Melania Trump doppelgänger Laura Benanti is back, skewering the first lady just in time for Christmas.
Benanti has been Melania’s regular stand-in on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, to which she returned on Tuesday. This time, she tried to convince audiences that she, in fact, loves Christmas.
“I love Christmas the same way I love my husband,” Benanti said. “Once a year.”
Melania’s “Grinch”-like tendencies have been in the spotlight once again. Back in 2018, a viral leaked recording caught the first lady blurting, “I’m working… my a-- off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a f--- about the Christmas stuff and decorations?"
Benanti whipped out a red Christmas ornament with her infamous quote on decorations.
“You can commemorate the moment I said that with this official ‘Melania who gives a f--- about Christmas stuff and decorations’ ornament,” Melania 2.0 says. “Available for just ninety-nine ninety-nine... ninety-nine.” Later in the episode, she offers the audience rubble from the White House’s East Wing as “the perfect stocking stuffer.”
Benanti’s rendition of Melania in the latest Colbert episode mocked many other moments in her history with Christmas. Previously, the first lady’s choices of Christmas decor, which have managed to look both sterile and ostentatious, have been the subject of many memes.
The Tony Award-winning actress also took on the first lady’s much-mocked reading session at the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., last week.
Benanti took on the task of replicating the reading. Dressed similarly in a black pantsuit, the Tony-winning Broadway star mimicked Melania as she read the Santa Claus-related story. A voiceover of the first lady accompanied the skit, posted as an Instagram video on the Colbert Late Show’s account.
“Does Santa see in the dark?” Melania’s voice is heard saying. “Does he wear night vision goggles?”
“How the FLOTUS stole Christmas,” read the caption.
Benanti was uncanny as the first lady once again, having played the character on the Colbert show over the last eight years. She told the Daily Beast last year about getting inside Melania’s head and how it had helped her career.
“Look, I think she has absolutely contributed to some horrendous things,” said Benanti, who appeared on The Last Laugh podcast in April 2024 during her husband’s hush money trial. “I don’t want to make her seem innocent, or like ‘poor Rapunzel,’ at all. She has perpetuated multiple lies and done horrible, horrible things. And also, I think she f---ing hates that guy.”
For more, listen to Laura Benanti on The Last Laugh podcast.
