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White House staff are concerned about being unable to control first lady Melania Trump months after she delivered a bombshell address on her lack of connection to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In a new Substack column, author and journalist Michael Wolff writes that White House staff is melting down over the first lady’s alleged unpredictability, concerns that only grew after she delivered an address earlier this year in which she declined to have any relationship with Epstein.
“Everybody in the White House is afraid of Melania Trump and her power— that is, if she chooses to use it,” Wolff wrote. Trump has always denied any wrongdoing relating to the Epstein case, has not been accused of any crimes by law enforcement and has never been identified as the subject of any investigation.
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“They largely think she won’t, or at least won’t use it so obviously enough to directly threaten the palace, but they can’t be sure. At the same time, they think that the relationship between the president and his wife is probably at its lowest point since the Stormy Daniels trial—and that was very low,” he added.
Wolff adds that White House staff is worried about “her next business moves,” as the first family is known for its often controversial business ventures.
“Of all the self-dealing among Trump family members, Melania’s moves—not just about money, but about calling attention to herself—are seen as most disturbing to the White House, and most in danger of putting her on a collision course with the president,” Wolff wrote. “It’s okay to make money in the Trump White House and in the Trump family, not so okay to make yourself the main event.”
Interestingly, Wolff claimed that “Trump and his wife barely speak,” arguing that “there is hardly even the pretense that she lives in the White House.” Previous reports have claimed that the first lady lives in New York full-time, not in Washington, D.C. with the president.
Wolff’s latest claims come months after two other journalists, New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, gave a deep dive into the complicated relationship between the president and his wife in their bombshell book “Regime Change.”
According to Haberman and Swan, the president and first lady have had several points of tension in their relationship in recent months. Among them was President Trump’s order to demolish the White House East Wing to build a luxurious ballroom.
“Mrs. Trump, who preferred a quiet environment with minimal disturbances and objected to living in a construction zone, had repeatedly expressed concern about the size and location of the ballroom,” Haberman and Swan wrote. “For several weeks in early 2025, White House aides had tried accommodating the couple’s competing desires about the future of the complex.”
Trump emerged victorious in the fight with his wife, ultimately approving the demolition of the 123-year-old structure to pave the way for the 90,000-square-foot ballroom, which is expected to cost as much as $1 billion.
“Mrs. Trump would soon lose a larger battle over what would become the president’s signature project, which he announced in July: a White House ballroom that, like a sponge in a glass of water, continued expanding until by early 2026 it was expected to be larger than the White House building itself,” the reporters wrote.
The book also reveals that the president and Melania have separate bedrooms, with the first lady occupying the master bedroom, and he has taken over the space next door, labeled as the second-floor “living room.” The separation apparently launched a bizarre decor war between the presidential couple.
“In the early weeks of the new administration, items were spirited from the second-floor corridor into the president’s bedroom,” Haberman and Swan wrote. “Sometimes Trump carried the objects in himself, rearranging things across the private quarters on a whim.”
When Melania wasn’t around, the president would take objects from her space and bring them into his bedroom, according to Haberman and Swan.
“Once, when staff gently reminded the president that he was taking things from the Center Hall his wife had personally selected, he made clear he didn’t care,” the authors wrote. “He seemed almost to be competing with her—determined to have the better room.”
“The president’s redecorating generated such a flurry of activity that staff often felt caught between the two Trumps, who were the only presidential couple to regularly use and maintain separate bedrooms since Richard and Pat Nixon,” the reported. “Trump’s obsessive focus on interior decorating made the staff yearn for the First Lady to return and hopefully rein him in.”
