Mary Jordan

Mary, since you wrote a biography about Melania Trump in 2021, we wanted to ask you to fill in some of the gaps that were maybe left out of the movie.

Can you tell me about the process you went through in your book?

What did you learn about the famously closed off figure?

I ran the Washington Post bureaus in Tokyo, Mexico, London.

I've worked in 40 countries.

I've met a lot of interesting people, both in politics and in public life.

I have never, including drug cartel leaders, met someone more secretive.

She was the hardest target because she had so few friends, so few people who knew her.

You know, I'd go to Slovenia, and I'd get the class list in their elementary school, you know, find them, and they would all say, well, she really talked that, but there were one person.

You find the one person, you get a tiny bit.

She was...

So quiet.

And this was true for her whole life?

Whole life.

She was tough to write about because, like, Donald Trump has so many people that you can call who have direct interaction, right?

She does not.

A lot of Americans would love

to hear the inspiring story of her mom who was a factory worker in a former communist country.

She comes, she wants to make it big.

She doesn't have that much money.