Rules Every First Lady Follows Inside And Outside The White House

Being a first lady of the United States might seem like a pretty cushy job at first. After all, Melania Trump got to live in the big fancy White House and wear expensive clothes all day. Anybody could do that, right? Except… well, it’s not quite that simple. As you might expect, if you’re married to the president, there are a lot of rules you have to abide by. And some of them are downright bizarre...

40. No driving

First ladies aren’t allowed to drive. It’s just too dangerous! So the Secret Service takes them where they want to go. The White House wives don’t always like this much, however. In 2014 Hillary Clinton told the National Automobile Dealers Association, “One of the regrets I have about my public life is that I can’t drive anymore.”

Michelle Obama feels the same way. Even after her husband left office, she wasn’t allowed to drive a car. In 2018 she told People, “No driving for me. We still live in a bubble. If we had a farm somewhere, maybe I could drive around it. As we’ve seen, the risks are still there.”

39. Don’t open windows

Most people take for granted that they’re able to open up a window whenever they like. Not so for the first lady and her family. The bulletproof windows in the White House must remain shut at all times, as must the windows in any car the first family drives around in. The risk of having a window open is simply too high for White House security to accept.

Michelle Obama knows full well the agony of missing out on fresh air. In September 2015 she told Stephen Colbert on his Late Show, “I really can’t open a window. If I press it in the car, everybody’s like, ‘Oh my god! What was that?’ One day, as a treat, my lead agent let me have the window open on the way to Camp David, for like five minutes.”