The role she’s fulfilling on these visits is, in many ways, neither first lady nor professor but a key player in her husband’s administration, a West Wing surrogate and policy advocate. “An underestimated asset,” as Mary Jordan, the Washington Post reporter who’s written a book about Melania Trump, put it to me. “It’s hard to imagine Joe doing this without her.”

That’s a pretty big admission right there. Yes, she’s clearly more involved in running Joe than she should be, as even she appears to want people to think, despite the fact that she wasn’t elected for anything. If they’re trying to normalize that, no, it’s not normal, nor is it right.