All posts tagged "melania trump"

'Who's Melanie?' Stephen Miller's wife makes awkward mistake trying to defend first lady

The wife of top Trump advisor and Trump administration immigration policy architect Stephen Miller made an awkward mistake Friday while trying to defend First lady Melania Trump and attack a Democrat.

Conservative podcaster and Elon Musk employee Katie Miller was trying to defend the First lady's English skills and say she was a "good" immigrant compared to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who is also an immigrant, when she referred to her as "Melanie" in a now-deleted post on X, The Daily Beast reported.

“Melanie Trump loves her country and has devoted her life to serving it,” Miller wrote. “You can’t say the same for Ilhan Omar who openly hates America and laughs off the theft of a billion dollars by her own Somali people.”

After the post, people started asking X, "Who's Melanie?"

Miller was apparently trying to respond to a Thursday post on X from a progressive influencer, Alex Cole. Cole had written this: “Ilhan Omar speaks MUCH better English than Melania. Just sayin.”

Omar has faced multiple attacks from President Donald Trump and within the administration. Last week the president called her "garbage" and attacked the Somali American community in Minnesota — the area and many of the people she represents.

Melania has had her name misspelled before. Her own husband did the same in 2018 calling her "Melanie" following her return from a hospital after she underwent a kidney procedure, CNN reported.

Melania Trump allegedly 'quiet quitting' Christmas — and her marriage: analyst

It's been no secret that First Lady Melania Trump has been accused of being a grinch, but an analyst Thursday suggested that she could be "quiet quitting" Christmas — and her marriage.

Salon's Andi Zeisler pointed out how "first lady's retreat from the holiday season suggests a deeper kind of disengagement" and that her lackluster book reading to children this holiday season shows she has done "the barest minimum required."

"And it wasn’t surprising that when it came time for the annual tradition of reading a picture book to children at Washington, D.C.’s Children’s National Hospital, the least-enthusiastic first lady in living memory did not bring her A game," Zeisler wrote.

Melania has read to children audiences in the past, showing illustrations to kids. But some have argued that "hating Christmas is simply Melania Trump’s thing, much the same as Nancy Reagan’s thing was astrology and popping into 1980s sitcoms to remind kids not to do drugs," Zeisler explained.

Yet something has seemed off.

"But the vibes were darker this year, quite literally: Melania showed up to the event dressed less for Yuletide than for the funeral of a second-tier Batman villain," Zeisler wrote. "She settled into a chair in front of an enormous Christmas tree with the book 'How Does Santa Go Down the Chimney?' and proceeded to read it slowly and mechanically, stumbling over words and through awkward pauses. She occasionally looked up to smile, but by all other appearances was reading to herself. Most crucially, she did not once turn the book around and take a brief pause so the children could see the pictures on each page she read."

Last month, the First lady fled the White House Christmas tree reveal event in under three minutes. And during the first Trump administration, leaked CNN audio from secretly recorded conversations revealed how she really felt about the holidays and decorating. “I’m working… my a-- off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a f--- about the Christmas stuff and decorations?” Melania reportedly said. “But I need to do it, right?”

After last week, it appeared there could be heightened tension between Melania and President Donald Trump.

"Against this backdrop, Melania Trump’s unwillingness to successfully conduct a Christmas storytime comes across like insult to injury — perhaps not quite on the same level as the jacket she famously wore when visiting a children’s detention center at the border, emblazoned with 'I Really Don’t Care, Do U?' but at the same intersection of stingy and cruel," Zeisler wrote. "But is it possible that the first lady’s shambolic read-along was sparked by a more timely anger? As the president oversaw a hasty demolition of the White House’s East Wing — historically the domain of first ladies — his remark that Melania had 'loved her little office' jumped out."

The First lady could simply be unhappy, the writer added, pointing to a recent report from The Cut that revealed more middle aged women have grown dissatisfied with marriage and silently checked out.

"Perhaps Melania is just matching her husband’s destructive pettiness, in which case she’s joined an allegedly growing number of women of means who opt for quiet quitting their unhappy marriages rather than divorcing," Zeisler wrote. "She’s still the first lady, but maybe she’s decided to put even less effort into the appearances, the overseas trips and smile for the photo ops demanded of her. Having never signed up for this sad charade, malicious compliance is one of the few weapons she has. (What’s Trump going to do about it, bury her on his golf course?)"

Trump stories involving Melania and the Mob were caught and killed: Ex-Trump lawyer

The New Yorker reporter Ronan Farrow was correct when he said Donald Trump was involved in as many as 60 “catch and kill” operations during the 2016 presidential election in which Trump first won power, former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen said.

“I never actually added them up, but I wouldn't dispute what Ronan is saying,” Cohen told the Court of History podcast. “Every day, there was another story.”

Cohen said some stories that never saw the light of day concerned Trump and his third wife, Melania, while others concerned schemes such as Trump University or alleged connections to organized crime.

Trump entered the White House in 2017. In December 2018, Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion, making false statements to a federally insured bank, and campaign finance violations. He also pled guilty to making false statements to Congress.

Cohen’s convictions arose from his role in paying the adult film star Stormy Daniels ($130,000) and Playboy model Karen McDougal ($150,000) “to ensure that they did not publicly disclose their alleged affairs with [Trump] in advance of the election”.

In 2019, Farrow published Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators.

The book concerns the tabloid newspaper practice of paying for then killing stories alleging sexual misconduct by powerful men, prominently including the now disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Speaking to Late Show host Stephen Colbert, Farrow said he saw, for the first time "any journalist has seen it, a master list of all the historical dirt that was about Trump” in the archives of AMI, the National Enquirer publisher at the heart of the scandal.

Saying the list contained “about 60” stories, Farrow added: "Really the story here is that they made this list, that they were working with Trump, and that right before the election they actually shred a bunch of stuff on it. There's a shredding party.”

Trump vehemently denied (and denies) all wrongdoing, and has repeatedly called Cohen a “rat” and a “serial liar.”

In 2024 Trump was convicted in New York on 34 criminal counts arising from the payments to Daniels and McDougal.

The convictions did not stop him winning re-election, and he was subsequently sentenced to an unconditional discharge.

Having served his own sentence, Cohen became a prominent Trump critic, author and podcaster.

In an interview released late Friday, he appeared on the Court of History, hosted by the Clinton aide turned Lincoln biographer Sidney Blumenthal and the Princeton historian Sean Wilentz.

Asked if Farrow’s claim of “about 60” stories concerning Trump being subjected to “catch and kill” operations, Cohen said: “You know, I never actually added them up, but I wouldn't dispute what Ronan is saying. Every day, there was another story.

“In fact, sometimes the stories and the leaks were coming from people on the inside. I had never in my life seen more infighting, more backstabbing than what was going on during the … 2016 election.”

According to Cohen, campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was a major source of such leaks, ending up having to be “sh––canned” by Cohen and Donald Trump Jr “because [Donald] Trump wouldn’t do it.

“So my job, along with some other people as well, but mostly on me, was catching and killing these stories,” Cohen said.

Asked what such stories concerned, Cohen said: “They were all over the board. I mean, they … had to deal with him [Trump] and Melania, they dealt with him and [the fraudulent] Trump University, they dealt with him and Stormy, him and Karen McDougal, him and the Mob, him and Ivana [Trump’s late first wife].

“I mean, you name it. It’s the same way today. There is no one singular story that you could point to and say that's really bad for Trump. They're all bad for him.”

Cohen said the only stories he was involved with that involved payments to sources were those concerning Daniels and McDougal.

A story about a Trump Tower doorman being paid off because Trump had a child with his wife was not true, Cohen said, though AMI boss David Pecker nonetheless paid to catch and kill it.

“That was the problem, too,” Cohen said. “You were dealing with so many fake stories, which is, again, all it does is enhance Trump's accuracy. [He] keep[s] saying, ‘Fake news. They're out to get me. They're out to get me.’”

Cohen also said he read Farrow’s book in prison, because “that's the one nice thing about prison. You have a lot of free time. So, you know, somebody who's an avid reader … I got a chance to read 97 books, you know, in my 13 months there, you know, while learning how to weld and do other sort of manual labor things.”

'Nice try': Melania Trump buried after gushing reveal of White House Christmas decor

The White House Monday revealed its holiday decor, debuting a lego-designed portrait of President Donald Trump and the nation's first president, George Washington — garnering plenty of criticism of the first lady and the administration.

Social media users had a range of responses to the new images of the designs, which were selected by First Lady Melania Trump and released in a new video posted on the White House's social media accounts.

"Home Is Where the Heart Is — AMERICA’S CHRISTMAS," wrote the first lady.

Many MAGA followers praised the looks — while others had different opinions.

"How can any coverage of Melania Trump & Christmas decorations leave out this is on tape?" Photojournalist Steve Rhodes wrote on X, resharing leaked audio from July 2018 when Melania reportedly said "who gives a f--k about Christmas decorations?"

"I thought she decorated with the theme ‘The White House is Where I seldom is,'" a user named Keith M. wrote on X.

"That's funny. 1st, her home is in New York. She doesn't live in the White House, and only shows up if she's paid. 2nd, those used to be American values, no more. 3rd, 'who gives a f* about the Christmas stuff and decorations?** But I need to do it, right?'" User Cathy V wrote on X.

"And her home is in New York, far away from her husband," a user named Lady Jennifer M wrote on X.

"I'm assuming someone suggested a theme, she said 'who geevs a f-k?!' then some other folk decorated it?" User Tam Canning wrote on X.

"Nice try but we all know how she really feels about decorating for Christmas," user Dave Andrews wrote on Instagram.

"Everyone's heart has this administration in jail. Soon," user Christian Euvrard wrote on Instagram.

Melania Trump's newest business venture ridiculed online: 'Remake of Pretty Woman'

First lady Melania Trump announced Friday that she has launched a new film production company — the latest Trump family business.

The new venture, called Muse, debuted on the former model's X account just weeks ahead of her self-titled documentary, "MELANIA," The Daily Beast reported.

In a 10-second video, the company logo appears set to instrumental music and a large "M" logo popping into the text.

Amazon MGM Studios reportedly purchased exclusive rights to her upcoming film for $40 million, the Beast reported. The documentary will offer an “unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look” at the First lady's life.

The name "Muse" referred to her Secret Service codename "Muse," which was selected during the first Trump administration, according to CNN. Her husband's codename was reportedly selected as "Mogul."

No other film projects have been announced yet. It's unclear what other productions, if any, are underway.

Melania apparently shared her pitch with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his now wife Lauren Sanchez at a Mar-a-Lago dinner following Donald's second presidential win.

Novelist Paul Rudnick ridiculed the move on Friday, saying, "Melania announced her own movie company called Muse Films. Early projects: - A remake of Pretty Woman where the female lead is called a 'top model and entrepreneur' - A Hallmark movie about a girl from Slovenia who marries Justin Trudeau - An action movie called Offshore Accounts."

PRESENTING: MUSE FILMS
My new production company.

MELANIA, the film, exclusively in theaters worldwide on January 30th, 2026. pic.twitter.com/JgdG1vnOrC
— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) November 28, 2025

Melania Trump flees after just minutes at White House Christmas event

First lady Melania Trump spent less than three minutes at a White House Christmas event on Monday before running off.

Trump was seen taking photos and shaking hands after a horse-drawn carriage brought the White House Christmas tree. She then exited the location in about two minutes and 50 seconds, The Daily Beast reported.

She also shared a sneak peek of this year's look in a video posted on X, showing a potential gold aesthetic this holiday season — a favorite decor hue among the Trump White House.

Melania has been accused of being a Grinch in the past.

During the first Trump administration, leaked CNN audio from secretly recorded conversations revealed how she really felt about the holidays and decorating.

“I’m working… my a-- off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a f--- about the Christmas stuff and decorations?” Mrs. Trump said. “But I need to do it, right?”

“OK, and then I do it and I say that I’m working on Christmas and planning for the Christmas and they said, ‘Oh, what about the children that they were separated?’ Give me a f------ break,” she said at the time, referencing the family separation policy of removing people who illegally crossed the border during the first Trump term.

In 2018, Trump's holiday decor featured a hallway of tall red trees in the now-demolished East Wing, which were referred to as "murder trees" and compared to "The Handmaid's Tale."

At the time, the White House said that the trees were “pales, or stripes, found in the presidential seal designed by our Founding Fathers,” and are “a symbol of valor and bravery.”

Melania hit with brutal roast after husband insists ICE crackdowns aren’t tough enough

A California Democrat whose district and constituents have been targeted by ICE raids took a shot at first lady Melania Trump after President Donald Trump said that ICE should continue its aggressive policies, The Daily Beast reports Monday.

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA), who represents the Golden State's 34th District, wrote this on X:

"Haven't gone far enough?? Any further and ICE will be deporting Melania..."

Gomez was responding to Trump's comments about his cruel immigration policies — and how he thinks they could be harsher — in a "60 Minutes" interview Sunday.

Melania Trump was born in Slovenia and moved to the United States in 1996. She became a citizen in 2006, just a year after marrying Donald Trump. The 55-year-old first lady cannot be deported; however, her husband has suggested that he could fly American citizens to prisons abroad, including ones in El Salvador.

"Americans have been watching videos of ICE tackling a young mother, tear gas being used in a Chicago residential neighborhood, and the smashing of car windows. Have some of these raids gone too far?” CBS host Norah O'Donnell asked Trump.

“I think they haven’t gone far enough because we’ve been held back by the judges, by the liberal judges that were put in by [former presidents Joe] Biden and by [Barack] Obama," Trump responded.

“A lot of the people that your administration has arrested and deported aren’t violent criminals,” O'Donnell said. “[They are] landscapers, nannies, construction workers, the families of service members.”

The CBS host asked if he intended to deport people who do not have criminal records.

"We have to start off with a policy, and the policy has to be, you came into the country illegally, you’re going to go out. However, you’ve also seen—you’re going to go out. We’re going to work with you, and you’re going to come back into our country legally," Trump said.

White House historian laments Trump just made her 'worst fear come to fruition'

A White House historian on Tuesday lamented that President Donald Trump just made her "worst fear come to fruition."

Katherine Jellison, an Ohio University historian and scholar of first ladies, told Politico Magazine that the East Wing destruction will lead to lasting consequences.

“Those of us who do oral histories — interviewing former first ladies, their children, their staff members — a place like the East Wing is a physical structure that can spark those kinds of memories,” Jellison said.

The East Wing has been home to the first lady's office since the 1940s, and its demolition has sparked outrage from Americans at the administration. Now, first lady Melania Trump's office is based in the main building of the White House.

The minute she heard about the president's plans to add the ballroom, it raised concerns for the historian.

“It was my living nightmare last week when I saw those first visual images,” Jellison said.

The area was formerly a terrace that covered an underground bunker during World War II. It was expanded by "the person who still arguably was our most active and activist first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. She was a dynamo, in part because her husband was paralyzed and in a wheelchair, and things were certainly not accessible. So she needed to be someone who was very active and went places that her husband couldn’t go and would report back to him. But also she was motivated by her own desire to change American society."

The erasure of the space, and what could happen to the artifacts and historical items — although the White House says it will work to preserve them — has raised questions.

"I’m very concerned, and everyone I know who studies first ladies and studies architectural history, people who study the history of the presidency, everyone in my orbit, is very concerned that all of this was done so quickly, without consulting with organizations like the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Capital Planning Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts," she said.

Jellison also called the "secretive nature of this project" troubling, with a bulldozer appearing and a sudden teardown happening as a "dark visual that bothers people."

It also seems to upset people across the political spectrum, she explained.

"I think that is why maybe some people on the political right have been upset, because they just see that as a continuation of the deep state. On the political left, it’s a strong metaphor for the way they’ve always characterized both of Trump’s terms: This guy is tearing down all the norms. We now have a visual metaphor for that," Jellison said.

"Before we were even warned, professional historians and others, we saw bulldozers bringing the place down. Was due diligence done to preserve important records, important artifacts, important objects? We really don’t know. It is my worst fear coming to fruition," she added.

As Melania Trump maintains a low profile, nearly disappearing through the destruction, she has sent a message. It also raises questions about what the future first ladies will do in their roles.

"If we’re talking about metaphors, the fact that there’s not a first lady’s office in the now-absent East Wing sort of speaks to Melania Trump’s current role as first lady, which is largely unseen and unheard," Jellison said.

Melania Trump aides scatter as she pulls a disappearing act during East Wing destruction

First Lady Melania Trump has been notably absent during all the furor over her husband ordering the complete destruction of the White House East Wing, where her office was until recently.

As MSNBC’s Hayes Brown wrote on Friday morning, Donald Trump has been out selling the idea that the East Wing was not needed and considered disposable so he could build his garish $350 billion ballroom that would be used intermittently.

According to Brown, the abrupt destruction of the structure, will little advance notice, has forced the first lady’s staff to be dispersed to other locations in the White House with no permanent home for them being announced.

More importantly, he wrote, has been Melania's disappearing act as her working space was dismantled.

”Her silence only highlights her approach to much of her husband’s second term — and how little she likely cares about the ways her husband’s unnecessary vanity project will affect her potential successors,” he wrote before pointing out, “former staffers of Melania Trump’s predecessors told East Wing Magazine that seeing their former offices demolished was ‘jarring,’ ‘a gut punch’ and ‘revolting.’”

As for Melania’s vanishing act, Brown suggested she has never really been invested in being first lady, writing, “During her husband’s first term, it was clear that she didn’t love the traditional roles and duties foisted on the first lady. Even as she launched her Be Best anti-bullying initiative, she grumbled privately about all the 'Christmas stuff' she was forced to oversee. She was almost entirely missing from the campaign trail for large swaths of Trump’s bid to reclaim the presidency last year.”

Reporting, “as of Thursday evening, it was unclear whether permanent office space for the first lady has been incorporated into the designs for the 90,000-square-foot ballroom set to occupy the former East Wing’s grounds,” he added, “If the move back to the Executive Mansion becomes permanent, it would be a regressive move that literally moves the Office of the First Lady away from the office and back into the home.”

“The lack of comment at all from Melania Trump on that shift underscores that, much like her husband, she has little interest in how her choices affect anyone other than herself,” he wrote.

You can read more here.

'Sends a message': Historian notes first lady's office was located in demolished East Wing

A historian who has written about former ladies and the White House said that kicking first lady Melania Trump and her staff out of the East Wing to build a ballroom "sends a message" and has a "jarring" impact on Americans watching the destruction.

Kate Andersen Brower, author of "Exploring the White House," told CNN anchor Dana Bash during a panel discussion Thursday about how the East Wing is where the first lady's office has been located, and the demolition has knocked down the public entrance of the building.

"I think that it's jarring for to people to see the demolition take place like this, especially when we were told that it wouldn't happen quite this way, that the entire East Wing wouldn't be knocked down," Andersen Brower said. "And if you just think of the history there, I mean, Martin Luther King visiting Johnson during the Civil Rights Bill, FDR handling World War II. I mean, anybody who's worked in the White House knows that you're standing in this hallowed ground, and it was never meant to be a palace, and I think that's something that is especially concerning about this is just the size of it. I mean, almost two football fields long. It's really unusual."

She added that the White House was meant to be modest and "the People's House."

"Not having the first lady and her aides in the White House itself sends a message about what that role has become," Andersen Brower explained.

First lady Rosalynn Carter was the first to have an office in the White House.

Melania Trump has not commented on the destruction and apparently has spent little time in the office, CNN reports.

Over the years, complaints have been common that the East Wing space was too small to serve large numbers of people during social events.

"It's gonna look a little strange," Andersen Brower added. "And we have to remember when George Washington decided to have Washington be the capital and to build the White House here, the idea was always that it was going to be modest. It was not going to be a palace. This is going to look out of out of synch with the rest of the House... it just will look odd, I think."