’ on her ‘heart.’

First Lady Melania Trump, alongside Maureen Masi, Head Teacher of Chipala Primary School, observes children learning the English and Chichewa languages in October 2018, at the Chipala Primary School in Lilongwe, Malawi. (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)

In a chapter called “Going Global,” Melania Trump in her recently released memoir Melania takes a few pages to talk about her first solo trip to Africa during her first term in October of 2018.

She begins this section of her book by saying, “I have always been driven to help those in need, especially the most vulnerable, and I felt a strong sense of duty to use my platform as First Lady for good.”

Mrs. Trump followed through with those intentions during her Africa tour where, as she describes in her memoir, she decided to elevate her Be Best initiative to a global platform.

“My mission was clear: to uplift and empower women and children, to foster understanding of goodwill and well-being,” she writes. The first lady, through her