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 took on the first lady’s much-mocked reading session at the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., last week.
People were quick to point out that Melania seemed disconnected during the reading and failed to show the children the illustrations as she read.
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.
