The ubiquitous Lara Trump

“Sorry, super busy,” replies someone from Lara Trump’s media team, after I texted to ask for an interview. “I’m working on her music stuff.” The Trumps love to multitask and, in the President’s first 100 days, King Donald’s favorite (that is, only) daughter-in-law has been showing off how hard she can work.

Since the inauguration, and now free from the burdens of campaign politics, Lara has released a song called “No Days Off” with the rapper French Montana; a Saturday night show on Fox News; and an activewear collection in the color “MAGA red,” alongside her already established podcast, The Right View. Unfortunately, she has a different press person to dodge questions over each venture.

Recent media coverage of Lara has been less than flattering, which may explain her lack of enthusiasm when it comes to speaking to little old me. The New Yorker branded her the “new Trump family megaphone,” filled with snarky accusations of nepotism. Apparently, the new TV show, My View with Lara Trump, “did not sound like a recipe for hard-hitting accountability journalism.” Duh!

One headline declared, “Lara Trump’s big Fox debut backfires as fans say plastic surgery left her face looking like a horse.” And the Cut described her collaboration with French Montana as “AI-sounding,” adding: “It looks like Lara Trump hasn’t given up on her far-fetched dream of becoming a pop sensation.” Nasty stuff. I just wanted to ask why she hadn’t insisted that French change his name to American Montana to give the track some real MAGA zing.

Still, the Trumps have a way of succeeding despite, or even because of, media criticism. And after ten years in the family married to the more docile Trump heir, Eric, Lara has learned a thing or two. When questioned about returning to Fox with her father-in-law as president, she said, “I think, naturally, over the course of the past nine years or so, my father-in-law has had the opportunity to meet so many people on a whole host of different fronts. And he has gotten very close with people who happen to be from Fox News. Obviously a lot of those people are now serving in his administration.”

When asked whether it was a conflict of interest, she replied, “I think it’s an asset. There are very few people who have the ability to reach out to so many of these folks and have them sit down for a more personal interview.”

In other words, Trump is refreshingly transparent about how she got her new gig and how easy it’ll be to make it successful. She’s not wrong. The ratings suggest that My View with Lara Trump’s inaugural episode, featuring interviews with Tulsi Gabbard, Pam Bondi and Karoline Leavitt, brought in an audience of 2.4 million and was the most-watched program of the weekend of anything on cable news. One Fox staffer I spoke to said that, “She’s perfect for the network: blonde, opinionated and full of common sense. With a combination like that it doesn’t really matter about your name.” Of course not.

Just after Lara stepped down as the cochair of the Republican National Committee in December last year, the talk around town was that she would replace Marco Rubio as US senator from Florida. But after expressing interest, she removed herself from consideration, and Governor Ron DeSantis appointed Ashley Moody instead. Yet the other Mrs. Trump’s recent resurgence into the spotlight has left some wondering if she might still be campaigning in disguise.

A friend of the Trumps tells me that when it comes to politics, “Lara is in it for the foreseeable future, along with Don Jr., but they know they have a bit of a journey ahead.” Lara herself stated on her podcast spin-off, Wanted For Questioning, in which she answers listener inquiries, “Our family did not just get into this for four years or eight years, or as it turns out now it’s gonna be twelve years. When it’s all said and done with this, we’re here for the long haul.” When asked if she would be involved in the upcoming midterms, she said, “I’m involved, you guys already know, I said this a long time ago. I have had this incredible opportunity as co-chair of the RNC to really get to know so many people in the party, to become very close with the chairman of the RNC Michael Whatley. Whatley knows anything he needs from me, anywhere around this country, he can call me and I will be there. As involved as I can be, I certainly will be.”

After speculation about how the RNC would work with two of them at the helm, Whatley and Trump worked harmoniously, with one RNC staffer telling me, “Lara was there to raise money and she succeeded without a doubt. That left Whatley free to take care of the campaigning and management. It was a good system.”

Donald Trump, certainly, feels Lara’s role was instrumental in his return to the White House. Her pop songs and clothing lines are disorienting, leaving the public wondering if high office is what she actually wants. Another theory is that she wants to prove herself even more business-minded than Ivanka, whose fashion label went bust. She is in good company, after all. Her husband Eric is the most entrepreneurial of the siblings. He manages the Trump brand: the hotels, golf courses, houses and the Trump winery in Charlottesville. Rumor has it he’s starting his very own vodka brand. Fight, fight, fight, shots fired.

The truth about Lara might be that, as part of the Trump dynasty by marriage, she has a bit more freedom than the blood Trumps to chart her own course. She “sleeps six hours on a good night,” whereas Donald famously sleeps four. But the Donald believes in people who do it their way, and Lara is savvy enough to call those who pour scorn on the new Trumpy Golden Age “crazed and miserable losers.”

According to someone who worked with her, Lara is “extremely professional but not overly nice.” Nobody got very far in public life by being overly nice. Don’t be surprised, therefore, if, come 2032, Lara tries to become the first woman to break the glass ceiling. And then sings about it.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s April 2025 World edition.