[Unidentified Male:] The following is a CNN Special Report.
[Text:] A CNN SPECIAL REPORT.
[Unidentified Male:] Ladies and gentlemen, the First Lady of the United States, Mrs. Melania Trump.
[Kate Bennett, Cnn White House Reporter:] She's the most unusual First Lady in modern history.
[Kate Andersen Brower, Journalist, "first Women" Author:] She's very reclusive.
[Kellyanne Conway, Counselor To President Trump:] Melania Trump has never beholden to the Washington ways of broadcasting everything you're thinking and doing.
[Steven Portnoy, White House Correspondent, Cbs News Radio:] There are persistent rumors that Mrs. Trump does not live in this White House.
[Melania Trump, First Lady Of The United States:] Good morning.
[Bennett:] She's forging her own path.
[Stephanie Grisham, Press Secretary & Communications Director For The First Lady Of The United States, Melania Trump:] The President warned her that people are going to attack you about this.
[Bennett:] Flying under the radar.
[Unidentified Female:] Still no sighting of the elusive First Lady.
[Bennett:] Setting her own trends.
[M. Trump:] Everybody has a different taste.
[Unidentified Male:] The jacket. The jacket.
[Unidentified Female:] This jacket.
[Bennett:] I don't think she can shake it. Do you? Not to mention coping with the intense scrutiny of her marriage.
[Frank Bruni, Columnist, The New York Times:] I get the feeling that she cares less about what people think than any of her predecessors.
[Bennett:] Tonight, questions. Do you think the public will come to understand her more?
[Donald J. Trump, President Of The United States:] She's become a very, very popular First Lady. I'm reading-
[Bennett:] Curiosities.
[Jeremy Mill Bernard, Former White House Social Secretary:] I constantly hear how much fun she is.
[Bennett:] And controversies.
[Carl Sferrazza Anthony, "first Ladies" Author:] I've never known a First Lady who has accumulated so many small acts of resistance.
[Bennett:] With a rare visit to the East Wing.
[Grisham:] This is where I would say all the magic happens.
[Bennett:] An inside look at the First Lady, Woman of Mystery, Melania Trump. It's 6:00 A.M. Monday, March 4th. I'm in a press van following Melania Trump's motorcade on the tarmac. It's about a 17- minute drive from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base. The First Lady's staff has allowed me to bring a camera along for the CNN documentary. That doesn't happen often, neither do these trips. Melania is hitting the road to promote her Be Best campaign. Two years into her time as First Lady, it's her first solo domestic overnight trip. Is that a normal First Lady schedule?
[Brower:] I think she does a lot less than other First Ladies have done.
[Unidentified Male:] The First Lady of the United States, Mrs. Melania Trump.
[Brower:] She announced the cyberbullying campaign really late.
[M. Trump:] We can and should teach children the importance of social and self-awareness.
[Brower:] I think that every First Lady has felt compelled to have an agenda, and to really work. The first First Lady to ever have an initiative was Lady Bird Johnson when she had this Highway Beautification Act. You had Nancy Reagan with Just Say No to drugs. The Bush women both had Literacy.
[Michelle Obama, Former First Lady Of The United States:] You guys count. [CROWD COUNTING TWO, THREE]
[Brower:] And then Michelle Obama with her Let's Move! Campaign.
[Ellen Degeneres, Host, The Ellen Degeneres Show:] That was amazing.
[Brower:] There was always this sense, this obligation to treat this like a job. And I think we see Melania Trump treat it more like a hobby. It took Melania a long time to come up with the Cyberbullying campaign. And I'm sure it's because her staff said you're going to get criticized if you do this.
[Bennett:] Criticized by some who questioned how the wife of a notorious Twitter bully could lead a campaign that includes cyberbullying.
[Brower:] I think she's also really smart. I mean she sees the inherent hypocrisy. And she said, "Look, I'm doing it anyway."
[Bennett:] A character trait that we hear over and over to describe this First Lady.
[Grisham:] She's very, very independent, and she does things her way. Coming up, here you've got Mrs. Trump's office and, you know, my office.
[Bennett:] Melania Trump's Spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham.
[Grisham:] The President warned her that people are going to attack you on this. And it was very important to her, and she stuck with it. That is to this day one of the things I respect and admire about her the most.
[M. Trump:] Good morning.
[Grisham:] She'll always do what she thinks is right, no matter what anyone else tells her. And I don't know that that's been done before.
[Bennett:] Melania's first stop on her cross-country trip is a school in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
[M. Trump:] We always need to be kind and show love, correct? Yes. We don't like hate. We don't like that word either, correct? Need to be nice.
[Bennett:] The First Lady has been trying to put substance behind her Be Best agenda, a broad initiative to improve the well- being of children, promote online safety, and combat the opioid abuse crisis in this country.
[M. Trump:] I do believe we can be known as the generation that ended the opioid epidemic.
[Anthony:] I think, by taking on a lot, sometimes First Ladies can be remembered for very little. A First Lady and her advisers must very carefully create a strategy. You realize, Michelle Obama was Head of a hospital, and had a large staff. And Lady Bird Johnson was CEO of a multi-media conglomerate in Texas. They knew what they were doing, and they knew what they wanted to do. I don't think Melania Trump has been afforded the necessary resources.
[Conway:] She's always consulting with the professionals.
[Bennett:] The White House says Melania's got this.
[Conway:] More than almost any other modern First Lady, Melania Trump was thrust into the role on a very short timeline, and she's done remarkably well. And whether she gets the credit now is not as important as the impact that she is having on American lives.
[Bennett:] In the modern era, First Ladies' social agendas have stemmed from matters close to their hearts.
[Anthony:] In 1974, Betty Ford discovered that she had breast cancer. She decided this is bigger than me.
[Betty Ford, Former First Lady Of The United States:] One day I appeared to be fine, and the next day, the very next day, I was in the hospital for a mastectomy.
[Anthony:] And until millions of women's lives were saved. It was real freaking life.
[Bennett:] Have there been missed moments for Melania Trump? Last May, she entered the hospital for a kidney procedure that kept her out of the public eye for weeks.
[Anthony:] If Melania Trump had spoken about what the kidney ailment was, plain and simple, and unemotional, and unembarrassed, if Melania Trump were to ever address what it feels like sometimes to have the barrier and the judgment of an accent, if she talked about a few of these very human qualities that make her vulnerable, that would be enormous.
[Grisham:] I think that while she is the First Lady of the United States, and then people do deserve to know a lot about her, and how wonderful she is, I think that her privacy is important. And I've learned from her that we don't have to tell everybody everything. We just don't. And it works out fine.
[M. Trump:] Where is my husband? The President?
[Unidentified Female:] President?
[M. Trump:] Yes, he's in the Oval Office working.
[Brower:] I think there is a warmth to her that people don't see. And you see it when she's with kids, you kind of see her light up. But otherwise, there is just this kind of wall between her and and us.
[Bennett:] Up next.
[Unidentified Male:] This is unheard of.
[Brower:] It was jaw-dropping.
[Bennett:] Melania gets tough.