Melania Trump’s behind-the-scenes foster youth work comes into focus | CNN Politics

Melania Trump grew up attending Formula 1 races with her father in Europe. On Thursday, America’s first lady merged that longtime personal interest in cars and racing with a new one: foster youth. She teamed up with IndyCar and Fox Corporation to launch $2 million in new scholarships for young adults transitioning out of foster care, unveiled at a White House Rose Garden announcement alongside President Donald Trump ahead of this weekend’s Grand Prix in Washington, DC. The event marked a rare public appearance for Melania Trump, who has kept a much lower profile during her husband’s second term and hadn’t been seen in public since the FIFA World Cup on July 19. But it was also a reflection of how she’s charting her own course as first lady — eschewing some of the more traditional, public roles of the job while engaging behind the scenes in substantive policy work — specifically on her foster care initiative, “Fostering the Future.” In recent weeks, for example, Trump skipped events where any of her predecessors’ absence might have been noticed: the funeral of the president’s close friend, Sen. Lindsey Graham, the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinne