Melania has ‘spent less than 14 days' at the White House since Trump's inauguration
Sources say First Lady Melania Trump has spent fewer than two weeks at the White House since her husband's inauguration in January.
While Melania is expected to make a rare return to Washington, D.C., on Thursday to unveil a postage stamp honoring former First Lady Barbara Bush and attend a ceremony for military mothers, she has been noticeably absent from the limelight during her husband's second term.
The first lady has made a handful of appearances in recent months beside her husband, including attending Pope Francis's funeral the day before her 55th birthday and the annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn.
Two sources told The New York Times that since Donald Trump returned to office on January 20, the former model is estimated to have spent less than 14 days at the White House.
That estimate might be 'generous,' the report added, citing other sources.
Paolo Zampolli, the former modeling agent who first spotted Melania in Milan in 1995 and introduced her to Trump at New York's Kit Kat Club in 1998, said that claims about the first lady's absence from the White House were misleading.
'She loves the White House,' said Zampolli, the incumbent U.S. special representative for global partnerships. 'And she loves the role of serving as our first lady.'
Unlike her predecessors, Melania is not believed to live at the White House full-time.
Instead, she is reported to have slipped out of the spotlight and made Trump Tower in New York, where her son Barron goes to university, her primary residence.
Regulars at Mar-a-Lago, where the president spends many weekends, say they don't often see Melania around the resort, according to The Times.
Ahead of President Trump's return to the Oval Office in January, Melania outlined her future plans during an interview on Fox & Friends.
'I will be in the White House,' she began. 'And, you know, when I need to be in New York, I will be in New York. When I need to be in Palm Beach, I will be in Palm Beach.'
Her priority, she said, was 'to be a mom, to be a first lady, to be a wife.'
At the 2016 and 2020 GOP conventions, Melania gave prime-time speeches in support of her husband's nomination.
Her brief appearance at last year's Republican National Convention marked one in a handful of times she has stood by her husband's side during the campaign trail.
She was absent during the president's numerous court appearances – including Trump's five-week-long criminal hush money trial – until she re-emerged in several Fox News interviews while also posting a spate of cryptic social media posts to promote her self-titled memoir, Melania.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Politico
25 minutes ago
- Politico
George Floyd unrest informs Trump's response to Los Angeles protests
President Donald Trump's response to the Los Angeles protests isn't just an opportunity to battle with a Democratic governor over his signature issue. The president sees it as a chance to redo his first-term response to a wave of civil unrest. As protests broke out after the killing of George Floyd in 2020, Trump's instincts were to deploy thousands of active-duty troops across U.S. cities. But some administration officials resisted the idea and reportedly urged the president against invoking the Insurrection Act to do so. Five years later, Trump sees something familiar as protests rage across Los Angeles in response to the administration's immigration raids. He moved quickly to deploy 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines to support law enforcement, a decision he credited on Tuesday with preventing a 'great City' from 'burning to the ground.' And he repeatedly signaled his willingness to invoke the Insurrection Act if protests continue to escalate. There's a chief motivating factor driving Trump's aggressive response: The president is eager to avoid a repeat of the summer of protest that followed a Minneapolis police officer's killing of Floyd. The civil unrest added another layer to the turmoil facing Trump, as the country reeled from the Covid pandemic and voters prepared to return to the ballot box. And this time, he has stacked his Cabinet with loyalists and is less restrained by officials such as those in his first administration who feared deploying active-duty military troops would further inflame tensions and be viewed as a step toward martial law. 'The president is trusting his gut here,' said a person close to the White House, granted anonymity to discuss the president's response, reflecting back to former Chair of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper breaking with Trump's desire to send troops. 'He thinks the Milleys and the Espers of the world, five years ago, they gave him bad advice on that stuff.' Administration officials and allies say the president's hardline approach also sends a warning to other city and state leaders as anti-ICE protests spread beyond Los Angeles. 'In 2020, I was a governor of a neighboring state to Tim Walz and watched him let his city burn,' Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in the Oval Office on Tuesday. 'The president and I have talked about this in the past: He was not going to let that happen to another city and to another community, where a bad governor made a bad decision.' It's yet another example of the president acting on his belief that he has a governing mandate from his 2024 comeback, which aides and allies attribute in large part to immigration and, specifically, the president's vow to deport undocumented immigrants. 'Is the left going to be able to take this over and turn rules-based immigration into yet another fight about how America is racist?' said Matt Schlapp, a Trump confidant and chair of the American Conservative Union. 'The No. 1 reason Donald Trump got reelected was the border. He's implementing exactly what he said he would do, and out of nowhere, there's violence in the streets, there's fire bombs, there's attacks on cops.' A White House official, granted anonymity to discuss the administration's thinking, said immigration enforcement has continued across the country despite the protests: 'Individuals in other cities should realize that rioting will not prevent immigration enforcement operations in their cities as well.' Trump has repeatedly referred to the protesters as 'insurrectionists' and 'violent insurrectionist mobs,' and his rhetoric intensified on Tuesday as he said the protests amount to an 'invasion' that threatens U.S. 'sovereignty' and that he will now allow 'an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy.' He condemned what he called 'lawlessness' and the burning of the American flag, suggesting it should be punished with a year in prison — echoing his rhetoric from June 2020. But he also said the Los Angeles protests are not yet an insurrection — and that he will only invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow troops to directly participate in civilian law enforcement, if it escalates to that point. The president on Sunday directed Noem, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi to take 'all such action necessary to liberate Los Angeles' and 'put an end to these Migrant riots.' 'Mark Esper fought like the dickens to avoid the Insurrection Act. He wasn't the only one. So did Attorney General [Bill] Barr, and so forth,' said Ken Cuccinelli, who served as Trump's deputy of Homeland Security during the first term. 'Whereas, Pam Bondi and Pete Hegseth are more along the lines of just giving advice, and 'if it's the route you want to go, Mr. President, we'll salute and we'll move right down that path.' And that speaks to a unity in government that didn't exist in the first term.' The Trump administration's response has alarmed California Democrats, who warn that what's happening in their state paves the way for the president to deploy the military nationwide to enact his immigration agenda. The president has already militarized the border to an unprecedented degree, with military, immigration and legal experts questioning the legality of the approach and warning of potential violations to the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that generally prohibits active-duty troops from being used in domestic law enforcement. Trump's decision to deploy troops has also set off a legal firestorm: California sued the administration for deploying the National Guard without consultation, arguing that using the military to quell the immigration protests is illegal and unconstitutional. Gov. Gavin Newsom filed another suit on Tuesday, asking a federal judge for a restraining order to block Hegseth from ordering troops to support immigration raids in the city 'immediately.' 'There is no invasion or rebellion in Los Angeles; there is civil unrest that is no different from episodes that regularly occur in communities throughout the country, and that is capable of being contained by state and local authorities working together,' California Attorney General Rob Bonta and other lawyers wrote in the new motion. Rallies protesting the administration's ICE raids and immigration agenda spread across U.S. cities this week. And so-called 'No Kings' rallies, coinciding with the president's military parade in Washington on Saturday, are planned in more than 1,800 cities across the country, including the nation's capital. Trump warned on Tuesday that any protests during this weekend's parade will be met with 'very heavy force.' 'If there's any protester who wants to come out, they will be met with very big force,' the president said in the Oval Office. 'I haven't even heard about a protest, but [there are] people that hate our country.' Dasha Burns contributed to this report.


The Hill
30 minutes ago
- The Hill
ABC News cuts ties with Terry Moran after Trump ‘hater' post
ABC News says it will not renew the contract of veteran journalist Terry Moran after he authored a social media post sharply criticizing President Trump and top White House aide Stephen Miller. 'We are at the end of our agreement with Terry Moran and based on his recent post – which was a clear violation of ABC News policies – we have made the decision to not renew,' a spokesperson for the network told The Hill on Tuesday. 'At ABC News, we hold all of our reporters to the highest standards of objectivity, fairness and professionalism, and we remain committed to delivering straightforward, trusted journalism,' the spokesperson added. Moran was suspended by the network over the weekend for his post on the social platform X in which he called Miller a 'world-class hater' and said 'you can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate.' In the since-deleted post, Moran also criticized the president, saying he too is 'a world-class hater' and adding that 'his hatred only a means to an end, and that end [is] his own glorification. That's his spiritual nourishment.' Moran's post enraged the West Wing, which called on the Disney-owned network to punish the journalist. Almost immediately once Moran's ouster was made public, White House director of communications Steven Cheung celebrated the news, writing in an X post: 'Talk s—. Get hit.' Moran's ouster comes as Trump and his allies in government are ratcheting up pressure on broadcast news networks over their coverage of him and threatening to use executive power to crack down on coverage they say is unfair to his administration. Trump has called out ABC News specifically several times in recent weeks, suggesting the Federal Communications Commission scrutinize its broadcast license. The network late last year agreed to pay Trump $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit out of court stemming from an incorrect statement made by anchor George Stephanopoulos during a broadcast claiming Trump had been convicted of sexual assault. Moran has worked for ABC News for more than two decades and is based in Washington, D.C., having served in a variety of roles for the network.


Time Magazine
31 minutes ago
- Time Magazine
More Than 1,500 ‘No Kings' Protests Planned Amid Trump Crackdown on L.A. Demonstrations
More than 1,500 ' No Kings Day ' demonstrations are set to take place across the U.S. this weekend to protest the Trump Administration as President Donald Trump holds a military parade in Washington, D.C. The demonstrations will take place all over the country on Saturday, coinciding with the parade Trump has planned to mark the U.S. Army's 250th birthday. Ezra Levin, the co-founder and co-executive director of the progressive organization Indivisible that's behind 'No Kings Day,' told MSNBC on Monday that the protests—originally announced last month—have generated 'overwhelming interest' in the aftermath of the Administration's response to the immigration-related protests in Los Angeles. 'In America, we don't do kings,' reads a website for the events. 'They've defied our courts, deported Americans, disappeared people off the streets, attacked our civil rights, and slashed our services. The corruption has gone too. Far.' The protests will follow days of demonstrations in L.A. over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids targeting undocumented immigrants. In a rare and controversial exercise of presidential power, Trump over the weekend mobilized the National Guard—against the wishes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom—to quell the protests in the L.A. area, which had been largely peaceful. The move sparked immediate outcry from Democratic politicians, advocacy organizations, and legal experts. Trump has since escalated federal involvement by deploying hundreds of Marines and thousands of additional National Guard troops to the city. 'No Kings is a nationwide day of defiance. From city blocks to small towns, from courthouse steps to community parks, we're taking action to reject authoritarianism—and show the world what democracy really looks like,' the 'No Kings Day' description said. 'On June 14th, we're showing up everywhere [Trump] isn't—to say no thrones, no crowns, no kings.' The event's organizers aren't holding a protest in D.C. itself, saying they want to make the demonstrations elsewhere the story of the day rather than allowing Saturday's military parade to be 'the center of gravity.' On Tuesday, Trump warned people planning to protest at the parade that they would face 'very big force.' 'For those people that want to protest, they're going to be met with very big force,' Trump said. 'And I haven't even heard about a protest, but you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.'