Melania Trump was greeted by a nervous response from the Fox Nation audience after the first lady claimed during a speech that she knows something about “challenging convention.”
The 55-year-old appeared on stage to accept the Patriot of the Year Award at Fox Nation’s seventh annual Patriot Awards on Thursday night and discussed the idea of breaking boundaries and defying norms.
“Trust me, I know a little bit about challenging convention,” she said.
It is unclear what exactly Trump was referring to. The remark earned the first lady a few surprised reactions and scattered laughter at the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts in Brookville, New York.
The first lady, who was born in Slovenia, is a former model who met Donald Trump in 1998. The pair married in 2005 and had a son, Barron, the following year.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
Trump was given the award for her advocacy work for children around the globe, which included sending a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin asking him to protect children in Ukraine—where Russia has abducted tens of thousands of children.
Her speech, however, focused on innovation and American ingenuity, with Trump telling the audience, “I applaud American dreamers and innovators who embrace originality.” Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton all received shoutouts.
Trump found herself imploring the audience, which included Trump administration officials like U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, to “embrace differing perspectives, even opposing ones.” She also reminded them that “the greater good is built by the few who dare to think differently.”
Hegseth had taken to the stage earlier in the evening to deliver a speech, shouting out his colleague Waltz with an uncomfortable reference to the Signalgate scandal that saw top Trump officials reveal sensitive information to a journalist mistakenly added to their group chat.
“I see Mike Waltz, Mike I’ll hit you up on Signal later,” Hegseth joked, prompting Waltz to mouth back in response, “I’m good.”
Trump also discussed her recent foray into filmmaking in the form of an Amazon documentary about her life. “Every day we celebrate our disruptors, from music to art, and my new favorite frontier, the silver screen... The silver screen and I have been in deep conversation lately. You may have heard the news,” she said, describing how she had the idea for the film, which documents the lead-up to her husband’s second inauguration, shortly after the 2024 election.
The first lady’s speech ended with a simple request for the country: “Let’s make a personal pledge to celebrate ambition and scale imagination to create a more advanced and prosperous society.”
“Individual productivity is not selfish, it’s the heartbeat of civilization.” The children Trump has spent much of her husband’s second term advocating for did not receive a mention.
