An expert on First Ladies has claimed to know the answer. Lauren Wright, author of On Behalf of the President: Presidential Spouses and White House Communications Strategy Today, spoke to US publication Newsweek on Friday. The author argued one of the reasons Mrs Trump had seen her approval rating fall was because she has been embracing Fox News.
Ms Wright also said Mrs Trump’s use of rhetoric similar to her husband, US President Donald Trump, could partly explain the poll results.
The First Ladies expert said Mrs Trump’s popularity has been dipping because she was “overly political” in a sit-down interview with Fox News, “in recent statements and she seems to be, as many people noted, adopting all of the West Wing Trump aggressive language”.
Mrs Trump once boasted fantastic approval ratings but the recent damning poll showed only 43 percent of respondents view her favourably, down from 54 percent in October.
The First Lady now occupies a position similar to her divisive husband, whose last rating was 42.2 percent, according to pollster FiveThirtyEight.
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Melania Trump pandered to her husband’s “fake news” narrative during a rare one-to-one interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News on Wednesday.
She said: “People that don’t know me, they like to say I watch television—people with fake sources.”
Ms Wright, a politics and public affairs lecturer at Princeton University, said that Mrs Trump’s increased presence on-air signals desperation in the Trump administration.
She argued: “The uptick in interviews, in negative statements, in combativeness that we’ve seen lately suggests to me that the White House has finally thought, okay, we need all of our troops here, we need all of our resources and we need to deploy Melania finally.”
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However, Ms Wright argued the rare media appearance did not achieve anything because it was aired on a channel with an audience that “really, really, likes and supports her, so she’s not even really succeeding at reaching a new audience”.
First Ladies rarely see their favourability drop below 50 percent, Ms Wright explained.
The only other First Lady to attract such abysmal figures was Hillary Clinton after promoting the controversial Health Security Act.
Ms Wright said Mrs Trump’s “public actions so far say she doesn’t really care about much and that her husband needs to be responsible for his own actions and his own mistakes.
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“But if she wants to be the biggest help she can be and try to put a positive face on the White House then she should care very much.”
Perhaps in a bid to boost her popularity while honouring a long-standing White House tradition, Mrs Trump recently attended Washington Children’s hospital for a festive visit.
But she was overshadowed by her predecessor, Michelle Obama, who made a trip of her own to Colorado Children’s Hospital on Thursday afternoon.
Mrs Obama stole the show by attempting to dance “the floss”, a dance move popular with youngsters.