Sarah Beth Spraggins

Sarah Beth Spraggins is the US audience editor of The Spectator.

Tuesday

Sarah Beth Spraggins

Who says Lauren Sánchez Bezos doesn’t belong at the Met Gala?

Lauren Sánchez Bezos, with her blown-out lip filler, understands fashion. She understands that, unlike the gatekeepers of painting and literature, fashion figureheads aren’t ashamed to dirty their hands by digging around in the money pot. It was only fitting, then, that Lauren and her husband Jeff Bezos sponsored this year's Met Gala. Its theme was "Fashion Is Art." All Kardashian-Jenners present came in bodices protruding in the shape of their nipples Sánchez Bezos showed up to the Met red carpet in a navy-blue gown that nodded to John Singer Sargent's painting of Madame X, a socialite and the wife of a French banker. The painting's portrayal of a pale, corpse-like, high-society woman was considered indecent because of the single strap falling off her shoulder.

Friday

Sarah Beth Spraggins

Is Usha Vance the mastermind behind J.D. Vance?

In 2006, when Usha Vance was still a college junior called Usha Chilukuri, she appeared in the “50 most beautiful people list” of the Yale student magazine, Rumpus. “The charming Chilukuri says that she doesn’t have particular preferences as far as the less fair sex is concerned,” said the article, “though she does like a man who has a lot to say for himself.” “In the past, her liaisons have been tall, handsome, and conservative (though she herself is of the leftish political persuasion). However, she says that the future doesn’t necessarily have to imitate the past. So stay hopeful.” Today, Brittany Hugoboom, the editor-in- chief of conservative women’s magazine Evie, says: “Usha is just really pretty and I like that.

Saturday

Sarah Beth Spraggins

Melania’s mysterious messaging

On April 9, Melania Trump held a lone press conference. She showed up in a charcoal suit, delivered a speech and turned to exit, runway style, without pausing. Melania doesn’t take questions from the press. The facts, according to Melania: Jeffrey Epstein had not introduced her to Donald Trump. She met her husband, “by chance, at a New York City party, in 1998.” She and her husband were acquainted with Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein, but this was “common in New York City and Palm Beach.” She had engaged Maxwell in polite “casual correspondence” over email. That was the extent of the relationship. “I am not Epstein’s victim,” she said somberly. White House staff were perplexed. Why had the presser been called?

melania trump

Thursday

Sarah Beth Spraggins

When women exit stage right

At the event Melania Trump hosted for Women’s History Month, the ladies in the audience had perfect blowouts and wore pastel dresses. But the speakers who took the stage were tough. They included an Olympic athlete, a single mother who worked as a waitress and Melania herself. Most of the women honored were notorious for being abrasive: among them Pam Bondi and Karoline Leavitt. The women in the crowd didn’t clap politely but cheered and hollered, as if the East Room chairs were bleachers at a football game. Rumor on the street is Leavitt, who is pregnant, will only receive three weeks of maternity leave from her role as White House press secretary.

Thursday

Sarah Beth Spraggins

Trump’s peace process pageantry

The US Institute of Peace was taken over by DoGE in January and now appears to have undergone a makeover both inside and out. Its new name is emblazoned on the front: “Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.” The President loves deals and good branding, perhaps as much as he professes to love peace. On Thursday, in the high-ceilinged atrium of the building, he hosted a celebration of a peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. The actual peace agreement in question was signed over the summer with shaky results. Nevertheless, leaders from several East African nations, as well as the UAE and Qatar turned up to bear witness to the ceremonial acknowledgement of the agreement.

donald trump peace