Melania Trump's Iconic Outfit Sparks New Debate

Former first lady Melania Trump's iconic "I Really Don't Care, Do U?" outfit has sparked a new debate over why she wore it in the first place.

Melania set off a media circus in June 2018 when she wore the army green Zara jacket during a trip to a border detention center in McAllen, Texas—one of the epicenters of the family separation crisis brought on by her husband, then-President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

Her outfit drew intense speculation over who the message was for, and she ultimately admitted four months later that it was not directed at the immigrants she was visiting but "for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me."

But a forthcoming book from New York Times reporter Katie Rogers reveals that the jacket's sentiment was meant for the former first daughter Ivanka Trump all along.

According to Rogers' American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, From Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden, Melania "spent her four years in the White House waging a war against Ivanka."

The two women had reportedly engaged in an "internal power struggle" to fulfill the role of the first lady, which Ivanka attempted to assume when her stepmother delayed moving to the White House to reportedly renegotiate her prenup, according to a copy of the book obtained by the New York Post.

In her upcoming book, Rogers writes that Melania "was aware that her husband had suggested that his eldest daughter would be helping to share the responsibilities of being First Lady, and this was not a development that pleased her."

At the time that Melania made her trip to the southern border, the two Trump women "were locked in a quiet competition for press coverage," and former administration officials told Rogers that Melania used the jacket as an opportunity to send a message to her stepdaughter.

Amidst the new revelations, however, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who worked as a senior adviser to Melania during the first year of the Trump administration, maintained that the former first lady donned the jacket to "get the media's attention."

Winston Wolkoff said in a Thursday blog post that when she asked Melania over the phone why she wore it, her former friend responded, "I'm driving liberals crazy! You know what? They deserve it!"

"The media never covers the good things," Winston Wolkoff recalled Melania telling her. "They'd say, who cares she went to the border."

The former first lady told ABC News in October 2018: "It's obvious I didn't wear the jacket for the children. I wore the jacket to go on the plane and off the plane. And it was for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me."

"I would prefer that they focus on what I do and my initiatives than what I wear," Melania said, adding that she was "blindsided" by her husband's zero-tolerance immigration policy.

When the controversy first broke, Melania's spokesperson, Stephanie Grisham said: "It's a jacket. There was no hidden message."