Melania Trump took the extraordinary step of issuing a press statement attacking Mira Ricardel, Deputy National Security Advisor, John Bolton’s assistant, and demanding her resignation. Normally a First Lady sticks the dagger in behind the scenes. The beef appeared to come from Melania’s Africa trip though Mira Ricardel has a long history of falling out with almost everyone and was suspected of leaking as well as being abrasive.
Born 5 July 1960, Ricardel comes, like Melania, from a Yugoslav immigrant family, which probably didn’t help. She has a Cancer Sun Venus opposition Saturn square Uranus – so has a tendency to be autocratic. But what really ramps her up is her Mars in Taurus opposition Neptune, square Uranus, trine Pluto and trine Saturn, sextile Sun Venus – ambitious, hyper-determined, volatile, dislikes interference, ruthless, hard-edged. And she may have a Scorpio Moon.
Ricardel’s afflicted Mars is conjunct Melania’s Saturn which makes for a bad-tempered interface.
Their relationship chart is very unstable with a composite Saturn opposition Uranus Pluto square the composite Sun, opposition North Node and maybe Moon, The composite Mars opposes Neptune for an ego-clash; with the composite Mars opposition Jupiter and widely trine Pluto which makes for a high-energy interface which can spill over into competitiveness.
If Melania is starting to throw her weight around with White House/Cabinet aides she thinks are a problem for Trump then John Kelly looks first on the list through this December/January 2019.
John Bolton can’t have been pleased at the intervention which saw his handpicked assistant depart – and he and Melania look further separated come February 2019.
James Mattis is increasingly at a distance with a freeze picking up late this December through January/February 2019.
Her relationship with Ivanka, never easy at the best of times, will see aggravations mounting from mid this December and tensions erupting in December/January. Melania dislikes Jared even more which will bring increasing criticism from her now and through December, with a definite sinking feeling between them.
Her relationship with Donald looks on edge and explosive/insecure this December/January; with a decided dip with uncertainty and a degree of panic come April 2019 (repeating on and off into 2020).
Melania does have her Taurus Sun opposition Jupiter in Scorpio picking up the tr Uranus hard aspects now and through 2019 which will boost her confidence, prompting her to take more risks. Perhaps as his troubles mount from now onwards she’ll try to act more openly as a prop and protector. He is, amongst many other things, hopelessly impractical with no Earth signs, while she has four Taurus planets, Pluto in Virgo and probably a Capricorn Moon, so she’s much more grounded and certainly more than capable of standing her ground.
“Born 5 July 1960, Ricardel comes, like Melania, from a Yugoslav immigrant family, which probably didn’t help.”
This was new to me (I didn’t bother to check) and definitely a factor, since apparently Ricardel spoke Croatian at home! Slovenian is a different language, but she would have definitely understood some of Melania’s converstions with her parents and Barron, to whom Melania speaks Slovenian. And, if Ricardel spoke Croatian, Melania would definitely understand that, since she grew up in Yugoslavia and learned Serbo-Croatian. Also, Melania’s parents were “good” Communists, while Ricadel’s father was an ustasche supporter (these were homegrown Fascists, but Ricadel’s father would have been youth organization age at the end if the War) in Bosnia and fled the country in the 1950’s. I’m willing to bet Ricadel despised Melania on these grounds only, seeing her family as “compromised”.
That said, in a more “functional” WH this would have been resolved on Melania’s advance without anybody knowing about it. What’s really remarkable is that she had to go public to have this done.
Remember that leaked outrageous $100K+ hotel bill for one night on Melania’s Africa tour? At the time I wondered who leaked; now I wonder if Mira could have been the source and things kept going downhill from there?
My understanding is WH has to report all travel expenses, so this would be publicly accessable knowledge.