Meghan Markle’s attempts to influence Biden’s $1.75 trillion infrastructure plan have fallen short, it was revealed on Thursday, as the President announced he has dropped paid leave for new parents from his bill, just days after the Duchess penned a lobbyist letter pleading for it to be made a ‘national right’.
The 40-year-old mother-of-two sparked furious controversy earlier this month when she turned lobbyist by writing an open letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer advocating for paid family leave.
Meghan’s extraordinary 1,030-word letter, which was written on the Sussexes’ new post-Megxit letterhead, sparked furious controversy – and saw the Duchess accused of using her British royal title to try and meddle in US politics.
Some also suggested that she was using ‘tactics of an aspiring politician’ and adopting a ‘ruthless streak’ to try and influence Biden’s Build Back Better bill.
However her efforts have now been proven in vain after the President announced on Thursday that he has cut his proposals for paid national leave for all new parents from his infrastructure bill, which has been tangled up in Congress for months, in a bid to push it forward.
Meghan Markle’s attempt to make paid leave for new parents a ‘national right’ have failed after it was revealed President Joe Biden has dropped the plan from his $1.75T infrastructure bill
President Biden detailed a compromised version of his proposal on Thursday – eight days after Meghan, 40, turned lobbyist by writing to Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer about paid leave
In the letter, which was handed out to several of the Sussexes’ preferred media outlets, Meghan, who grew up in a middle class family in Los Angeles, said that she was writing to Pelosi and Schumer not as an ‘elected official’ nor a ‘politician’ but as an ‘engaged citizen and parent… and as a mom’.
In one of the most astonishing parts of her letter, she suggested that her own family was impoverished, even though her father was an Emmy award-winning lighting director and she was educated at private primary and secondary schools.
She painted a picture of humble beginnings and saying that her family struggled when she was young – despite her well-documenting middle class upbringing on Thomas Markle’s $200,000-a-year salary.
‘I grew up on the $4.99 salad bar at Sizzler,’ the Duchess of Sussex wrote. ‘I knew how hard my parents worked to afford this because even at five bucks, eating out was something special, and I felt lucky. I started working (at the local frozen yogurt shop) at the age of 13.’
She continued: ‘I waited tables, babysat, and piecemealed jobs together to cover odds and ends.’
However, Meghan failed to mention the $750,000 California state lottery win her father scooped in 1990, which funded her secondary education at $9,412-a-semester Immaculate Heart High School in LA.
Meghan also attended a private primary school – Hollywood’s Little Red Schoolhouse nursery, which now costs between $20,000 and $28,300-a-year – from age two on her father Thomas’ and her airline steward mother Doria’s salaries.
She went on to study at Northwestern, in Illinois, which would have cost between $24,000- and $28,000-a-year for tuition when Meghan studied there from 1999 to 2003.
The Duchess of Sussex published an open letter to the House Speaker and Senate Majority Leader on October 20, in which she referenced her own childhood and her life as a mother
Also missing from the letter was any mention of the sprawling $14million mansion in Montecito, California, where Meghan now lives with husband Prince Harry and their two children. The couple’s series of lucrative deals with Spotify and Netflix, thought to be worth well over $150million, were also omitted.
Meghan did concede that she has not had to struggle in the same way that other parents who are not offered paid leave have, however she admitted that both she and Prince Harry, 37, felt ‘overwhelmed’ after they welcomed their second child, Lilibet, earlier this year.
‘In June, my husband and I welcomed our second child,’ she said.
‘Like any parents, we were overjoyed. Like many parents, we were overwhelmed. Like fewer parents, we weren’t confronted with the harsh reality of either spending those first few critical months with our baby or going back to work.’
Meghan and Harry were able to take four months family leave after the birth of their daughter Lilibet in June this year, retreating to their Montecito home for several months before returning to work in September.
The Duchess was also able to take time off after having Archie in 2019, staying at home for four months before returning to work.
The couple also reportedly used nannies to look after their children in the UK, and hired and fired several after Archie was born in 2019.
Meghan lived in a series of childhood homes in Los Angeles – including a second-floor apartment on Providencia Street, in Woodland Hills
After her parents divorced in 1983, Meghan and her mother Doria moved into a top-floor apartment (pictured) in the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood of LA
Meghan then went on to attack the American economic system.
‘Many of our economic systems are past their expiration date, and as you well know, too many Americans are forced to shortchange themselves when it comes to what matters to them.’
Despite Meghan’s claims that her letter was sent as ‘an engaged citizen, parent, and mom’, it was viewed by many as her most overtly political intervention in US life yet after speculation she has dreams of being a Democrat politician or even to run for US President.
Angela Levin, journalist and biographer of Prince Harry, told MailOnline that while the Duchess is an American citizen, the letter from ‘the office of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’ signed ‘on behalf of my family, Archie and Lili and Harry’, amounts to Meghan using her British title and marriage to the sixth in line to the throne to interfere in US politics.
She said: ‘Meghan’s two page letter to lobby Congress about giving money on parental leave, is obviously another step towards trying to turn herself into a politician. But the notepaper she is using is astonishingly “From the Office of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex” and shows how she isn’t even aware that she is talking to politicians in a republic that won its independence from the crown in 1776.
‘The truth is that the bill about parental leave is on its way to being confirmed, and could be hijack by Meghan’s belief it was largely due to her. In addition if she was writing a profession letter what on earth is she getting all cosy and intimate by stating the letter is also ‘on behalf of Archie and Lili – notice she is not calling her Lillibet, the Queen’s nickname – and Harry. Poor old Harry has come last’.
Prince Charles is known to have written to several US Presidents over the years, including Joe Biden, and also sent the so called ‘Black Spider Letters’ to British government ministers and politicians over the years, but never in the same public way as Meghan’s missive to Schumer and Pelosi.