By Chris Riotta
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It may just be one of the most perfect—and least celebrated—success stories of the American dream: a poor, 18-year-old immigrant moves to New York City, escaping economic hardship in her homeland of Scotland. She falls in love with the son of two German migrants, and the couple eventually builds a family together consisting of five healthy, happy children; one of whom will eventually become the president of the United States.
Sunday marks Donald Trump's first Mother's Day in the Oval Office. Mary Anne MacLeod Trump has been deceased since 2000, when she quietly passed away a year after her husband at the age of 88. However, if she were still alive, she likely would have reveled in the fact that her son became the leader of the free world.
Related: Will Donald Trump Be Impeached Or Removed From Office?
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"Looking back, I realize now that I got some of my sense of showmanship from my mother," Trump wrote in The Art of the Deal. "She always had a flair for the dramatic and grand. She was a very traditional housewife, but she also had a sense of the world beyond her."
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Unlike former President Barack Obama, who often spoke of his father's migration to Hawaii and his family's own American success story, Trump didn't speak much about his mother (if at all) throughout the 2016 presidential election. Despite the obvious ability his family history had to pull on voters' heartstrings across the country, the Republican candidate made no mention of Mary Anne Trump or even his Scottish roots on his campaign website. And yet, she seems to have had an enormous influence on the president's life.
Trump has previously written about the love and respect he held for his mother and how that shaped his relationships with the women in his life. "Part of the problem I've had with women has been in having to compare them to my incredible mother, Mary Trump," he wrote in The Art of the Comeback. "My mother is smart as hell."
Two of his three wives, First Lady Melania Trump and Czech-American businesswoman Ivana Trump, were young immigrants who moved to the United States for employment. His second wife, Marla Maples, a TV actress, had a short-lived marriage with Trump which kicked off with an extravagant wedding reportedly attended by more than a thousand guests.
Despite numerous controversies over disturbing comments the president has made about women in the past, including a Hollywood Access tape from 2005 in which Trump said he fondles women's genitals without their expressed permission because he's "a star," and several women claiming Trump sexually assaulted them over the years, his daughter Ivanka Trump and other female colleagues defend him as a supporter of women, mothers and families.
"I'm very proud of my father's advocacy, long before he came into the presidency, he championed this in the primaries. He's been a tremendous champion of supporting families and enabling them to thrive," the first daughter and assistant to the president said in April, focusing on women's issues, alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Ivanka Trump's comments were met with hisses and boos from the audience.
"I've certainly heard the criticism from the media and that's been perpetuated, but I know from personal experience," Trump continued, "and I think the thousands of women who have worked with and for my father for decades when he was in the private sector are a testament to his belief and solid conviction in the potential of women and their ability to do the job as well as any man."
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