These are the life stories of Melania Knauss Trump, First Lady of the United States, and her husband, President Donald J. Trump, the similarities and differences in their early lives and how they were raised, where they grew up and their shared values. These pages examine how Melania met Donald and why they've stayed together despite obstacles that have broken apart the marriages of other power couples. American Czarina follows on Anne Michaud's earlier book, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Nine Political Wives, which told, for example, why Jackie stayed with JFK, and Eleanor stayed with FDR and Hillary stayed with Bill Clinton despite knowing that their husbands strayed from their marriage vows and were unfaithful to them.
“Patriarchy’s influence often lives in the minds of women who were raised in a certain way and who aspire to a certain type of greatness — as one half of a powerful, leading couple. They act from behind the scenes, from behind a husband, because their goals and dreams, their stature in the world, is achieved most effectively through the influence of men — or so they believe. Without their husbands, they seem to doubt that they can fully express themselves.
The motives of women in power political couples may be foreign to women in private life, but we should consider that the women who hold or aspire to great power have unique pressures and uncompromising standards. Does that compromise make sense when the couple can do so much good in the world, accomplish their political and policy goals, and build a platform and legacy for their children and grandchildren? Political women struggle with these questions.”
The author, Anne Michaud, is an award-winning journalist at The Wall Street Journal.

Praise for Anne Michaud’s earlier book, Why They Stay
“Skillful prose makes the dishy profiles an engaging read.” — Kirkus Review
“Marriage is a mysterious thing and political unions are even more so. In the engrossing and important Why They Stay Anne Michaud peers into the heart of some of the most famously troubled political marriages of the past 100 years in an attempt to understand why accomplished women ranging from Hillary Clinton to Silda Spitzer put up with men many others would have quickly kicked to the curb. Her answers will no doubt influence how we think about these scandals going forward – not to mention the ones still to come.”
— Helaine Olen, author of Pound Foolish
“It’s a story we’ve heard often: Prominent politicians suddenly find themselves ensnared in humiliatingly public sex scandals, but their wives decide to stay with them. With a prodigious amount of research and deft storytelling skill, Anne Michaud goes beyond the headlines and explores the stories of both spouses, on both sides of the Atlantic, revealing the pain, the loyalty, and the calculations behind the wives’ decisions. Every political couple should read it.”
— Bob Keeler, author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
“Anne Michaud breathes life into headlines that I thought I knew so well with fresh details about well-known political spouses like Hillary Clinton, Silda Wall Spitzer and Huma Abedin. Her thorough reporting helped cast them into an entirely new light and see how their personal struggles reflect the internal struggles women have faced for centuries.”
— Christine Haughney, former New York Times staff reporter
“I found it really interesting, meticulously researched, and well-documented. Why They Stay doesn’t revert to sensationalism but really goes to the question of why they stay in the marriage.”
— Stephen F. Medici, author of The Girls in Pleated Skirts
Why They Stay is memorable… Readers will find scandal, shock and a deep sense of discomfort at times but the question is valid. Why did they stay? The reasons vary, naturally, but this tells the real-life tales, and gives a sense of how each scenario came to be.
— James Hendicott for IndieReade