SAT . Donald Trump Says He ‘Just Heard About’ Melania’s New First Lady Initiative: ‘I Don’t Know What It Is She’s Doing’

The first lady teased her newest project while speaking to lawmakers at the White House’s Congressional Ball

Greta Bjornson is a staff editor at PEOPLE covering current events. She previously led the news team at Decider.

NEED TO KNOW

• President Donald Trump said that he had never heard of first lady Melania Trump’s new initiative after she teased it during the Congressional Ball on Dec. 11
• The president told the crowd he predicted Melania’s latest work would be “great for children”
• The first lady’s ongoing Fostering the Future initiative is an extension of her Be Best campaign, launched during Donald’s first term with a focus on well-being, online safety and opioid abuse

President Donald Trump seemed to suggest he’s unaware of first lady Melania Trump‘s latest work in the White House.

While speaking to lawmakers from both parties at the annual Congressional Ball in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Dec. 11, Trump, 79, introduced the first lady, 55, to the stage, where she spoke briefly about her “new legislative initiative.”

“As the president said, our greatest triumph in my office, in the first lady’s office in 2025, is the Take It Down Act. I want to appreciate all of your support,” she began. “I appreciate your overwhelmingly bipartisan support across the House and the Senate. Thank you, Mr. Speaker [Mike] Johnson.”

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“And I hope you will be excited to support my new legislative initiative in 2026. Some of you already know about it because it’s already in the works,” Melania told the crowd gathered at the White House.

After the first lady stepped away from the podium, the president resumed his spot there and quipped, “Well, I just heard about that for the first time,” as the crowd laughed.

“The only thing I can tell you — I know one thing for sure, Mr. Speaker — it’s going to be great for children,” he continued.

Donald added, “I don’t know what it is she’s doing, but I know it’s going to be great for children, because she loves children and she’s got a wonderful boy and she’s very proud of him, her boy,” meaning his son with the first lady, 19-year-old Barron Trump.

“But she loves children, and if she puts it out, it’ll be maybe unanimous again, or whatever that was, but very close, unanimous again,” the president said.

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Melania previously lobbied Congress to pass the Take It Down Act targeting the online distribution of revenge porn, which the president signed into law in May.

While Melania did not specify on Thursday what her new initiative is, she has already begun working on it with members of Congress, as she noted during her remarks. It’s possible the work is linked to her new Fostering the Future initiative, which the first lady announced in the fall.

Melania’s office announced an executive order on Nov. 13, which expands resources for the foster care system and was “successfully organized” by the first lady, according to a press release.

Melania sat beside her husband when he signed the order, which he also encouraged her to sign in a symbolic gesture.

The order introduced federal resources to public and private sector partnerships to better support young people in foster care and transitioning out of the system. It also directed Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to modernize state child welfare data systems and publish a scorecard each year on the success of state-level foster care programs.

The first lady launched her initial Be Best campaign during Donald’s first term in the White House. The campaign, which focused on the tenants of well-being, online safety and opioid abuse, was intended to encourage “children to BE BEST in their individual paths, while also teaching them the importance of social, emotional, and physical health,” according to the White House.

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Her campaign’s focus on cyber-bullying struck some as ironic, considering the president’s penchant for lobbing online insults at his critics. But Melania said in 2018 that she was unbothered by criticism of the Be Best initiative.

“It is not news or surprising to me that critics and the media have chosen to ridicule me for speaking out on this issue, and that’s okay,” she said while speaking at the Family Online Safety Institute’s annual conference.