Haters be damned: Donald Trump just keeps on winning. He won the inaugural Fifa peace prize last year and was presented with the completely real, totally not made-up “Man of the Century” award at a recent rally. The president has also spent the greater part of a decade claiming he was once crowned Michigan’s Man of the Year: a fantastic achievement considering there is no such award and Trump has never lived in Michigan.
But despite his many trophies, there is one honour that has proved elusive: the Nobel peace prize. Trump holds a bit of a grudge about that, recently terming Norway a “shithouse country” for passing him over for the award. In response, the country’s tourism board highlighted some of its nicest public lavatories with the tagline: “Norway makes shit houses great again!”
Speaking in my capacity as Philadelphia’s Woman of the Millennium, I’ve got a modest proposal for the people of Norway. The toilet gag was excellent, but if they want to do some top-tier trolling then I think next year’s Nobel peace prize needs to go to Melania Trump.
Some people would be thrilled for their spouse to be in the spotlight, but I’m not sure that’s the case with Donald. Indeed, the president has said: “You can only have … one star in a family; it doesn’t work with two.” If Melania got Trump’s coveted Nobel peace prize, it could spark a war in the White House.
But look, I’m not just suggesting the Norwegians honour Melania because it would raise Donald’s blood pressure. No, it seems Melania has become quite the diplomat. Last week, the White House announced that the first lady had “successfully secured a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, localized to the city of Oleshky”.
How on earth did she manage that? Apparently, Melania initiated discussions with Russia and Ukraine and “aligned the parties on the agreement’s objectives, technical procedures, timing, processes, and terms, in her formal role as Exclusive Intermediary”.
Whatever all that means, it seems to have worked: the ceasefire went into effect on Tuesday in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city, which has been enduring a worsening humanitarian crisis. On Friday, hundreds of people were evacuated from the frontline town and emergency supplies were brought in for people who needed to stay.
Melania has been widely praised for brokering this ceasefire. Melania’s adviser has claimed she “singlehandedly” secured it, adding that no other first lady has ever achieved what Melania just pulled off, and she is “completely revamping the role of first lady … [and] saving lives.”
Perhaps. But if there is one thing that the Trumps are good at it, it is taking credit for other people’s work. So is the first lady really the great peacemaker that she’s making herself out to be?
To be fair, Melania has done some good work vis-à-vis Ukraine and certainly seems to be better at peacemaking than Jared Kushner is, who has made huge sums of money while operating as one of Trump’s top diplomatic envoys to the Middle East. Last year, for example, Melania wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin pleading for Ukrainian children seized by Russia to be returned to their families. Since then, her office has said she’s facilitated numerous rounds of family reunification.
However, despite the claim that Melania “singlehandedly” secured this ceasefire, it would appear she had a little help. Pope Leo XIV also personally appealed to Putin about the situation in Oleshky in early October. It’s unclear whether he had more or less sway than the first lady had, but the pope is certainly being rather more modest about his involvement.
So what’s next for Melania after her success in Oleshky? In an interview with Newsmax, her adviser Marc Beckman said Melania might help pave the way to “durable, everlasting peace” in Ukraine and Russia as a whole.
“She’s against war, she thinks it’s senseless … she wants to see peace all over the world,” Beckman added.
Does she indeed? In that case she might want to have a word with the president, who started a very bloody war against Iran and who is currently trying to use US taxpayer money to send 2,000lb bombs to Israel, a country accused of genocide.
Forget the Nobel peace prize. If Melania can do something about her husband, I’m crowning her Michigan’s Woman of the Year.
Bad news for US women trying to manage menopause symptoms
Last November, the FDA announced that menopausal hormone therapy medications would no longer require a scary “black-box” label on them, which is the highest safety-related warning a medication can have. This reassured a lot of women about the treatment and caused a surge in demand. Supply didn’t keep up, and there’s been a shortage of estrogen patches in the US all year because of an uptick in demand. Now Reuters reports that the shortage has spread beyond estrogen patches “with some injectable and vaginal estrogen products also in short supply”.
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