President-elect Donald Trump begs to differ with those who have predicted that Melania Trump won’t accompany him to Washington, D.C., when he retakes office in January.
In his interview with Time magazine for his Person of the Year designation, Trump said “oh, yes,” when asked if his wife would join him at the White House.
“She was very, she actually became very active towards the end, as you saw with interviews,” Trump said, somewhat disjointedly. He seems to be referring to his wife’s level of activity towards the end of his first term, which ended in early 2021 after he lost the 2020 election. The incoming president continued with the assertion that his wife does interviews “well,” “people really watch,” and “she’s very beloved by the people.”
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – DECEMBER 12: President-elect Donald Trump walks onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with his wife Melania, after being named TIME’s “Person of the Year” for the second time on December 12, 2024 in New York City. Trump attended a reception and rang the opening bell on the trading floor. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
“No, she’ll be–she’ll be active, when she needs to be,” Trump told Time, leaving open the possibility that she would be selective about when she’ll be “active.”
Trump also seemed to defend his wife for not being much of a presence during his 2024 campaign, only attending a few events, such as the final day of the Republican National Convention in July. Trump and Melania, his third wife, also were photographed together Thursday, visiting the New York Stock Exchange after he was named Time Person of the Year. He rang the opening bell on the trading room floor.
Trump told Time that people “like the fact that she’s not out there in your face all the time for many reasons. … But she’s, she’s really, they really like her. They really love her. Actually, in many ways, when I make speeches, we love our first lady.”
Trump’s comments may or may not put to rest questions about his wife’s visibility in his upcoming term. People close to the Slovenian-born former model, and one of her biographers, have previously said in reports that she didn’t enjoy aspects of living in Washington and its social/political scene during her husband’s first term.
These people said they expected that she’d probably maintain her own “apartment” in the White House but would only stay when carrying at required ceremonial duties.
“She clearly hated being in Washington,” Kate Andersen Brower, an author of several books about the White House, told Axios in June.
“If Melania becomes first lady again, of course people expect her to move into the White House and perform appropriate duties,” a social source close to the Trumps told People magazine last month. “Melania knows what to do, yet has a mind of her own.”
More likely, these people expected that Melania Trump would divide her time between Trump Tower in New York City and Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. In fact, they said she’d likely spend most of her time in New York City because her son, Barron, is a freshman at New York University and lives in Trump Tower. She said to Fox News in September: “I could not say I’m an empty nester.”
“As much as Melania loves Mar-a-Lago and her life in Palm Beach, she will spend more time in New York with her son, who is more important to her than anything else,” a source told People.
When Trump took office for the first time in January 2017, it was clear that his wife, a former model and immigrant from Slovenia, would never be a conventional first lady, if there ever was one, her biographers noted. From the start, she resisted joining Trump in Washington, instead staying in New York City — again because of Barron, it was reported. Then 10, he had to finish out his school year there.
But as much Trump said his wife would be an “active” first lady — “when she needs to be” — that’s not the impression she gave from 2017 to 2021. Melania Trump barely set foot in the East Wing, the traditional base of operations for first ladies, according to “American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden,” by Katie Rogers, a New York Times White House correspondent.
Melania Trump also wasn’t known to be the most industrious of first ladies, according to Rogers. She “avoided being overscheduled, and at times avoided being scheduled at all,” Rogers also said.
Her staff could sometimes convince her to do multiple events on days when they knew she could be “camera ready, with a full designer ensemble, dewy makeup, and a pristine blowout.” But they only were successful about “half the time,” Rogers said.
If Melania Trump had her way, according to Rogers, she’d spend her days hanging out in her robe in the White House residence. Rogers wrote in her book that Melania especially took “to wearing elegant robes” in the residence “at all hours” in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic set in.
Melania Trump accomplished a few things as first lady, Rogers reported. Like all first ladies, Melania launched an initiative to supposedly improve the lives of a certain segment of the American public. Melania’s Be Best initiative was supposed to promote childhood well-being and to curb bullying.
But Rogers also cited Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Melania’s former aide and good friend — with whom she had a famous falling out — as saying that Be Best didn’t amount to much more than a few public appearances and “a pamphlet.”
Her “most lasting contributions” as first lady had do with overseeing upgrades to White House facilities and features that most Americans would never see in person, Rogers said. These projects included a redesign of the Rose Garden and an upgrade to the White House tennis pavilion. Both efforts, though, were met with criticism, as were Melania’s choices for the annual holiday decorations, which led to her being infamously caught on tape telling Winston Wolkoff, “Who gives a (expletive) about the Christmas stuff and decoration?”