Melania Trump is the 'MOST CONSEQUENTIAL' first lady of our generation, advisor says

President Trump has launched her new Imperia initiative. It helps female leaders collaborate with powerhouse women in business. Here is the first lady. Well, women are the center of economy, right? So I think we need to get together and have ownership, build, invest. Young women can look up to the women now CEOs and leaders and learn a lot from them. It's about the merit and knowledge and how you can lead, how you could invest, how you could build and how you can own. Exclusive senior advisor to the first lady, Mark Backman, is here with me in New York right now. Mark, welcome back to the program. Thank you for having me. Before we go any further, I would like to say that the first lady is as gracious and as classy as I've seen anybody. It's remarkable. I'm proud that she represents our nation. I hope all of our viewers and all of America is proud as to what she's done this week on the world stage. What does the first lady want Imperia to accomplish over the next few years? Well, as you're aware, the first lady is a business person. She's been the CEO and has stood up several good businesses from the first film that she created, which went to number one worldwide to the New York Times bestselling book to all of her products that she creates from Christmas ornaments to jewelry and skin care and beyond. And what she did was she identified a real need for women to band together here in 2026 to create more powerful women to have more success, establish an ownership society through innovation, collaboration and building so that we could propel forward. And if women could combine their forces together and be impactful, it helps the entire ecosystem at a macroeconomic perspective. It's not just about empowering women. It's about creating benefit for all of society. Take me down the road just a couple of years. What will it look like then? What will the first lady's effort look like? What will it achieve in concrete terms? So it's very interesting. One of the points that she made during her remarks at the New York Stock Exchange yesterday was about the fact that we need to shift from just mentoring the Gen Z, the next generation, into giving them concrete opportunities. Find that person that's in Gen Z and give her a seat at the board. Invest in her business. Collaborate with them and stand up new innovation so that our economy can go forward. It's a very forceful push into the into the corporate world, isn't it? Or an attempt to forcefully push women into it. It sure is. And the outpouring of support yesterday was phenomenal. She had the CEO of AMD, as you know, she just crossed over a trillion dollars this week. CEO of Clear, CEO of Anthem. We had over 100 female CEOs from all over the world join us. Bank of America was there. We had leaders from sovereign wealth funds from Indonesia, for example, and beyond. So this was an incredible room filled with entrepreneurs, CEOs, innovators. And today the reaction has been amazing. I have all of these people coming to me, to the first lady, women from all over the financial ecosystem saying, how do we get involved? We need leadership. And Melania stood up and took that leadership position. Well, we're very glad that you've come to us today. The first lady was with the big money show yesterday. Here's what she had to say about fostering the future. OK, we don't have that at the moment. But where does the first lady want to take fostering the future? Well, this was an amazing moment in time. She went on. She was in, I guess, the financial capital of the world yesterday. But the day before we were at the United Nations, the global capital, arguably. And she hosted 60 first ladies who are now member nations of her Fostering the Future Together initiative. These are all vetted by the State Department. The mission of Fostering the Future Together is to empower children through technology and education. So we had a lot from the private sector there as well. Tim Cook from Apple joined us. And the private sector pledged over 20 million dollars to support children all over the world, multiple nations, including America, to empower them through education and technology. She doesn't get the credit and the attention that she deserves. You know, you look through the media this morning. There's not that much coverage of the great things that you were up to yesterday and again today. That's true, Stu. But I think the thing is that the first lady is focused and she continues to put children and now women above ideology, above geography. She's creating real benefit. As you know, she rescued 34 children in Ukraine, Russia. I mean, she's just focused. And I think she's the most consequential first lady of our generation. I would agree with that. Great to have you with us, Mark. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir.