Jordan about her biography of first lady Melania Trump. The book is called the art of her deal. She was interviewed by usa today Washington Bureau chief susan page. Its great to talk to you. How are you . It seems to me Melania Trump is the most mysterious first lady weve ever had in modern times, the one we know the least about. Do you think that is true . I do. Thats why set up to do this because i thought that was just this strange void of facts, information. During the 2016 campaign i remember turning to the editor in the newsroom. I worked at the Washington Post and saying it donald trump wins, his wife is an immigrant, especially at the time he was having a rally that day really about the wall and keeping immigrants out. I started making calls and i just come it was shocking how little was known about basic biographical information. Donald trump is been in the public eye for ever it seems like. Why do we know so little about melania . Theres a bunch of reasons, but one she only arrived in america in 2006 in 2006 i to to her native country, slovenia which is a small country carved out of the former yugoslavia. Yugoslavia when she was there was a socialist country. Didnt have great arc rise. Employed right around the time she left archives. The bosnian war, that whole area was engulfed in conflict. Also she wants it that way. When i was going around, it was her interesting how many people had said i got a call this adult talk to anybody. She really has, shes really made a brand out of being the enigmatic mysterious melania. One aspect of it is people make a lot of assumptions about her that you discovered by doing reporting turned out not to be true. Talk about some of those. I think because we didnt see her on the campaign trail, we kind of dismissed her as shes not a player. It turns out that even though you dont see her, you certainly dont hear her, that she doesnt influence with her husband. During the campaign, many people come Forward Campaign managers would say that after a rally, trump would get in the car and the very first person he would make was okay, how did i do, what do you think . And then she would give them advice about what was resonating, what was it, what he could drop, and she also was kind of a cheerleader behind the scenes telling him as one person after another said she would say let trump be trump. She admired his connection to people. One of the reasons she admires that is its hard for her to do public speaking. English is not her first language. Thats one of the interesting things you discovered as well. There have been many stories written that Melania Trump like many europeans is fluent in multiple language, what, four languages. You found that is possibly not correct. All i could find basically, its very clear to me that there is no evidence of that. Because such a key part of her resume, i was just going through and checking things and the just one proof. I wanted documents. I even asked the white house, you know, theres a couple of pictures on line where she is in italy one in france where she speaks for very short time with little kids, like toddlers and she says things like hello but its not a fluency. So i said i cant find anything online, could you send it . Because she has had a lot of foreign trips and opportunities, like she is traveled as first lady, she met the pope, she is met italian figures, she met the french president and his wife. I just went around and it took months and months and asked everybody, okay, did you have private conversations with her . At least in the dozens of interviews that i did, nobody says that she did. Can they say she doesnt do this . Im not saying that. Im just saying its very, very noticeable that theres no evidence of that. In the meantime Jackie Kennedy in the 60s way before iphones made it easy to have video, you can find Jackie Kennedy online tapes of forgiving and long address in both french and she gives a speech in spanish. It just seems fair to say hey, tell me about this because its a key part of your resume. You have been a very experienced reporter. You have won the pulitzer prize, covered all kinds of stories. Was a white house a pretty cooperative with you in doing this book . Well, i have been a foreign correspondence correspondent. I worked on three continents abroad for 15 years. I have written about drug cartels. I have actually interviewed the head of the mob in japan, not easy to get to. Drug leaders in prison, and nothing, nothing compared to a difficult it was to get Melania Trump real information. I had a for instance, when it did interviewer during the campaign, i had to be invited by her husband was a little bit busy running for president. I i just thought it was very interesting right then when it asked for an interview that i was directed to talk to him first. What did you want to know about you . It wasnt exactly said that way. It was just i asked for an interview for melania and all of a sudden they said mr. Trump like to see. I cant on the train. Ovid in washington and i went to trump tower, this is during the campaign, he was pretty busy, and a member walking into the office in trump tower and he had about 100 magazines on his desk. Every single one of them had a picture of himself on them, if any had the walls lined with photos of yourself and theres so many it was an overflow and it was leaning against the wall. I said i did know you were moving. It was such a mess, i thought he was moving. He said no, no, no. Never trust anybody with a tidy desk. It was a bizarre yet very trumpian conversation where he had a Little Television on his desk, his very messy desk that is very proud of, watching the masters Golf Tournament cigna talk about that picky return back to me. We would talk about jared, then incomes jared. Hes very, he speaks theres not a lot of linear thought but he did say, i asked him about melania and he said only great things about her, and then apparently i got the green light because i spoke to his wife afterwards. Melania trump is done very few interviews. She did do the interview with you during the campaign she wouldnt do in person, is a bright . It was by phone . Even then, even then shall he did it by phone. I spoke to her for 44 minutes. Normally you dont ever say 44 minutes if thats a long time her to talk to someone. Whats so interesting about it is she has one heck of a story to tell. Think of it, she was 26 years old when she first arrived in the united states, and 20 years later, 2016 she is in the white house. Incredible story. She up very modestly in a socialist country in a modest apartment, our mom worked in a factory and now she is married to a rich guy and living in the white house. I think, like its really hard to understand why she didnt want to be more forthcoming. Its not her nature. She has read all of the donald trump books and she does, a branding is exactly opposite is. Trump became trump because he never stopped talking. He was in every magazine. He put his name on every building. It was trump buildings and trump magazines. Shes the opposite. She knew she wasnt comfortable in the public eye but she is as extreme in her own secretive docs the question stay silent as he is, you know, go in front of the camera. In fact, you say that ivanka trump had a nickname for her as the portrait, and ensure the reflects that she was always beautifully dressed and poised, but not silent, and Melania Trump calls ivanka trump the princess. To be clear, they didnt use those words to their faces. But i thought, this was when ivanka was kind of young, a teenager and her dad started going outcome had been divorced now twice. He was still in the middle of the divorce with marla maples when he took up with melania. Ivanka said oh, my god, she talks about as much as a painting of the wall, and then they started calling her the portrait. Ivanka and melania both formal models could not be more different. Its not a big surprise that they dont get along. Lets go back to melanias origins. Her parents continue to be enormously important in her life. You can tell that, they lived nearby. Tell us about her mother and father. I am most fascinated by her mother. Shes most important person according to everyone i talk to you far the most important person in melanias life. She is with her most days that melania is in the white house. Her mom is right there. She cooks. She takes care of baron. Shes the right hand and the left hand to melania. Thats what a friend of hers told me. Her mom is fasting because she grew up, world war ii was carrying her apart and are family had to flee what was then yugoslavia. And she was beautiful. She was silent. She was a talented seamstress. She worked in this building that it went into, was a former monastery and then when the communist dictator josef tito took over after world war ii, he kind of took all the catholic and other church land in nationalized it, sales of state factory that made clothes, and amalija worked there for three decades and because she didnt have a College Degree or the right degree, she didnt really get paid or recognition for the talent she had. But everyone in town said she was the most stylish, and that when melania was little and melanias sister, they had clothes, and made clothes that put them a part, and that was important in the time when everybody was the same. Every building seem to be the color of a storm cloud. If you were a family of one side, that meant that was the same size of your partner you got. Everybody went to the government owned vacation homes. To stand apart come to look beautiful, to have handmade clothes, everybody remembers the mother and what she did for the kids. You went to this place, this town where she lived. What do they think about melania . Either melania gift shops and souvenirs . First of all, her hometown is gorgeous. It reminds me of ireland actually. Its all green. Its a small country. Its only 2 million people. Her little town is pretty small. It had one hotel and battlefield opened because of melania the people were coming to it. About 50,000 people. Its got trees. People have their own its right outside the rim, all green and lush and lovely. People there are divided like in the united states, and its pretty much because of her husband. Theres a lot of people in pretty much every country including our own that either loath donald trump or love them. That has filtered down and its hard for her to escape that. Theres a lot of division over there. In addition to that theres quite a lot of disappointment that she doesnt speak about her country anymore. And that translates there as you know, why doesnt she . Issue embarrassed . I think that its telling that the most famous slovenian in america is a basketball player for the mavericks, and its not melania. Isnt that incredible . Luca, lugar, the basketball superstar is most famous answering the most written about. When the things you write about in the book that was i felt so interesting was that there were various people who were important to melania in her childhood, early in her career, and yet she doesnt seem to have kept up with them. She doesnt seem to have kept a network of friends from her life. Is that true . Whitey think that is happen . It is one of the facts of her life that that is almost like e took a big eraser and when one chapter was done, its gone. Childhood friends said, there was a little girl who come very close to, they were in matching high prices and they played every day, that women is now an artist, a very talented woman, and she said as soon as melania went to the capital of slovenia, that was it. And many other people tell the same story. Photographers who would help her get her pictures when she was 21 said that was it. She just kept moving on. She never looked back, never talk to the past. That made it easy when she met trump, because trump was not interested in her past. Trump is interested in trump, as many people have told me. Heard that same phrase over and over, and one of the reasons that trump divorced his second wife marla maples is that she was always having people around her, her mother and father, cousins. Melania does have her mother and father at the super quiet. The public doesnt even really know about them, and she certainly has not brought people from her past in. It was striking after waiting, 99. 9 of the guests were people that she had met through donald trump. So you told us about her mom. Her father is still around an important figure. Tell us about him. Her father is really close to barron. Donald trump likes to call but barron likes to play soccer. Melanias father, viktor, is a great soccer fan. Barron speaks slovenian through his grandparents, and the father, theres lots of cartoons in slovenia about how much donald looks like melanias father, viktor. They are not debt and theyre both about the same age. Viktor used to be a really good looking guy. Now hes in his 70s. Hes more outspoken. I talked to his buddies in slovenia, and they said, you know, he was a car buff growing up. He was brilliant with cars. He could take apart and put together cars. He repaired cars. He was a chauffeur. He was a chauffeur for a mayor in the town. He had the nicest car in town. He loved mercedes. Think of it come heres this guy who is a chauffeur and for little time in a tiny little shop after the country became independent, think of it like the farmer chauffeur is now being driven by secret service, has all the cars he wants. Its really an amazing story. You talked about how Melania Trump really talks about her native country, and that rarely and that is true but i was surprised to learn in the art of her deal that she has joint citizenship, continue to joint citizenship, and that barron, her son, has joined citizenship. What has she maintained her citizenship and why did she make sure her son had it as well . I think this is super interesting, because yet again, i think its interpreted by many in europe that she doesnt talk about it, the old days because she doesnt care about them, that is never the case with melania and she which was more complicate and he wants that people give her credit for. She did that im sure, and according to those who spoke with her, to give her son options. If you have slovenian citizenship, which barron is entitled to, and the passport, that makes a lot of things easier. First of all he can work freely in all of europe, much more easily. Its as if somebody is coming from another country, the u. S. Right now. Its tough to get, for a foreigner, namely because of her husband, it is got more top to get a job. So if you wants to go start a paris bureau or slipping its much easier for him. It just gives you more options. She also likes that he speaks slovenian, has a slovenian passport. There was an amazing press conference and they and i founo and talk to everybody in the room that day was still alive. There was only one person of all these journalists who matter in 1998 in paris where she had a rare day when all the lunches talking to journalists, and i spent months trying to get everyone there to hear what she had to say because it was a rare time when she was somewhat spoken there was no trump anywhere. It was melania. This was melania center stage. One of the things she kept talking about was somewhat aster, she kept saying i love new york, and someone said would you like to get u. S. Citizenship . And she said yes, because its more option, more opportunities. She is a a mama bear with her n and she was just given more opportunities and opportunities by giving him citizenship and passport, userfriendly get a job or set up a business, easier for him to inherit land. Its mama bear i think just getting options to her son. Its quite remarkable, the first lady and her americanborn son have joint citizenship. Im just quite sure that is never happened before. Weve only had one first lady before who was born abroad, that was louisa adams and i was quite a while ago. And that was england. Wasnt a socialist country. And melania is the only first lady who didnt, whose first language is not english. You talked about how protected she is of her son barron, which of course we can all understand. But the story, the disclosure in your book that has gotten the most attention is her efforts to renegotiate her prenup after the election in 2016, which had a lot to do with barron. That was just an explosive story. Tell us about that. You know, donald trump has written many, many books, has certainly said in tv interviews that any rich guy who doesnt get a prenup is a loser, stupid i think was a worthy also used. When do they have a prenup. In fact, melania was on tv around the time of the and suggest that they had a prenup. So we knew that we also know that trump was very he said he is the greatest negotiated in the world. In his book, the art of the deal, he talks about why he is such a good negotiator and he says i know how to get leverage. Leverage is when you have what somebody else wants. Or better yet, cant do without. So heres melania who by all accounts of those, company peoe that i talked to, did not get a very good deal. Because trump drove a hard bargain in the prenup. And we know that is first two wives have said publicly that they had asked and wanted more than they got. She waits. Shes a chess player, a long game player, and politics has been great for the leverage table for Melania Trump because once he went into the public arena he needed her in in a new way. For instance, they were negotiated a prenup during the famous and swat on the tarmac in israel in 2017. Glaciations were going on then and it was very noticeable then that she seemed not very cuddly with them. The hand swat that went around the world. Then she state in new york. All of those things showed that she knows how to make a deal and that shes a darn good dealmaker. She would not call it making a deal. What she said was i want to do this to make sure that barron is treated as equally as the oldest three children. The oldest three being ivanka, eric and don jr. Who are the ones mostly front and center in trump world, work at trump or and get a lot more attention than tiffany, the child with charlie maples, or with barron. It works, right . I dont have specific i was told it was more the money she wanted. She wanted to make sure that barron had a steak and was treated equally, especially because the older three children now have their children, you know . And theres a lot more trumpcares. Melania is 50. 50. Donald trump is 24 years older. Barron is still only 14. Ive been fascinated by the cartoons that people are drawing because of the book, and all about the prenup and they had things about eric trump networking for barron trump because melania in the long run, as quite as she was, always was the quiet one, did get according to three different people i talked to a far better deal. So heres the big question. Its a hard question because marriages are mysterious things. But you spent all this time doing research, doing