Melania Trump makes history, becomes first sitting first lady to preside over UN Security Council

On March 2, Melania Trump will do something no sitting first lady, American or otherwise, has ever done: preside over the United Nations Security Council.

The moment is as symbolic as it is unprecedented. As the United States assumes the Council’s rotating presidency, the first lady will take the gavel and steer discussions centered on education, technology, peace, and security. 

According to her office, she plans to underscore education’s role in advancing tolerance and world peace. The Council, comprised of 15 member states, including five permanent powers, the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom, rotates its presidency monthly. 

A source close to Melania told Fox News Digital, “The first lady is reinventing her role and this marks just another groundbreaking achievement for her. It is the first time in history a first lady will address the security council, keeping to her mission of empowering the next generation with education and technology.”

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U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz echoed the sentiment. “It is fitting that the first lady, a passionate and tireless advocate for children, will preside over the first day of America’s presidency of the Security Council,” Waltz told the publication.

“Her message of helping the helpless through education and technology fits exactly with our mission at the U.N., to achieve meaningful and lasting peace. As a green beret and now diplomat, I have seen firsthand that peace prevails where children are taught and not terrorized.”

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In 2025, she helped garner support on Capitol Hill for the passage of the Take It Down Act, signed into law in May of that year. The legislation punishes internet abuse involving nonconsensual, explicit imagery.

She also launched a nationwide Presidential Artificial Intelligence Challenge, inviting students and educators to “unleash their imagination and showcase the spirit of American innovation” by registering at AI.gov.

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“Today, the world is poised to have greater access to humanity’s knowledge base because of artificial intelligence,” the source said.

When fashion becomes history:

Even as she prepares to preside over the world’s most powerful diplomatic body, Melania recently secured another kind of historic milestone, this one in silk and black trim.

By donating her 2025 inaugural gown to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, she became the first first lady in more than a century to have two inaugural dresses included in the institution’s prestigious First Ladies Collection, founded in 1912. The last woman to achieve a similar distinction was Ida McKinley.

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Standing before the display case, she reflected on the moment: “It’s incredible.” The ivory silk crepe gown, designed by longtime collaborator Hervé Pierre, features bold black silk bands and a sharply defined graphic detail across the bodice. “This is more than 50 years of education, experience and wisdom realized with each thread, each stitch, each sharp edge,” she said.

From a museum case in Washington to the Security Council chamber in New York, Melania Trump’s second tenure as first lady has unfolded in an unconventional arc.

Now, with a gavel in hand at the United Nations, she steps into terrain no first lady has occupied before.