Melania Trump is a pioneering first lady, but not necessarily for the right reasons, according to the president’s longtime biographer.
Appearing on the Inside Trump’s Head podcast, author Michael Wolff said that the first lady’s tenure is unprecedented in the way that she’s turned her public duty into a money machine.
“There has never been a situation like this,” Wolff told host Joanna Coles. “Never been a first lady who... gets not to live in the White House. A first lady who clearly doesn’t want to spend any time with her husband.”
Wolff alleged in the latest edition of his Substack, Howl, that Melania may not have spent a single night in the White House during her husband’s second term.
He claimed the first lady is now “firmly ensconced in New York City,” rather than the Executive Residence.
“There may have been first ladies who don’t want to spend time with their husband, but by the nature of the role, they have to. Not for Melania Trump,” he continued. “But in addition to that, she gets paid millions upon millions upon millions of dollars for being the first lady.”
“She’s the first person who has, again, hiding in plain sight, gone out and built a business around being a first lady, in which she pocketed herself individually $17 million last year,” the author added.
President Donald Trump’s certified annual financial disclosure released in July revealed that his wife pocketed millions from her eponymous vanity documentary, in addition to her book sales and crypto NFTs.
The first lady earned more than $10 million from the film alone. Directed by disgraced filmmaker Brett Ratner, the documentary cost $75 million to produce and earned only $16.6 million worldwide during its theatrical run.
Melania raked in an additional $6 million from her collection of NFTs, and another $500,000 from her autobiography, according to the certified disclosure.
“This is extraordinary,” Wolff said. “Among all of the extraordinary things in the Trump administration, among all the norm-breaking, this one is right out up front.”
What’s even more incredulous, the author added, was the fact that she “doesn’t do anything as the first lady.”
“What are the two roles of being the first lady? To sort of be a model of domestic propriety at some level, and to support good causes,” he explained. “Well, she’s clearly not a model of domestic propriety, and the cause that she supports is... her own business interests.”
“There’s a lot of people around Trump—supporters, friends, family—who have gotten these incredible deals, who are getting rich off of Donald Trump, but the price for them is abject loyalty,” Wolff added. “So she is the only one who not only... doesn’t have to appear loyal—as a matter of fact, appears quite disloyal—but who has achieved this level of independence.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
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