What happened

First lady Melania Trump on Thursday denounced “unfounded and baseless lies” connecting her with “the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein,” calling unspecified reports and online images “mean-spirited attempts to defame my reputation.” Addressing reporters at the White House, she also called on Congress to hold a “public hearing specifically centered around the survivors,” allowing those who wish to have their sworn testimony “permanently entered into the congressional record.”

Who said what

The first lady’s “seemingly out-of-the-blue” remarks caught “the White House — and indeed, all of Washington’s political world — by surprise,” The Associated Press said. It was “not clear why she chose to speak out now,” The New York Times said, but her comments are “sure to supercharge” a “scandal” her husband “has been struggling to make go away since last summer.”

The Epstein controversy had been “fading from public discourse amid the war with Iran,” CNN said, and some White House officials were “stunned by the timing of the remarks, which sparked rumors that the first lady was trying to get out ahead of something.” Sources close to Trump insisted she was just “increasingly frustrated by the online chatter.”

What next?

Congressional Democrats and some Republicans welcomed the call to let Epstein’s survivors speak. “We encourage” GOP leaders to “respond to the first lady’s request and schedule a public hearing immediately,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) on social media.

Amazon’s new Melania Trump documentary promised it would reveal the real woman behind the first lady’s steely exterior, said Monica Hesse in The Washington Post. But after sitting through this 104-minute exercise in superficiality, I can report “there’s nothing to see.” Melania, which follows the first lady as she prepares for Donald Trump’s second inauguration, is filled with scenes of the inscrutable ex-model trying on hats, strutting down hallways “in stilettos that never come off,” and attending meetings “about place settings and invitations.” Director Brett Ratner—exiled from Hollywood after being accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women—never unearths what Melania actually thinks about her return to the White House, or anything else. It doesn’t matter. Hiding her true personality “is, in fact, her personality.” Despite its vapidity, Melania took in $7 million in its first weekend, “the strongest opening for a documentary in a decade,” said Sam Adams in Slate. That would be impressive, if Amazon hadn’t spent an unprecedented $40 million buying the documentary and another $35 million marketing it. There’s an old Hollywood term for “a $75 million movie that opens with $7 million in box office: a flop.”

Melania isn’t a documentary, said Alexandra Petri in The Atlantic, it’s “a horror movie.” This is the tale of a woman who experiences none of the things that make life worth living: “meaningful conversations, shared laughter, petting a dog, casual interactions with someone who is neither an employee nor a family member.” In their place are “Fittings! More fittings! Pomp! Private jets! Expensively attired billionaires being served—I am not making this up—golden eggs.” Melania is trapped in an invisible bubble she will never be able to escape, “and she hasn’t even noticed.” Please don’t mistake her for a victim, said Maureen Dowd in The New York Times. The “Slovenian Sphinx” is not, as some liberals have fantasized, “Rapunzel in the tower, pining to be saved from the ogre imprisoning her.” She is comfortable with her husband’s authoritarianism, and “comfortable in the frosty vertical solitude of the tower, swaddled in luxury.”

“There is no reason for Melania to exist outside of rank corruption,” said Sonny Bunch in The Bulwark. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos spent $40 million buying this hagiography—$28 million of which went to Melania—in the clear hope of protecting his companies from government interference. “It’s all quite disgusting.” But it’s also quite fascinating to see just how many Americans will trek to a theater to “bask in the golden glow of Trump Tower,” and how such a “pure and naked instrument of graft and propaganda can be deployed to great effect on an audience happy to lap it up.”

“Melania Trump – born Melanija Knavs – has led an undeniably fascinating life,” said Nick Hilton in The Independent. Raised in a housing complex in what is now Slovenia, she started modelling in her teens, and in the 1990s landed up in the US, where she eventually met Donald Trump.

Hers is “an aspirational story” of how “a little girl with nothing but a perfect jawline” conquered America; but oddly, none of these biographical details make it into Amazon’s documentary about her, which was released last week. Instead, “Melania” – for which the First Lady was paid a reported $28 million (£20 million) – focuses on the 20 days leading up to Trump’s inauguration last year. We learn next to nothing about Melania herself; she is mainly shown “preening and scowling”, her face “a mask of pure nothingness”.

‘Designer taxidermy’

There are some revelations, said Janice Turner in The Times: that Melania “hires only people ‘who serve my veeesion’”, that she takes crockery very seriously; and that she finds black and white stuff “classy”.

This is less a documentary than an “elaborate piece of designer taxidermy, horribly overpriced and ice-cold to the touch”, said Xan Brooks in The Guardian. Deadly, dispiriting and “spectacularly unrevealing”, it’s “one of those rare, unicorn films that doesn’t have a single redeeming quality”.

Grovelling billionaires

Well, I was quite interested by how much “crawling” the Trumps’ flunkies do, said Robert Hutton in The Critic. At one point, an aide tells Donald that there will be “the standard presidential parade” before hastily correcting himself: “I shouldn’t say standard. It’s a little bit bigger and a little bit better.”

Then there are the billionaires we see grovelling to the president: how sad, that with all that money, they still have to abase themselves. Which brings us round to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who forked out $40 million (£29 million) for the film, the most ever paid for a documentary, and then spent a further $35 million (£25 million) marketing it. Even the richest have things to fear from its subject’s husband. It is this, not the film’s content, that makes it “an important document in the decline of American public life”.

The film has played to largely empty cinemas, but it does have one fan, said Chas Danner in New York Magazine. I loved it, said Trump on Truth Social. “Check it out – A MUST SEE!”

“The magazine industry is in mourning,” said The New Statesman. Condé Nast announced earlier this month it would be folding Teen Vogue into its flagship Vogue magazine to “provide a more unified reader experience across titles”.

At first glance, this appears like just “another casualty of a fragile market”. But it’s a decision that also marks a significant “ideological turning point”. For the last nine years, Teen Vogue has paved the way for a “new approach to women’s media” that deliberately incorporates progressive politics into its editorial coverage, alongside fashion and lifestyle articles. “Now it has been essentially shut down.”

Fall from grace

Teen Vogue’s shift to the left can be traced back to shortly after the 2016 US presidential election, when it published an article that “set the internet ablaze”, said The Guardian. The piece was headlined “Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America”.

From then on, the magazine intensified its political coverage, becoming “an unlikely hearth for progressive, even radical, feminism within the manicured offices of its publisher”. Now, almost a decade since undergoing this transformation, “Trump is once again in the White House, and Teen Vogue as it was once known is gone”.

Its closure comes at a time of deepening “turbulence for journalism, particularly of the progressive variety”. Many of the trailblazing feminist blogs “now lay dead or dying”, while youth-focused websites like Vice and Vox have “shed jobs at astonishing rates”. These outlets often shone a light on the marginalised groups who have “fallen under the glare of the Trump administration’s microscope”.

Enter the ‘womanosphere’

Over the same period, there has been an increase in the number of conservative women’s media outlets. The Conservateur, for example, launched in 2020 with articles “heralding Melania Trump’s style” alongside “essays on the virtues of marrying powerful men”, said The New Statesman. And Evie Magazine, which has amassed a quarter of a million Instagram followers, is “rife” with anti-contraception stories and “tips for becoming the perfect housewife”.

Across the pond, despite not feeling quite as “glossy and seductive” as the US titles, sites like The Conservative Woman are thriving, with its aim of challenging the “virtue-signalling, intolerant and self-interested elites”. Existing within the broader online “womanosphere”, these publications “frame regressive feminine ideals as a corrective to ‘wokeness’ and the ‘radical left’”.

The unravelling of Teen Vogue has been met with reactions “predictably split along political lines”, said The Free Press. On the right there has been much “celebration”, together with the “occasional cheeky suggestion” that Melania Trump, who Teen Vogue often mocked for her outfits, put the magazine on a “hit list”. The “other side” has expressed “outrage” at the decision to close Teen Vogue at exactly the time its staff claim it is most needed.

In reality, Teen Vogue was “being written by and for millennials”, convinced they were giving a “new, politically obsessed generation the content they craved”. But it turned out “conspicuous wokeness” was the “exclusive passion” of the publication’s “ageing millennial writers and readers”, while the teens it claimed to represent had “long been getting their news from TikTok”. That the magazine would “fade into oblivion at the same time as its millennial fan base slouched out of their 20s” is “not only unsurprising, it was inevitable”.

Donald Trump has credited his wife Melania for his recent decision to resupply weapons to Ukraine, a position he had previously opposed.

This isn't the first time that the first lady has appeared to be a "bigger supporter" of Ukraine than the "sceptical" US president, said The Guardian. And some are now claiming that Melania has a greater influence on the Trump presidency than previously thought.

'Unlikely ally'

Her position on the conflict seemed at odds with her husband's when, soon after Russia's full invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the president described Vladimir Putin as "savvy" and a "genius", but Melania said it was "heartbreaking and horrific" to see "innocent people suffering" and urged her social media followers to donate to the Red Cross.

Melania's interest in the Ukraine war "can be explained by her background", said The Times.

She was born in the former Yugoslavia in 1970 and she and her son Barron often speak her native Slovenian. Her father continues to travel back and forth to Slovenia, where the public overwhelmingly supports Ukraine, so she's "kept abreast of European politics".

Kyiv has an "unlikely ally" in the White House with Melania. She reminded her husband of the "deadly toll" of Russian air strikes, helping convince him to sign off on the delivery of Patriot air defence missiles to Kyiv, according to an anecdote Trump told in the Oval Office: "I go home, I tell the first lady, 'I spoke to Vladimir today, we had a wonderful conversation.' And she says, 'Oh really, another city was just hit.'"

This suggests Melania has a "far greater influence" on her husband's political decisions than "many would assume", particularly given the perception that she spends little time at the White House at all.

'Agent Melania'

Melania's support for Ukraine is "not surprising at all" given that the country where she grew up has "no love for Russia", said Mary Jordan, author of "The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump". The first lady also has "more experience" than the current members of the US cabinet in "trying to get her point across" to the president, so might have influenced his change of heart.

Either way, Ukrainians are "celebrating" Melania on social media with memes, said The Guardian, including an image of her wearing a blazer with the Ukrainian Trident insignia, captioned: "Agent Melania Trumpenko". Since the Patriot announcement, there's been "a lot of love on social media" for her, said Business in Ukraine magazine.

But "something feels off about the whole thing", said James Ball in The i Paper. The way Trump "set up and delivered" his anecdote about Melania's latest remarks was a "laugh line" and not "the way someone who was devastated at the loss of life would tell the story".

No one should take his "apparent emotional awakening seriously" because he's "not an empathetic man"; he "just knows how to play one".

It is perhaps no surprise that the most well-off Americans have benefited tremendously from the AI-driven stock market expansion over the last year, continuing the trend of the planet's wealthiest individuals capturing a greater share of riches. But the degree to which President Donald Trump has personally enriched himself during his second term in office is shocking. By aggressively wielding the regulatory and national security powers of the U.S. government and leveraging his family's name and business reputation, Trump and his family have added billions to their bottom line since January 2025, often through quid pro quo arrangements conducted in broad daylight.

Many of Trump's most lucrative deals have involved the AI and crypto industries, both of which he substantially deregulated since taking office, despite concerns about conflicts of interest and the creation of speculative bubbles that could harm ordinary investors. The president remains completely unapologetic about using his office in this fashion and boosting his family's overseas business dealings with American policy and power. "I found out that nobody cared, and I'm allowed to," said President Trump in a January 8, 2026 interview with The New York Times. "I prohibited them from doing business in my first term, and I got absolutely no credit for it." This self-dealing, reminiscent of how developing world dictators like Nigeria's Sani Abacha use their positions in government, has yet to generate a substantial public backlash — especially given the current focus on the administration's other controversies, like mass deportations and the cost of living crisis.

In May 2025, the Trump administration lifted a national security restriction on the sale of advanced AI chips to the UAE, months after the UAE and Qatar invested more than $1.5 billion in an investment fund operated by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. These deals "blurred the lines between personal and government business and raised questions about whether U.S. interests were served," said The New York Times. In January 2026, Saudi developer Dar Al Arkan announced that it would "launch two Trump-branded luxury projects in Riyadh and Jeddah with a combined value of $10 billion," said Reuters. The announcement followed Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's November 2025 visit to the White House, during which President Trump announced the U.S. would sell advanced F-35 fighters to the Kingdom, as well as promising to lift restrictions on AI chip sales. Another representative example was Trump's October 2025 pardon of former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who was convicted of money laundering in 2023. Binance was the recipient of a $2 billion investment by Emirati investment firm MGX, which was conveniently conducted in the brand-new USD1 stablecoin, operated by World Liberty Financial, in which the Trump family has a controlling interest. It was the largest crypto transaction in history. In December 2025, "Binance began paying users of its platform to hold USD1: Binance announced that, for the next month, it would give users a bonus equal to about 1.7% on up to fifty thousand dollars’ worth of USD1 holdings," said The New Yorker. The total volume of USD1 in circulation has subsequently more than doubled, to "roughly five billion, and most of that expansion appears to have taken place on the Binance platform." World Liberty also began selling "digital governance tokens," which have no fixed value and "do not entitle a buyer to any equity in World Liberty; nor to any share of its profits, raising many questions about why an investor might want to own them — other than for World Liberty's connection to the Trumps," said The New Yorker.

Also in December 2025, the Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns the microblogging site Truth Social, announced that it had merged with a speculative nuclear fusion company, TAE Technologies. Nuclear fusion is a technology that, even in best case scenarios, is many years away from commercial viability. That day, Trump "saw the value of his stake jump by about $400 million to about $1.6 billion with the 35% rally in the stock by midday," said Politico. When that deal was signed, the president had "recently signed an executive order to launch" the Department of Energy's Genesis Mission, "which seeks to accelerate fusion development with help from AI, advanced computing and the department's sprawling national labs." Overall, The New Yorker estimated in February 2026 that Trump and his family have made $4.05 billion just since his second inauguration on ventures that fundamentally depend on his role as the U.S. president.

Trump's net worth, according to Forbes, had soared $7.3 billion as of February 18, 2026, after falling as low as $2.3 billion prior to his reelection in 2024. Despite this flurry of wealth-building activity, Trump still falls short of inclusion on Bloomberg's list of the 500 richest people in the world. And figuring out the trajectory of the president's wealth is a significant challenge made all the more difficult by his refusal to release his tax returns or share the kinds of financial disclosures that were once routine in American politics.

How did Trump originally amass his fortune?

In Trump's telling, he is a self-made man who built his fortune with a small loan from his father. But in "every era of Mr. Trump's life, his finances were deeply intertwined with, and dependent on, his father's wealth," said The New York Times; the outlet claims that his parents ultimately transferred nearly $1 billion to their children while paying almost nothing in taxes. "Fred Trump was relentless and creative in finding ways to channel this wealth to his children," and much of his maneuvering was "structured to sidestep gift and inheritance taxes using methods tax experts described to The Times as improper or possibly illegal."

Trump's father, Fred, was a real estate tycoon who operated mostly in and around New York City, and Donald Trump "served his own apprenticeship in the less glamorous family business of renting apartments," said the Los Angeles Times. One of his earliest duties was "booting poor, nonpaying tenants" out of a Cincinnati apartment complex purchased by his father. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business in 1968, Trump returned to New York City and took on a larger role in the family business. He "took control of the company — which he renamed the Trump Organization — in 1971," said BBC. His "first big move" was "to negotiate an unusual arrangement with the government of New York City," including a 40-year tax abatement, in order to purchase the Commodore Hotel in New York City, said the Miller Center. The hotel was relaunched in 1980 and rebranded as the Grand Hyatt Hotel.

As his portfolio expanded, "the one that made him" was Trump Tower, said Curbed. In 1979, he bought the department store Bonwit Teller for $10 million and demolished it to make way for the mixed-use high-rise that would eventually bear his name. When it opened on October 1, 1983, Trump Tower "offered an unprecedented mix of high-end retail space and luxury condominiums," said The Hollywood Reporter. "Celebrity was a big ingredient" in its success, added Curbed, and Trump sold residential units to Hollywood stars including Steven Spielberg and Fay Wray. With his real estate empire expanding, Trump also embarked on a media blitz that "helped the real estate developer transition from a figure of note in New York City to a national celebrity and household name," said The Atlantic. In 1987, he published a ghostwritten book, "The Art of the Deal," that was a "phenomenal success, spending forty-eight weeks on the Times best-seller list," said The New Yorker. By 1990, his holdings included not just Manhattan high-rises and other real estate developments but also casinos, golf courses and the Eastern Airlines shuttle service he had purchased in 1989 and renamed Trump Shuttle.

Overcoming bankruptcy with a little help from family and reality TV

The Trump Organization fell on hard times in the 1990s. Hit hard by the 1990-1991 recession, "the amount of cash that Mr. Trump had available to him had fallen below $1.7 million and was expected to fall below $800,000 within months" in 1991, said The New York Times. The basic problem was that "Trump's empire could not keep pace with the enormous debt payments he owed," said NPR. Trump was forced to sell his airline to USAir in 1991. Those struggles pushed him into the "transaction that would eventually free him from his financial travails": taking his "struggling casinos public, selling stock to raise money and shifting his personal debt into the new company" in 1995.

In 1997, Fred Trump transferred his real estate holdings to his four children, which they sold off in 2004. Donald Trump received $177.3 million. Yet he filed an "individual tax return reporting $89.9 million in net losses from his core businesses for the prior year" in 2004, said The New York Times. It was also in 2004 that Trump began hosting NBC's reality show "The Apprentice," in which a group of contestants competes to win a contract from the Trump Organization. The show, which Trump hosted from 2004 to 2015, helped him make "some $197 million" over 16 years. In addition, "$230 million flowed from the fame" associated with the show.

Not everything that Trump touched during this time period turned to gold, however. Between 2005 and 2010, Trump operated Trump University, which ultimately had to pay out a $25 million settlement to "more than 6,000 Trump U students who paid thousands of dollars for courses they describe as worthless," said NPR. In 2006, he launched a self-branded vodka business that "stopped production in 2011, reportedly due to a lack of interest," said Time. Trump also operated an unsuccessful steak business, a failed travel search engine and a short-lived mortgage company between 2006 and 2012.

Assuming the presidency and pursuing social media

When Trump launched his bid for president in 2015, Forbes estimated his net worth at $4.5 billion. During his first term, he largely refrained from new ventures, while his "assortment of businesses brought in some $2.4 billion in revenue and some $550 million in income from 2017 to 2020," said Forbes. After leaving office in 2021, he founded the Trump Media and Technology group, which included his new far-right social media website, Truth Social. But legal troubles, including an $83.3 million judgment in a civil trial stemming from sexual assault allegations against him by journalist E. Jean Carroll and a $454 million fraud liability in New York, took their toll. By early 2024, his "political prospects were shaky, his financial future nightmarish," said Forbes.

However, over the following year, Trump "more than doubled his estimated fortune, from $2.3 billion to $5.1 billion, in large part by taking Truth Social public, delaying payment on his judgments and plunging himself into a third quest for the presidency. It was a bid he would ultimately win, setting the stage for an even more aggressive and norm-shattering plan to capitalize financially on his position as the country's chief executive.

New tariff regime sends markets into turmoil

If anything, the first eleven months of President Trump's second term have rendered it even harder to make a confident appraisal of his net worth. The "opaque ownership structure of the Trump businesses makes it difficult to assess changes in his net worth," said The New Yorker, and it is "hard to isolate his presidential profits, in part because estimating how much his businesses might have made if he weren't president would require detailed comparisons with similar enterprises that have non-presidential owners." Another significant contributor to that uncertainty was his decision to implement sweeping tariffs on nearly every country in the world on April 2, 2025, which he pledged to do during his campaign and for weeks preceding the announcement. He dubbed it "Liberation Day" and argued that the new tariffs "will free the U.S. from a reliance on foreign goods," said The Associated Press.

But the most immediate reaction was widespread fear that the levies "could push the U.S. economy into recession if they aren't quickly pulled back," said CNN. As many analysts expected, that maneuver sent stocks tumbling immediately and introduced almost unprecedented uncertainty into financial markets.

Reeling from that financial turmoil, President Trump announced a "pause" on April 9, 2025, saying that while his administration worked out individual trade deals with dozens of countries, he would impose a "universal tariff rate for the next 90 days" that would be "10% for virtually all countries, with the exception of China," said CBS News. That stabilized markets until the expiration date of the original "pause" approached in July, when he announced significant new tariffs on 14 countries that lacked new trade agreements, including South Korea and Japan, triggering another round of market mayhem.

Markets not only recovered, however, but thrived, driven by an ongoing AI investment boom that has many analysts worried about a massive bubble. By mid-February 2026, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up nearly 6,000 points since his second inauguration. Those gains added hundreds of millions of dollars to the president's net worth, together with ongoing and aggressive maneuvers to boost the value of his various holdings. When Trump Media merged with the nuclear fusion company TAE Technologies, it sent shares of the former soaring and added another $500 million to his net worth. While his wealth is currently parked in an irrevocable trust managed by his son Donald Trump, Jr., President Trump "remains the sole donor and beneficiary, and is still able to earn income from his businesses," said Forbes. And the most important of those businesses, in terms of the spectacular growth of his net worth, are his crypto ventures.

Trump's crypto schemes boost his fortune

On January 17, 2025, days before being sworn in for his second term as president, Trump launched his own cryptocurrency, a meme coin, "sparking a feverish buying that apparently sent its market capitalization soaring to several billion dollars," said CBS News. His wife, Melania Trump, also launched a currency the same day. The decision to launch Trump-branded cryptocurrency on the eve of his presidency created a "mind-boggling number of potential conflicts of interest" and "aligns with the interests of rich crypto bros who want to seize the reins of government to make themselves even richer," said Rolling Stone. In addition, "President Donald Trump’s family took control of the crypto venture" World Liberty Financial in January 2025 and "grabbed the lion’s share" of funds the enterprise had raised," said The Associated Press. "It's as if a new bank had opened under the sitting President's name, and it was being sent large quantities of funds by various foreign businesses and political elites," said The New Yorker.

Very quickly, crypto came to constitute a substantial portion of Trump's financial portfolio. "A majority of his fortune, an estimated $3.3 billion of his total $5.5 billion, lies in the buzzy" crypto industry, said Forbes in an updated net worth appraisal in June 2025. That may help explain his administration's crypto-friendly policies, including appointing a "pro-crypto businessperson, Paul Atkins, to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission," and the creation of a federal Bitcoin reserve and the Emirati investment deal conducted in Trump's stablecoin. The Trump administration's determination to make the U.S. the "crypto capital of the world" has unleashed a wave of companies seeking to offer new products in the crypto marketplace. Many of them "have some connection to the Trump family's growing lineup of crypto companies, which have blurred the line between commerce and government," said The New York Times. Taken together, these developments suggest that even one of the world's richest men can, in fact, be bought — it just costs a lot.

As Donald Trump starts naming his team for his second term one position is already filled – first lady.

Melania Trump proved a colourful first lady last time round and the early signs are that she will be no less discussed during the second term. "Melania does what Melania wants", Mary Jordan, author of a book about Melania, told Axios, because "her view" is that her role is "unelected" and "not paid".

What happened last time?

By the time the Trumps left the White House in 2021, Melania was the least popular first lady yet, according to surveys by CNN, SRSS and Gallup.

She was absent from Washington for large chunks of her husband's reign amid conjecture that her stepdaughter Ivanka held the de facto position. So this time round "with her son at university in New York" and Ivanka "off the political scene", it "may feel like her first run at first lady", said The Times.

Will she live in the White House?

Speculation is already rife over whether she will live in the White House, but the prospect of her "rolling in" for a second full-time stint in the East Wing, is "doubtful" according to several "Melania-ologists" on Axios. "I mean, she clearly hated being in Washington," Kate Andersen Brower, an author who specialises in the White House and first ladies, told the outlet.

A source disclosed to People that although Melania will have a "private living apartment" at the White House she also has homes in New York and at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, and "she will spend time in all of these places". It is "not likely" she will make the White House her main residence.

Will she weigh in on policy?

Melania's profile on the White House archive says she spent "much of her time" during Trump's first term "meeting with children all over the world – in classrooms, hospitals, care facilities, at home in the White House, and in communities worldwide".

These trips are thought to have influenced her formation of the Be Best campaign, which focused on well-being for youth and advocating against cyberbullying, and there's a "consensus", said Axios, that Melania will "revisit" this campaign.

But this time she will insist on a larger, "better," and "more qualified" team because "having seen how this works, she would just be wiser and she would be more vocal and more demanding about what the first lady's office should get", said Jordan.

She has also spoken out about a far more divisive issue: abortion and in her recently published memoir she actively backed abortion rights. "There are several legitimate reasons for a woman to choose to have an abortion," she wrote, such as "if her life is at risk, rape, a congenital birth defect", or "severe medical conditions".

She "seems to have joined a long line of Republican former first ladies" who have "come out in support" of abortion rights, "putting them at odds" with their husbands' public statements on the issue, said the BBC.

What about those conspiracy theories?

She might also have to face a new wave of claims that a body double is used for some of her appearances, such as in 2017 when her coat and sunglasses made many wonder if the White House was trying to hide something.

The conspiracy theorists are right in one sense, said The London Standard, because they are reflecting a more mainstream narrative that she doesn't want to "comply with the traditional role of FLOTUS".

'Can Kamala Harris cut red tape on construction?'

William A. Galston at The Wall Street Journal

Construction delays "often result in higher costs on labor, materials and financing," says William A. Galston. On "private projects, it hurts businesses. On public projects, it hurts taxpayers." The "flow of infrastructure funds, for example, could be made contingent on expedited reviews at all levels." Government trust is "near a record low, partly because officials make promises on which they fail to deliver." Reforms that "restore our country's capacity to build quickly would help restore trust — and accelerate economic growth."

Read more

'The beauty of being alone'

Meghan Keane at Time

While loneliness is a "serious health problem, what gets lost in these conversations is that not all alone time is the same," says Meghan Keane. There's "chronic loneliness — and there's solitude. One is a dangerous epidemic. The other is a skill we must nurture." People "do so many activities alone that don't come with the stigmas or dangers of chronic loneliness." This "kind of alone time is healing and important."

Read more

'Does Melania Trump really think her pro-choice messaging will fool us?'

Moira Donegan at The Guardian

Melania Trump making pro-choice statements "does not mean that her choice to make them now, at a moment when they are maximally politically beneficial to her husband, is not cynical," says Moira Donegan. These "gestures do not reflect a sincere change of Republican policy agendas." We "already know that her husband will say anything he thinks will further his own interests; we have no reason not to assume the same of his wife."

Read more

'Before critiquing other nations' elections, let's perfect our own'

Arick Wierson at Newsweek

The 2024 election "could drastically alter the international community's perception of America's role as the paradigm of how elections should be run," says Arick Wierson. To "restore Americans' confidence in this election, it's all hands on deck." Election officials should "conduct all phases of the election process, from capturing and tallying votes to reporting and certifying them, in an open and transparent fashion." Americans should "come out in droves this November. More participation ensures more voter engagement."

Read more

You ok, hun? It seems as if there is "something weird going on" with Melania Trump, said The Guardian's Arwa Mahdawi.

The former (and possibly returning) First Lady of the United States of America has a memoir coming out on 8 October. So far, so unsurprising. But there has been surprisingly "little fanfare" around this new book, simply titled "Melania". No book tour, no interviews, just a series of short-form videos, which her other half has dutifully reposted to his millions of followers.

'Weird and off-putting'

Those promo videos, delivered in Melania's characteristic "sphinx-like style", are "somewhat cryptic", said The New York Times' Shawn McCreesh. In one, she talks in front of a "shadowy backdrop", dressed in black, to "muse conspiratorially" about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. "There is definitely more to this story," she observes. "And we need to uncover the truth.”

The unorthodox promotional strategy for "Melania" has been "sort of successful", said The Cut's Olivia Craighead, insofar as it suggests just "how weird and off-putting" the contents of the memoir itself might be.

The cover gives nothing away, said Mahdawi. It's as "basic as you can get": a black background with MELANIA in white type. Those intrigued to see what's inside can place their orders on her website, where hardcore fans can also buy a $250 (£188) collector's edition.

'Perfect timing'

The tome may well turn out to consist of little more than a "bunch of photos of fancy rugs with fanciful captions", said Mahdawi. But could it be that Melania, who is "rumoured to hate politics and her husband", has "played the long game" and is actually going to give us a no-holds-barred rundown of "where the proverbial bodies are buried" – and "why Ivana Trump's actual body is interred on the former president's golf course"?

She has been decidedly publicity-shy of late, notably absent during her husband's trial for paying hush money to a porn star. She appeared in a blaze of red Dior glory at the Republican convention in July, as well as at two fund-raisers at Mar-a-Lago and Trump Tower, but remained silent at all of them.

That Melania's creative endeavour is a Trojan horse waiting to "sink Trump's election chances" is almost certainly "wishful thinking" from his opponents, though, says Mahdawi. The truth about the 45th president may be out there but "it's not going to be in Melania's memoir".

After all, this is perfect timing for November's election, said The Times's Camilla Long. "For Donald Trump it is clearly yet another attempt to woo back the Karens of America, the most crucial demographic."

Donald Trump's family face a growing dilemma about if and when to return to his side as the former president closes in on the Republican nomination for the upcoming election. 

Despite the hoards of devoted followers turning up to his rallies, Trump cuts a relatively lonely figure on stage these days. In previous campaigns, he was often joined by his wife Melania, daughter Ivanka, her husband Jared Kushner, and sons Donald Jr and Eric.

But although he is currently neck-and-neck with Joe Biden in the polls to win November's presidential election, the potential prospect of Trump ending up in prison, rather than the White House, may be a deterrent against returning to what the BBC's Kayla Epstein calls his "family circus".

What did the commentators say?

The return of Trump for a second term is "a nightmare scenario for many in the United States and beyond", said The Telegraph, "but for some of his family members, it's a murky dilemma".

Ivanka, long believed to be her father's favourite, and her husband were conspicuously absent at his 2024 presidential announcement and have not appeared on the campaign trail since.

It is a similar story with Trump's wife, Melania. The 53-year-old former model has  "stayed under the radar" since leaving Washington in 2021, said Yahoo News, and has largely focused on their son, Barron, 17, who is currently applying for college. Except for a "few public events", she has "stayed away from her husband's numerous court appearances and avoided joining him on the campaign trail", said Business Insider.

Her absence has become a talking point in Washington, with Trump's political opponents even distributing flyers showing a picture of Melania with the captions "Have you seen this woman?" and "Missing".

"The really key part here is those trials," said The Telegraph. "If she has to choose between returning to the White House, or watching her husband become a felon (and possibly a bankrupt one at that), she'll take Option A any day."

Ivanka faces a "similar quandary", and although Trump can still count on his two older sons, Donald Jr and Eric, neither have the star power of his wife or daughter.

What next?

All this matters because Trump's immediate family are among the few people who can genuinely influence him.

According to Axios, Melania has weighed in on Trump's choice of running mate, strongly advocating for former Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson, and even indicating that she might be more likely to hit the campaign trail if he was on board. Page Six reported that the former first lady was set to "step up top-tier diplomatic appearances in 2024" after Trump scored a Supreme Court victory in December in his federal election subversion case.

As for Ivanka, The New York Times said her role "in the family White House drama" was always to be "the rational actor, there to talk some restraint into her more bombastic, action-man dad".

She benefited enormously from her father being in office, reportedly by as much as $640 million, "and for the four horrific years of his presidency, was uniquely positioned to stop Donald Trump and failed to do so", said Slate. And she "remains uniquely positioned" to stop him but "fails to do so."

Both Ivanka and Kushner took "senior advisory roles" in Trump's first government, said The Hill, but "would not join him again in his administration if he returns to the White House". The former president told Fox News last year that going back into politics would be "too painful" for his family.

However, there have been rumours that Trump could appoint his son-in-law to a senior role in his next administration – possibly even secretary of state. "That would give Kushner a major ego-boosting position of power," said The Telegraph, "and, if Ivanka decides the family is better off together – financially, legally, politically or otherwise – you can bet this savvy operator will make the Trumps great again."

Nataša Pirc Musar, a lawyer and one-time attorney for former first lady Melania Trump, was elected Slovenia's first female president on Sunday, Politico and The Associated Press reported.

Musar won the presidency in a runoff election against conservative Anže Logar, the country's former foreign minister. With nearly all of the votes tabulated, Musar led Logar 54 percent to 46 percent, according to Slovenian media reports obtained by AP.

Musar's election highlights the small European nation's rising liberal bloc. Slovenia's center-left coalition also won a victory in parliamentary elections this past April.

"My first task will be to open a dialogue among all Slovenians," Musar said in a victory speech, per AP. "In the democratic election, Slovenians have shown what kind of a country they want."

Logar conceded the race, and said he hoped Musar "will carry out all the promises" of her campaign.

Musar becomes the first woman to be elected president in Slovenia since the country became independent following the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991. While the role is mostly ceremonial, the president does nominate a number of top officials.

A well-known attorney and human rights advocate in Slovenia, Musar worked on a number of high-profile cases in the country. However, her most prominent client remains Melania Trump, a native of Slovenia, who hired Musar during her husband's presidency.

In 2016, Musar and Trump filed a lawsuit against a Slovenian magazine for suggesting that she had worked as a high-end escort, BBC News reported. The case was settled out of court.

It looks like daytime-host-turned-Senate-candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz has a friend in Melania Trump, sources familiar with the former first lady's thinking told NBC News.

"The first lady has let the president know that she likes Dr. Oz. And that matters," said a top Republican familiar with the conversation.

"But this isn't just about what Melania wants," the source added. "There are a lot of Melanias out there. There are a lot of women, in whose living room and bedroom TVs Dr. Oz has been for a decade. They have a very personal relationship with Dr. Oz."

Melania Trump's supposed interest in Oz could prove crucial in the tight and already-contentious Pennsylvania Senate race, NBC News notes. Former President Donald Trump has said he plans to make another one of his valuable endorsements in PA, after his first choice Sean Parnell dropped out in the wake of domestic abuse allegations, and Melania's opinion might carry great weight.

Meanwhile, Fox host Sean Hannity, who also "frequently speaks to the former president," recently backed Oz on his radio show, writes NBC News.

Even with these purported endorsements, however, Oz's main opponent in the primary — ex-hedge fund executive David McCormick — "has a bevy of Trump advisers and influential figures working in his campaign and super PAC," including Dina Powell, a former Trump administration official, NBC News notes. Both Oz and McCormick are running to replace retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, as are a number of other candidates.

Just "don't underestimate the influence of the first lady," said a second Republican source, who reportedly often speaks with the former president. "She normally doesn't weigh in, but she has here. And that matters." Read more at NBC News.

Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary who famously held no press briefings and chief of staff to first lady Melania Trump, resigned on Jan. 6, shortly after pro-Trump rioters besieged the U.S. Capitol. She fills in some details in her upcoming book, I'll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw in The Trump White House.

According to details of the book published Monday morning by Politico, Grisham writes that she sent Melania Trump a text message at 1:25 p.m., asking if she wanted "to tweet that peaceful protests are the right of every American, but there is no place for lawlessness and violence?" Trump sent a one-word replay a minute later: "No." The first lady was, at that moment, preparing for a photo shoot of a rug she had chosen for the White House, Grisham writes.

Melania Trump's indifference to the Jan. 6 riot "broke" Grisham, she writes, especially since she had spent years defending her against charges she was a out-of-touch dilettante in the mold of Marie Antionette. Now, Grisham says, according to Politico, she sees Melania like "the doomed French queen. Dismissive. Defeated. Detached." Grisham also says she was "shocked" that the first lady appeared to agree with her husband's delusions that the election was illegitimate.

Politico's Kyle Cheney notes a new Jan. 6 timeline uncovered in Grisham's memoir, pointing out that if Melania Trump knew about the violence at the Capitol "an hour before Trump tweeted his 2:24 pm attack on [Vice President Mike] Pence," that "further undercuts the paper-thin claim that Trump wasn't aware Pence faced danger."

Melania Trump's office said in a statement that Grisham, a years-long loyalist who joined the Trump campaign in 2015, is making an "obvious" attempt "to redeem herself after a poor performance as press secretary, failed personal relationships, and unprofessional behavior in the White House. Through mistruth and betrayal, she seeks to gain relevance and money at the expense of Mrs. Trump." She issued a similar statement after another longtime aide and former friend, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, wrote an op-ed arguing that Melania's Jan. 6 response made her "complicit in the destruction of America."

A former top White House aide has reportedly written a secret memoir that may cause quite a bit of "anxiety" in former President Donald Trump's orbit.

Stephanie Grisham, who served as White House press secretary and as chief of staff to former first lady Melania Trump, is set to release a memoir next month, CNN reports. The book has been a "top-secret" project, and it will reveal "surprising new scandals," Axios reported. Grisham, who notably never held a press briefing while she was White House press secretary, resigned in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot.

"Grisham knows where all the bodies are buried because she buried a lot of them herself," a source told Axios, adding that she "has receipts ... she was a press person and it was her job to make sure she knew what was happening."

Additionally, a former West Wing colleague of Grisham's told Axios, "There isn't enough water on earth to contain the fire she could set to all of Trump world, including parts like the first lady's orbit, which not many people are in a position to illuminate. It's hard to articulate how much anxiety this is going to cause."

The book, CNN reports, will "cover Melania Trump's feelings about her husband and other members of the Trump family" and likely include insights into the "behind-closed-doors effects of the Stormy Daniels scandal" and other misconduct allegations against Trump. One source noted to CNN, "She knows things no one else has been told." The book, titled I'll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw in The Trump White House, is set to be released on Oct. 5.

First lady Melania Trump released a seven-minute farewell video Monday, saying that "as Donald and I conclude our time in the White House," she is thankful fo the military service members, law enforcement officers, and caregivers who have inspired her over the "unforgettable" past four years. She also asked "every American to be an ambassador of Be Best," her anti-cyber-bullying initiative, and "to focus on what unites us. To rise above what divides us. To always choose love over hatred, peace over violence, and others before yourself."

Stephen Colbert did not think the message was particularly well-suited to the messenger, he suggested on Monday's Late Show. "One thing the first lady did not mention in her address today is what she'll be doing after Inauguration Day, because while her husband has been fighting to stay in the White House, there are reports that privately, Melania 'just wants to go home' and 'cannot wait' to get back to New York. So, what are the first lady's future plans? Over the years she's appeared on this show numerous times, and tonight she wanted to come back and make another official announcement."

The announcement ended up being more of a song, but if you are going to have a Broadway star like Laura Benanti be your Melania stand-in, it makes sense for her to play to her strengths, especially in her farewell message.

First lady Melania Trump is spending her final days in the White House packing, making photo albums, and counting down the minutes until she can move out, CNN reports.

She is "not sad to be leaving," one White House official said. Since November, she has been overseeing the Trump family's move, deciding what will go to Mar-a-Lago in Florida and what will go into storage. With the help of White House staffers, she has been doing this stealthily, as to not upset President Trump — the official told CNN he really didn't think they would be moving, and it's a sensitive subject.

The first lady has yet to reach out to Dr. Jill Biden, and she also hasn't started an office to manage her post-White House life, the official told CNN. Trump didn't even know if she was going to attend President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration until last week; before her husband was banned from Twitter for inciting violence, he tweeted that he would not be going to the event. "It's not the first time she has learned what he was doing because he tweeted it before he told her," the official said.

"It's Christmas season at the White House, where this weekend they continued to throw packed holiday parties with unmasked guests," Stephen Colbert said on Monday's Late Show. "Of course, the White House already kicked off the holidays by unveiling first lady Melania Trump's Christmas decorations. And following years of somewhat controversial choices, this year she went with something truly unexpected: Christmas decorations. And the first lady also released her usual holiday video where she wanders around the White House looking at decorations all by herself. It's like a scene from a Home Alone movie, but with fewer appearances by the president."

We found out earlier this fall that Melania Trump doesn't give a damn about Christmas stuff, "so has the first lady finally found the spirit of the season?" Colbert asked. "Here to tell us, live via satellite from Washington, please welcome Melania Trump." The Late Show's Melania, Laura Benanti, explains the recorded Christmas profanities, the White House decor shift, and what the first lady wants from her last weeks in the White House. Watch below. Peter Weber

Behind the scenes, the Trumps are reportedly doing what every lame-duck first family should: packing up.

While President Trump still hasn't admitted that he'll be leaving the White House in a month, first lady Melania Trump has been quietly packing and getting ready for life at Mar-a-Lago, CNN reports. That reportedly includes divvying up where the Trumps' personal belongings will be headed, picking out her own china to leave behind, and planning her own twist on the traditional first lady memoir.

Back in April, Melania Trump brought on a special, unpaid government employee — former White House Office of Administration head Marcia Lee Kelly — who has since been helping the Trumps on their outward transition. Among the first lady's reported tasks for Kelly was asking around in the White House to find out whether she'll get any perks once she leaves the White House. The president will get some benefits, but Melania will only get a $20,000-a-year pension if he dies.

Regardless, she has still been spending her days "overseeing shipments of personal items" to Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort and Trump Tower in New York City, CNN writes. She has already picked out the patterns for the traditional china set each first lady leaves at the White House, and has reportedly hired the same interior decorator Trump had redecorate the White House residence to add a similar charm to Mar-a-Lago. But we shouldn't expect a Becoming-style memoir from this first lady; she's considering a "photo-centric coffee table book" about White House hospitality or her redesign projects, a source in the publishing industry tells CNN.

And as for the president's potential 2024 run, well, "That might not go over well" with his wife, a source told CNN. As the source put it, "she just wants to go home." Read more about the Trumps' post-White House life at CNN.

The conspiracy theory that body doubles are used to stand in for Melania Trump has re-ignited after a photo was released of her boarding the presidential helicopter on the South Lawn of the White House. “Is this really Melania?” wrote one Twitter user. “Nose, jawline, and smile aren't the same as the real one.” Another added: “Okay... I am not a conspiracy nut, but I have checked and she does not show her gums when she smiles, and the corners of her mouth turn up not down.”

Man sets record with 516 tattoos and piercings

A German man has set a Guinness World Record for most body modifications after making 516 changes, including tattoos, piercings and subdermal implants. Rolf Buchholz said he was never interested in body modification until he got his first tattoo at age 40. Buchholz, who previously set the world record for most piercings when they were officially counted at 453, says he will make more changes.

Farmer names green dog Pistachio

An Italian farmer was surprised when one of his eight dogs gave birth to a green-furred puppy. The little dog was the odd one out in a five-strong litter born all with white fur, the same colour as their mixed-breed mother. The farmer has named the exceptional mutt Pistachio.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For a round-up of the most important stories from around the world - and a concise, refreshing and balanced take on the week’s news agenda - try The Week magazine. Start your trial subscriptio

President Trump's family appeared to flaunt local ordinances while attending the presidential debate on Tuesday, removing their face masks after taking their seats at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Tyler Page, a reporter with Bloomberg News, tweeted that "according to the Cleveland Clinic, it's a requirement that all [debate] guests wear masks" and that "a Cleveland Clinic doctor with masks … walked up to a number of unmasked members of the audience on Trump's side of the room and asked them to put on masks. She told me they refused to take one and wear them."

"Everyone" on former Vice President Joe Biden's side of the room was reportedly following with the guidance.

There were tight health requirements for attendees of the debate, including that audience members must have an invitation to the event, wear a face mask, and have a wristband proving they tested negative for COVID-19. Only between 80 and 100 people were in attendance, with seats spaced safe distances apart.

Curiously, at the time of writing, one notable member of Trump's entourage did appear to have a mask on: Melania Trump. Jeva Lange

A former adviser to first lady Melania Trump has reportedly taped her making "disparaging" comments about President Trump and his adult children.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Melania Trump's former friend and adviser, is set to release a tell-all book in September called Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with The First Lady, and on Monday, journalist Yashar Ali reported that Wolkoff "taped the first lady making disparaging remarks about the president and his adult children" that will be revealed in the book.

Though Ali's report doesn't include the remarks the first lady evidently made, they're said to include "harsh comments about Ivanka Trump," and in fact, Ali says that "most" of the disparaging comments "were reserved for Ivanka Trump." It's reportedly not clear whether the book itself will disclose that the remarks in question came from audio recordings.

Wolkoff's book will be the latest tell-all to emerge from someone in President Trump's orbit after one recently published by his niece, Mary Trump. Last week, The Washington Post revealed that Mary Trump recorded conversations with the president's sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, in which she says the president has "no principles" and that "you can't trust him."

Wolkoff's book, which is described by its publisher as a "candid and emotional memoir," will be released on Sept. 1.

President Trump can breathe a sigh of relief — the latest tell-all book from a member of his orbit isn't about him, but rather first lady Melania Trump.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former friend and senior adviser to Melania Trump, is writing a memoir that will detail their 15-year relationship, from beginning to implosion. Melania and Me is due to hit shelves on Sept. 1, Vanity Fair's Emily Jane Fox reports, and will be published by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster — the same company behind former National Security Adviser John Bolton's The Room Where it Happened and the upcoming Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, written by the president's niece, Mary Trump.

Wolkoff, a former special events director at Vogue, helped plan the 2017 inauguration, and soon after became a senior adviser to the first lady. Her time in the White House was short-lived; she was ousted in February 2018 after it was revealed that the Trump inaugural committee paid her firm $26 million to assist with the inauguration.

Wolkoff told The New York Times in 2019 that she had been "thrown under the bus." Time has evidently not healed all wounds, as people with knowledge of Melania and Me told The Daily Beast it is "largely negative," "explosive," and "heavily trashes the first lady."

It's no secret President Trump had a long and friendly relationship with late indicted pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein and his alleged main accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, had ties to many powerful people, as Eric Trump briefly pointed out on Twitter after the FBI arrested Maxwell on Thursday.

There are so many photos of Donald Trump and Maxwell together that Fox News even used one Sunday in a report on the various civil and criminal cases against Maxwell.

Embed from Getty Images//

Except they cropped Trump out, as a Twitter user name Scott Croker noticed and Raw Story found on video.

Given the ample space on either side of the photo, it wasn't cropped to fit the screen. But if Fox News was trying to save Trump from embarrassment, it was an odd choice to leave first lady Melania Trump in the photo, especially in such a way it appears she is hanging off Epstein.

UPDATE 3:15 P.M.: Fox News issued the following statement: "Fox News Channel's America's News HQ mistakenly eliminated President Donald Trump from a photo alongside then Melania Knauss, Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell. We regret the error."

"Former National Security Adviser John Bolton's book is getting so much attention that I haven't even gotten to mention another controversial new book about another one of the president's adversaries, Melania Trump," Stephen Colbert joked on Monday's Late Show. Washington Post reporter Mary Jordan has written an unauthorized biography of the first lady, The Art of Her Deal, and it's "making headlines for some bold revelations," like that Melania stayed in New York after her husband's inauguration as leverage to renegotiate their prenup.

"The book also claims that, with Melania absent, Ivanka Trump moved to grab as much power as she could, and even suggested renaming the First Lady's Office to the First Family's Office," Colbert said. "Also, renaming the Library of Congress 'Ivanka's Book Club.'" He suggested things "seem a little tense" between the first couple, pointing to the president apparently urging the first lady to smile at a recent joint appearance. "Wow, if looks could kill, the Secret Service would have wrestled her to the ground," Colbert said. "Of course, whenever one of these unauthorized books is released, it's impossible to know how much is true. So here to tell us how much is true," Melania Trump.

The Late Show's Melania, Laura Benanti, explained that you shouldn't believe what you read in the biography: "This book makes me out to be a ruthless, coldhearted manipulator who will stop at nothing to get what I want. But it's also full of lies!" She coined a new nickname for Ivanka, explained her negotiating technique with her husband, passed down some Slovenian wisdom, and practiced smiling. And when Colbert asked what she thought of her husband's "performance in Tulsa on Saturday night," Benanti's Melania got a little salty. Watch below. Peter Weber

President Trump shook up his campaign this week, naming former White House political director Bill Stepien as deputy campaign manager and elevating the campaign's political director for the Midwest, Stephanie Alexander, to campaign chief of staff.

Stepien "is viewed by Trump advisers as a competent tactician who can help the campaign appeal to alienated suburban voters," Gabriel Sherman reports at Vanity Fair, but his problem will be "that no amount of messaging or get-out-the-vote efforts can shade the reality that Trump's mishandling of the pandemic has plunged the country into a once-in-a-century economic crisis." Before the 2018 midterms, Sherman wrote, Stepien told him Americans "want to feel safe in the realm of national security, and they want to feel economically secure."

Trump is focused on the economic side of that equation, but at least 100,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus so far, and the rush to reopen public spaces without adequate testing or containment strategies makes a significant resurgence of the virus more likely in the fall. Trump is furious that COVID-19 has derailed what he viewed as his clear path to re-election, a Trump adviser told Sherman, paraphrasing Trump: "The intelligence community let me down!" The intelligence community warned Trump early and often about the coronavirus, according to several reports, and so did first lady Melania Trump, according to Sherman:

Melania Trump's office did not respond when Vanity Fair asked for a comment. Read more at Vanity Fair.

Among President Trump's 100+ tweets and retweets on Thursday, one stood out. Time naming 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg its Person of the Year is "so ridiculous," he tweeted, adding with no apparent irony that "Greta must work on her Anger Management problem," advising: "Chill Greta, Chill!" Trump had some company in his mockery, The Washington Post notes, but "the rush among Trump allies to bash Thunberg marked a striking contrast to their professed outrage last week when Pamela Karlan, a Stanford University law professor, had invoked Barron Trump's name during her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment hearing."

Among those who slammed Karlan was first lady Melania Trump, whose signature project is her #BeBest anti-bullying campaign. Reporter David Nakamura asked the first lady and the other Republicans who prominently scolded Karlan what they thought about Trump's Thunberg tweet — and got total radio silence.

"Some conservatives have argued that because Thunberg, unlike Barron Trump, is a political activist, she is fair game for criticism from those whose policies she has campaigned against and whose moral values she has questioned," the Post reports, noting that "Trump has not engaged Thunberg on specific policy points but rather made personal attacks." She responded to the critique anyway.

Undeterred, Trump's campaign had one last trick to try and upstage Thunberg: They simply pasted Trump's head on Thunberg's body on the Time cover. Like "chill" adults do.

Genuine, normal human compassion is apparently confusing to President Trump.

Trump appeared at a GOP fundraiser packed with lawmakers at the Washington, D.C., Trump Hotel on Wednesday night and provided an hourlong roast of Democrats and Republicans alike, Politico reports. But he reserved what is debatably a compliment for House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), giving a disturbing look into his own marriage along the way.

During his remarks, Trump brought up how Scalise was shot at a Republican congressional baseball practice a few years ago. That incident — yes, being shot — is something Trump wouldn't "recommend as a weight loss plan," Politico reports he said. Trump then mentioned how Scalise's wife "cried her eyes out when I met her at the hospital that fateful day," a reaction that Trump didn't see as normal. "I mean not many wives would react that way to tragedy. I know mine wouldn't," he said.

How Trump thinks first lady Melania Trump would react to him shooting someone on Fifth Avenue has yet to be discussed.

The Group of Seven meeting of world powers Biarritz, France, has had its ups and downs — surprise meetings, surprise guests, curious statements, a little tension, lots of trade talk — but everyone appeared to be getting along just fine on Sunday when the leaders and their plus-ones took photos together on the beach in front of the Biarritz lighthouse.

Embed from Getty Images//

One photo, of American first lady Melania Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, reminded a lot of people of that stock photo-turned-overdone meme of the guy looking over his shoulder at another woman — you know the one — with some notable differences:

But of course that's silly — it's France, people kiss each other on the cheek.

Embed from Getty Images// Embed from Getty Images//

Besides, what's not to smile about? Biarritz looks lovely this time of year.

Donald Trump was welcomed with all the show and ceremony he could wish for as he spent the first part of his three-day state visit to Britain with the Royal Family yesterday.

But the US president “turns from pomp to politics” today, as he attends talks with Prime Minister Theresa May at Downing Street, says CNN. The two leaders are expected to touch upon some awkward issues, including climate change, Huawei and Iran.

Ultimately, though, Trump is here for “the pictures and the pageantry”, which he knows will “look good in his re-election campaign next year”, suggests the BBC’s James Landale.

Indeed, the VIP visitor appeared to be checking his choreography as he mouthed words at wife Melania during the royal visit, according to body language experts.

“Mr Trump seems much more on his best behaviour this time than on his previous visit,” communications coach Robin Kermode told the Daily Mail.

“In many of the pictures from Windsor Castle, he seemed to want to appear strong and determined, and even in some pictures wanting to take control. This time he appears more like a schoolboy not wanting to put a foot wrong.”

All the same, the president’s initial handshake with the monarch raised eyebrows, after he appeared to “fist bump” the nonagenarian.

“The Queen only ever offers her fingertips so he couldn’t get a grasp. He probably wasn’t touching much more than her fingers,” said body language expert Judi James.

Following yesterday’s visit to Westminster Abbey, tea at Clarence House and state banquet at Buckingham Palace, and today’s talks with May, Trump will host a dinner this evening at Winfield House, the London residence of the US ambassador.

Tomorrow, he will join the Queen and the PM for commemorations for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Portsmouth.

A year after parting ways with the White House, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff — a former adviser to first lady Melania Trump and a contractor for President Trump's inaugural committee — is speaking out about her departure, stressing that she wasn't fired and has the emails to prove it.

"Was I fired? No," she told The New York Times on Monday. "Did I personally receive $26 million or $1.6 million? No. Was I thrown under the bus? Yes." Winston Wolkoff and Melania Trump knew each other in New York, and she was asked to help plan inaugural events after Trump's surprise victory. The inaugural committee, led by financier Thomas Barrack Jr., brought in a record $107 million in donations.

In February 2018, the inaugural committee filed a financial disclosure statement showing that Winston Wolkoff's company WIS Media Partners was paid $26 million. At the time, Winston Wolkoff had an employment arrangement with the White House known as a "gratuitous service agreement," and she received a letter last Feb. 20 from Stefan Passantino, deputy White House counsel, telling her all such contracts were being terminated, she said. Winston Wolkoff told the Times that Passantino let her known "you didn't do anything wrong," and this had nothing to do with the inaugural spending.

The Times reviewed a letter from Melania Trump sent that same day, which told Winston Wolkoff this was "not personal." What's bothered Winston Wolkoff is the way the White House announced her departure, she said. The first lady's spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said they "severed" ties, and "that was not fair or accurate," Winston Wolkoff told the Times; she says it also wasn't right for White House staffers to tell media outlets she was fired due to the inaugural committee's spending. Read more about what Winston Wolkoff says she was told behind the scenes and how she is working with prosecutors investigating the inaugural committee at The New York Times.

President Trump normally seems to relish the idea that he and the media are foils. He's gone so far as to call some outlets the "enemy of the people," but he still stops and talks with them as often as he can. But, apparently, first lady Melania Trump can convince him not to.

On Thursday, as the president crossed the White House's South Lawn shortly after the public release of the redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on 2016 Russian election interference and the Trump campaign's conduct surrounding the meddling, he walked right past a "mob of reporters." Instead of stopping to take a few questions like he usually does, Bloomberg reports, Trump just waved silently before boarding the presidential helicopter and heading down to Florida for the weekend.

Trump, per Bloomberg, sought to show defiance after Mueller's findings became public — although the White House has largely claimed the report vindicates Trump, he is reportedly still frustrated with the news coverage on the matter. Ignoring the reporters on the lawn fed right into that plan of defiance. However, people briefed on the matter told Bloomberg that it was the first lady, not the president, who suggested spurning the press. Trump appeared to continue following the first lady's advice as he ignored reporters' questions upon arriving in Florida on Thursday evening, as well. Read more about the aftermath of the Mueller report at Bloomberg.

The White House is pushing back on a new book, Kushner Inc., detailing Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner's role in President Trump's administration. Its author, Vicky Ward, told The Late Show's Stephen Colbert on Monday that "if Sarah Huckabee Sanders wants to get into a credibility ratings battle with me, I'll take her on."

Trump is "very ambivalent" about having his daughter and son-in-law working in his White House, Ward told Colbert, and "he hates it when they get negative press." If that's true, Colbert said, "why do you think the president doesn't get them out of there?" Ward said then-Chief of Staff John Kelly tried to force them to resign, on Trump's orders, and "they came to resign, and Trump couldn't do it. ... He cannot send his daughter home."

Some of Trump's supporters argue "his daughter and her husband may be his undoing, that they are far more dangerous to him than Robert Mueller," Ward said. For example, she said, Kushner's role in firing James Comey as FBI director was much greater, more public, and more apparently self-serving than is widely known. "Is there anybody left to check the influence of Jared and Ivanka?" Colbert asked. Ward said yes, first lady Melania Trump, "the only person in my book who has ever successfully stood up to Ivanka Trump and won."

Ward revisited the Melania-Ivanka standoff in an ABC News The Investigation podcast posted Tuesday, and she suggested a motivation for Jared and Ivanka's misbehavior: "Most people go into government for public service. They do seem to have gone in for self-service." Ward said she doesn't know if "these two will be held accountable," but it could happen via "a combination of Congress and prosecutors or, you know, their path, their trajectory will continue as it has, which seemingly is remarkably unstoppable." Listen below. Peter Weber

President Trump may want House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to fly commercial, but first lady Melania Trump certainly doesn't have to.

After the speaker suggested she might rescind her invitation for Trump to deliver the State of the Union address, the president promptly shelved what he called her "public relations" trip to "Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan" scheduled for Thursday afternoon. Members of Congress usually use Air Force One for these trips.

Air Force One still took off that afternoon, but it didn't head overseas, Politico's Jake Sherman and aircraft-watching CivMilAir tweeted. It was using code that typically means the first lady is onboard, and it was headed for Mar-a-Lago's city of Palm Beach, Florida.

Pelosi hadn't announced her Congressional Delegation, or codel, trip before Trump issued the letter, in which he encouraged her to either "negotiat[e] with him" about the ongoing government shutdown or take a commercial flight to Afghanistan. Pelosi responded by saying her codel was stopping in Brussels to meet with "top NATO commanders, U.S. military leaders and key allies." She was also headed to Afghanistan to meet with troops and "obtain critical national security and intelligence briefings," adding that a stop in Egypt was never part of the plan.

As NPR's Kelsey Snell pointed out, codels are usually not publicly announced for security reasons, making Trump's "flying commercial" suggestion useless.

First lady Melania Trump sat down for an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday night, and Stephen Colbert took it a little personally. "Hannity asked Melania what's her least favorite part about first lady," and her list of the "opportunists" profiting from her name sounded familiar, he said on Thursday's Late Show. "Comedians, journalists, performers, book writers — hey, I'm some of those things. But you left off Grammy-winning audio book narrator and disgraced lifeguard." The first lady also said she will ignore the criticism from the media and do what she thinks is best for the country and be true to herself. "Well certainly there's nothing wrong with trying to stay true to yourself," Colbert said. "It's just like Shakespeare famously said, 'This above all: To thine own self be best.'"

"On Fox News last night, Melania Trump was interviewed by Sean Hannity," Jimmy Fallon said on The Tonight Show. "Trump said it was a lot of fun tuning in to watch the love of his life, and also Melania."

Hannity asked Melania "the moment she and Donald fell in love," Seth Meyers said on Late Night. "Said Melania: I'll let you know. In the same interview, Melania said the hardest part about her role is dealing with opportunists who use her name and her family's name to advance themselves. Said one such opportunist: You're not my real mom!" Meyers joked over a photo of Donald Trump Jr. "Now give me my allowance!"

Coincidentally, a CNN/SSRS poll released Thursday found Melania Trump's favorability rating dropping to 43 percent, from 54 percent in October. She is still widely popular among older white male Republicans and conservatives, the poll found. CNN's Kate Bennett suggested that her recent media appearances, in which she said she felt bullied and aligned herself with her husband and his policies, probably account for her drop in approval among women and younger Americans. Peter Weber

It looks like Mira Ricardel, the former deputy national security adviser whose firing first lady Melania Trump publicly requested, was not interested in the other job the White House had lined up for her.

After Ricardel was forced out of her White House job, the Trump administration offered Ricardel the position of ambassador to Estonia, Bloomberg reported Friday. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had previously said that Ricardel would have a "new role in the administration, per The New York Times. Bloomberg reports that Ricardel turned down that ambassador job but that President Trump is interested in keeping her to the point that she has been "presented nearly a dozen jobs from which to choose."

The first lady had taken the extraordinary step of calling for Ricardel's firing on Tuesday right after Ricardel appeared at a White House event. This was reportedly after a series of run-ins between Ricardel and the office of the first lady, including one fight over plane seating on Melania Trump's recent trip to Africa. Ricardel said in a statement Friday that "it's been an honor to serve the president as deputy national security adviser," suggesting she hopes to stay on in some capacity by adding, "I look forward to working with them in the months ahead." Read more at Bloomberg.

Last Halloween at the White House, first lady Melania Trump came face-to-face with a miniature version of herself. What stands out the most in photos of the encounter is the child's costume: white Adidas sneakers, black slacks, a white collared shirt. If it weren't for the girl's hat, which labeled her FLOTUS, you likely wouldn't have realized she was trick-or-treating as Mrs. Trump at all.

This is no indictment of the mini-Melania's creativity — her costume actually got everything right about the famously private and anonymous first lady. After all, it is hard to dress up as someone who is always dressed as someone else.

To most people, Trump's wardrobe is most memorable for the blunders, from wearing impractical stilettos to visit Hurricane Harvey victims to her famous "I Don't Really Care, Do U?" jacket. But really, hers is a game of dress up; even those ostensible blunders can be explained as costumes gone awry. Though the towering Manolo Blahniks she wore en route to a region under 33 trillion gallons of water in 2017 got all the attention, her Tom Cruise sunglasses and green bomber jacket make it clear she's seen a disaster movie or two. You can practically hear Tyra Banks whispering out-of-frame: "Disaster relief, but make it fashion."

Embed from Getty Images//

Likewise, her dismissive Zara jacket is a dizzyingly meta costume. Like an angsty teenager going to the Halloween ball as an angsty teenager, she's a media-averse first lady going to a photo opp dressed as a media-averse first lady. As her husband wrote, the jacket "refers to the Fake News Media. Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares!"

Embed from Getty Images//

While there are plenty of conspiracy theories about Melania Trump sending hidden messages of resistance with pussy bows and suffragette whites, she is nothing if not loathe to be scrutinized. Even before moving to the White House, she rarely opened herself up in public. When she does choose to show herself to the world, she is immaculate, almost queenly in her aloof perfection. Yet despite being hailed as a potential White House fashion icon, Trump's day-to-day costumes are unmemorable. Her "default" is to blend into the background in beiges and blacks. In transit, she is never without sunglasses to hide behind. She remains spotlight averse, and her costumes play a part in shielding her from the world.

Embed from Getty Images//

Trump still finds herself in situations where she knows she will be photographed, and that's when her outfits get more interesting. Take, most recently, her solo photo-op trip to Africa. The most noteworthy outfit, for Egypt, was taken directly out of Raiders of the Lost Ark, as if she had been dressed to resemble the villainous Belloq. Whatever the inspiration, the beige-and-white ensemble, topped off with a fedora, made her either look like a treasure hunter or someone dressing for the role of a white protagonist who will Learn Something Important from the local population before returning home a Changed Woman.

Embed from Getty Images//

It was not her only odd wardrobe choice. Trump departed for the continent in leopard print heels and wore a green-and-beige army get-up in Ghana, a safari dress in Malawi, a literal pith hat in Kenya, and a dress emblazoned with zebras and rhinos to meet with the Kenyan first lady. Dressing for the occasion is one thing, but there is something especially prescribed about Trump's closet abroad. More than being uncreative and slightly racist — Trump seemed to hover within a hair's breadth of wearing kente cloth — the choices feel pulled from an "I'm going to Africa!" Pinterest board. They were costumes for someone playing the part of going abroad, not expressions of who Melania Trump is as a person.

Embed from Getty Images//

Even Trump's debut as America's first lady was borrowed. When asked what kind of first lady she would be back in 2000, when Donald Trump first ran for office, she offered not adjectives but characters: "Betty Ford or Jackie Kennedy." In assuming that role 16 years later, she wore a dress almost identical in color to the one Kennedy wore during her husband's swearing in, complete with high powder blue gloves. While the decision is a nod to presidential history and tradition, it is also yet another way that Trump has refused to allow herself to be pinned down.

Embed from Getty Images//

Trump and her spokespeople have suggested that focusing on the first lady's outfits is sexist. It's a convenient excuse, but a misplaced one. Choosing an outfit is making a decision about how we present ourselves to the world, and how a man wears a tie or what shoes a woman wears is as revealing as the words they say or the facial expressions they make.

Melania Trump's outfits create characters for her to hide behind. Any trace of Trump's true personality was long ago replaced with dangerous-looking heels and characterless designer trenches and jeans. Because wearing a costume is easy. Costumes are safe.

Behind a costume, no one knows who you are.

First lady Melania Trump is back in Washington, D.C., after a solo visit to Africa, and her five-day trip wasn't entirely uncontroversial — in Kenya she drew criticism for wearing a colonial-looking pith helmet on a safari. The helmet's connotations of European exploitation of Africans "is probably something someone should have mentioned to her before they put it on her head," Jimmy Kimmel suggested on Monday's Kimmel Live.

In Egypt, Trump said she wanted to talk about what she did in Africa, not what she wore, and Kimmel was a little less sympathetic here. "You can't go around Africa dressed like you're on the cover of the L.L. Bean catalog and then be surprised when someone mentions it," he said. "This is Melania's first solo trip overseas, and she really seemed to enjoy herself. In fact, just for the sake of comparison, we made a video using footage of Melania here and Melania there." The contrast in the clips they chose is pretty striking. "It's not scientific," Kimmel conceded, "but draw your own conclusions."

Kimmel also had some acerbic birthday wishes for celebrity feud partner Matt Damon, and you can watch that below. Peter Weber

Things are really tense and awful in Washington, D.C., with a bitter fight over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh coming to a head and President Trump punching down at a seemingly endless series of campaign rallies. But first lady Melania Trump has escaped it all during a five-day solo trip to Africa. On Friday, Trump took a quick safari in Kenya and paid a visit to Nairobi National Park, playing with baby elephants at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust orphanage. At one point, she fed milk to one of the orphaned elephants

Embed from Getty Images// Embed from Getty Images//

The first lady even appeared to be having a great time when an elephant she was petting made a sudden move toward her, causing her to lose her footing.

Embed from Getty Images//

CNN's Kate Bennett said she's never seen Trump "smile and laugh more" in two years of covering her.

Trump started her first solo tour abroad as first lady Tuesday in Ghana, then traveled to Malawi on Thursday. She ends her trip in Egypt. Her visit with the elephants and short safari are meant to highlight animal conservation efforts in East Africa.

Melania Trump has embarked on a five-day trip to Africa, her first solo overseas tour since her husband’s election in 2016.

The first lady left the US on board government jet Executive One on Monday for an overnight flight to Accra, the capital of Ghana.

After touching down at Accra’s Kotoka International Airport this morning, the 48-year-old former model was welcomed with flowers by a young girl. The first lady and her Ghanaian counterpart, Rebecca Akufo-Addo, were then entertained on the tarmac by a troupe of traditional drummers and dancers.

As well as Ghana, Melania will make stop-offs in Malawi, Kenya and Egypt, where she is expected to visit the Great Pyramids of Giza.

She has “waited more than a year-and-a-half into her tenure to embark on a significant solo journey”, CNN reports.

“All of her trips overseas thus far have been accompanying her husband, to Asia last year and, most recently, to Europe this summer,” the news site continues.

As for the topics on her agenda, it appears that the first lady intends to stick to her course of avoiding hot-button political issues in her public life.

“She is hoping to visit the countries to learn what their challenges are, and also see where the US is having a positive impact or results,” according to a emailed statement to Newsweek from Stephanie Grisham, Melania’s spokesperson.

Grisham added that the visits will promote “education, healthcare, some conservation and tourism”, and will tie into Melania’s flagship project as first lady, the children’s advocacy initiative Be Best. As such, “the well-being of children will be her focus”.

Melania’s trip to Africa follows several reports alleging that President Trump had made derogatory and racist comments about Africans - claims that leave “the first lady with some fence-mending duties”, says the Associated Press.

In January, Trump met with global condemnation after reportedly referring to African nations, as well as Haiti and El Salvador, as “s**thole countries” during a White House meeting.

The controversy came weeks after allegations that Trump had made comments about Nigerian immigrants refusing to “go back to their huts” during a separate meeting - claims that the president denied.

Kate Andersen Brower, author of First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies, told CNN that Melania’s decision to make Africa her first port of call was “symbolic”.

“[It] sends a strong message that the US is engaged in the region and helps combat the statements reportedly made by her husband about the continent,” Brower said.

Melania Trump is to make her first big solo overseas tour as First Lady, embarking on a trip to Africa in October.

Her spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said Trump “is looking forward to meeting African children and exploring Africa's history and culture”, reports USA Today.

She is “excited” about educating herself on the issues facing children throughout the continent”, said Grisham.

In addition, Trump said she would seek to highlight the “successful humanitarian work and development programmes” being implemented in the countries she visits.

Grisham didn’t say which African countries the First Lady would visit, nor did she reveal the exact dates for her trip.

Melania Trump has often accompanied the President on foreign trips, including a week-long swing through Europe last month, but “has travelled on her own largely domestically since the inauguration”, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The choice of location may be surprising considering Africa is a “continent whose countries and citizens her husband has disparaged with coarse language”, says The New York Times.

Grisham said the First Lady chose Africa after she learned about some of the development programmes that are under way in many countries, especially in children's health and education.

“We are a global society, and I believe it is through open dialogue and the exchanging of ideas that we have a real opportunity to learn from one another,” her statement said.

Trump's only other solo international trip was last September, when she flew to Toronto for a day and joined Prince Harry to open the Invictus Games.

While President Trump was busy mean-tweeting Monday, first lady Melania Trump was addressing a cyberbullying conference. "Most children are more aware of the benefits and pitfalls of social media than some adults," she said. "It can be used in many positive ways, but can also be destructive and harmful when used incorrectly." Was she talking about her husband? Well, it fits a pattern: The two women closest to Trump, his wife, and daughter Ivanka Trump, occasionally issue a mild or ambiguous critique of something Trump said or did — splitting up migrant families, calling the press "the enemy of the people," trashing LeBron James — then deny they're rebuking him. What's going on? Here, three theories:

1. Melania is passive-aggressively punishing Trump

In her book Unhinged, Omarosa Manigault Newman suggests "Melania uses style to punish her husband" while "counting every minute until he is out of office and she can divorce him." For example, Melania wore that "I Really Don't Care Do U?" jacket, Manigault Newman writes, "to hurt Trump, setting off a controversy that he would have to fix."

2. Ivanka and Melania are medieval tropes

"Both Melania and Ivanka follow to a T the template of the medieval queen," who'd regularly "provide cover" for the king, says Sonja Drimmer at The Atlantic. "They are helping him project an image of strength, even when he is forced to back down, by framing his many reversals as responses to their pleas and not admissions of political weakness." Yes, "Melania has occasionally used her platform in this way, but it has been Ivanka's entire raison d’être in the Trump cinematic universe," agrees Christina Cauterucci at Slate.

3. Melania really just doesn't care

"Melania's just over it, and now I think she's starting to consistently realize that she can just, you know, slam Trump in a very classy way," Trevor Noah posited at The Daily Show. "She doesn't have to say anything to him, about him, she just says it about whatever he's speaking about." Peter Weber

First lady Melania Trump's parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, became U.S. citizens on Thursday, taking advantage of a program that President Trump has long railed against.

Their ceremony was private for "security reasons," attorney Michael Wildes said. Trump has decried "chain migration," where adult U.S. citizens can obtain residency for their relatives. On Nov. 1, 2017, for example, he tweeted: "CHAIN MIGRATION must end now! Some people come in, and they bring their whole family with them, who can be truly evil. NOT ACCEPTABLE!" Wildes told The New York Times "I suppose" the Knavses obtained citizenship through chain migration, but called the term a "dirtier" way of describing family-based immigration, "a bedrock of our immigration process when it comes to family reunification."

The Knavses are from Slovenia, but they now divide their time between New York City, Palm Beach, and Washington, D.C., where they stay with the Trumps in the White House. Wildes said the first lady sponsored her parents for their green cards, and once eligible, they applied for citizenship. To apply for U.S. citizenship, a person must have a green card for at least five years, plus meet the character, residency, and civic knowledge requirements. It's unclear when the Knavses obtained permanent residency in the U.S., the Times reports, but Wildes said they met the five-year requirement.

Melania Trump became a citizen in 2006, five years after she gained permanent residency by obtaining a so-called "Einstein visa," for "individuals of extraordinary ability." She began dating Donald Trump in 1998.

A surreptitiously recorded conversation between Donald Trump and his long-time personal lawyer Michael Cohen (pictured above) has emerged, revealing that the pair discussed purchasing the rights to a former Playboy model’s story of an alleged affair between her and Trump.

Time Magazine reports that the tape, which was made two months before the 2016 presidential election, purports to reveal a conversation about buying model Karen McDougal’s story of an alleged affair which she claims occurred in 2006, just a few months after the birth of the US president’s youngest son Barron.

“Trump denies the affair ever happened and his campaign had said he knew nothing about the payment,” Time says.

The rights to McDougal’s story were reportedly purchased by the US tabloid National Enquirer for $150,000 (£114,000), which then declined to publish the story in what is known in media circles as a “catch and kill”, in order to stop the story being published at all.

The Guardian reports that the tape was released to CNN by Cohen’s lawyer Larry Davis “who argued that its contents proved his client tried to handle the payment legally whereas Trump instead sought to pay in cash”.

Current Trump attorney, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, appeared on Fox News after the tape was aired on CNN to say: “There’s no indication of any crime being committed on this tape”.

However, Cohen’s lawyer has publicly accused Giuliani of “falsely disparaging Michael Cohen – because they fear him”, CNN says.

CNN also says the release of the tape is “the latest breakdown in the decade-long relationship between Trump and Cohen”, adding that Cohen “in recent weeks has made clear he is open to cooperating with US prosecutors”.

Melania Trump has made an unannounced visit to a Texas centre housing children separated from their parents after arriving illegally in the US.

“I want to thank you for your hard work, your compassion and your kindness,” the first lady said during a meeting with workers at the Upbring New Hope Children’s Shelter, which currently houses around 60 children. “I’d also like to ask you how I can help reunite these children with their families as quickly as possible.”

But her words were overshadowed by her choice of outfit.

Trump was photographed wearing a green coat with the phrase “I really don’t care. Do u?” on the back, as she travelled to and from Texas. It was, says the BBC, a “pretty tone-deaf” decision.

As photographs of the jacket spread through social media, some attempted to work out what sort of message the notoriously image-conscious first lady was trying to send.

“She’s a former model,” fashion consultant Bob Phipps told The New York Times. “Every piece of clothing has statement and purpose. She’s all about image, and so is Trump. She knows the power.”

Trump’s communications director Stephanie Grisham played down the incident, saying: “It’s a jacket. There was no hidden message. After today’s important visit to Texas, I hope the media isn’t going to choose to focus on her wardrobe.”

Melania Trump has criticised the US government’s immigration policy of separating children from their parents at the border - a measure introduced by her husband’s administration last month.

“Mrs Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform,” her communications director, Stephanie Grisham, told CNN. “She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart.”

Since 7 May, all adults caught crossing the US border illegally are being charged with federal crimes, resulting in parents being separated from their children. Previously, adults who entered the US with children were mostly referred to immigration courts.

Hundreds of children are being kept “in a series of cages” inside an “old warehouse in south Texas”, The Guardian reports.

Democratic Congressman Peter Welch has criticised the conditions in which children are being housed.

“I just exited a border patrol ‘processing facility’ known as the ‘icebox’,” Welch said. “It is nothing short of a prison. I saw chain link cages full of unaccompanied children. They sat on metal benches and stared straight ahead silently.”

Donald Trump has previously blamed a law that “Deomcrats gave us” for the detentions, but it remains unclear which law he means.

He has also urged Democrats to work with Republicans to create new legislation to address the issue.

“Democrats can fix their forced family breakup at the Border by working with Republicans on new legislation, for a change!” the US president said. “Democrats are good at only three things, High Taxes, High Crime and Obstruction. Sad!”

Trump’s

’s

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House

Melania Trump has filed a £120m lawsuit against the Daily Mail for reporting rumours that she worked as a high-end escort in the 1990s. The newspaper has since said it did not intend to imply that the allegations were true.

The First Lady says the article has hurt her chances of establishing "multimillion-dollar business relationships" for the years in which she will be "one of the most photographed women in the world".

The filing has raised concerns among ethics watchdogs that Trump appears to be trying to profit from a high-profile position that is usually focused on public service.

Scott Amey, general counsel of the Washington watchdog Project on Government Oversight, said her ongoing enterprises are "another example of the First Family blurring the line between public service and private business interests".

Norman Eisen, once chief ethics counsellor to Barack Obama, said: "The Trumps are using the White House like the Kardashians used reality TV - to build and vastly expand their overall business enterprises."

What led to the lawsuit?

An article that appeared in the Daily Mail's print and web editions suggested Trump might "have worked as a part-time escort in New York" and said she had "met husband Donald Trump… earlier than previously reported", the BBC says.

"The defendant made several statements about Mrs Trump that are 100 per cent false and tremendously damaging to her personal and professional reputation," Trump's lawyer, Charles Harder, said.

The Daily Mail has published a retraction of the story, both in print and online, saying the article "did not intend to state or suggest that these allegations are true, nor did it intend to state or suggest that Mrs Trump ever worked as an 'escort' or in the 'sex business'", and defended its decision to run the story.

Is Melania behaving unethically?

Richard Painter, who advised former president George W Bush on ethics, said the lawsuit's language suggests the First Lady is engaging "in an unprecedented, clear breach of rules about using her government position for private gain".

Anne MacDonald, who was chief of staff for Laura Bush, said: "Former first ladies have not typically made money through endorsement deals, but of course we're not dealing with a typical first lady."

However, Trump's lawyer Harder has said the filing is being misreported. "The First Lady has no intention of using her position for profit and will not do so," he said. "It is not a possibility. Any statements to the contrary are being misinterpreted."

While US President Donald Trump is known for his rambling speeches and off-the-cuff remarks, his wife Melania appears to have a very different communication style.

The first lady has remained relatively quiet since her husband was voted in to the White House.

“If he is the Twitter president, she is the Instagram first lady,” says the Washington Post.

As a former model, Melania knows the world of fashion well and appears to be using it as a key messaging tool.

“Her choices are considered, and therefore I find it entirely appropriate to read between the lines, or the seams, as it were,” style reporter Elizabeth Holmes tells CNN.

So what are Melania’s outfits trying to tell the world?

The protest dress

“When is a dress just a lovely dress and when is a dress making a veiled political point?” asks The Daily Telegraph. “Sometimes this dichotomy can be tricky to decipher, especially when it's Melania Trump we're talking about.”

The newspaper wonders if there was a “protest message” behind the Valentino dress she chose to wear to welcome King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain to the White House in June. The visit was overshadowed by the row over children being separated from their parents at the Mexican border.

The dress is from Valentino’s Resort 2018 collection by Pierpaolo Piccioli. The creative director, who was walking around in a “Fuck Donald Trump” cap the day after the US election, has said the collection was partly inspired by the idea of cultural melting pots and “finding the harmony in difference”.

Melania might have simply fallen for the dress, says the Telegraph. “Given her previous form though, there is every chance this was a dress selected with the intention of adding to her message of disapproval of the President's policy.”

The eye-catching host

Melania taught French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte a thing or two about fashion during their state visit to the US in April.

From the moment she arrived on the White House lawn to welcome the couple, one thing was clear: “The First Lady commanded attention”, says Betsy Klein for CNN.

“Without speaking a word, dressed in a white Michael Kors Collection asymmetrical blazer and skirt - and an eye-catching, custom-made Hervé Pierre hat - Melania Trump spoke volumes. This was her house, her dinner and her terms,” Klein says.

For the state dinner, her first in the White House, Melania “paid homage to their visitors’ home country in an haute couture gown by French fashion house Chanel, with a structured shimmer and sheer detail; finishing off her look with a pair of silver heels from her favourite designer Christian Louboutin”, reports the Irish Independent.

The ‘coloniser’ hat

Speaking in Egypt at the end of a trip to Africa, Melania appealed for people to “focus on what I do, not what I wear”. But it was difficult to ignore one of her accessories from the tour.

The message of her solo trip to the continent was, she said, to show that: “We care - and we want to show the world we care”. It came months after her husband was reported to have described African nations as “shithole countries” when discussing immigration in the Oval Office.

Nevertheless, it appeared to be going well until she chose a pristine white pith helmet, which has come to symbolise white colonialist rule over the years, to top off her outfit on a guided safari in Nairobi National Park.

It was perhaps meant to be an homage to Out of Africa (1985), in which Meryl Streep plays an independent woman who takes over a farm in Kenya in the 1920s, says CNN.

“However,” says the broadcaster, “with the hat, Trump’s outfit might have tipped the scales, moving from a practical accessory dangerously close to costume territory evocative of colonialists.”

Widely used by European militaries in Africa and India, the hat choice was compared by historian Matt Carotenuto to turning up “on an Alabama cotton farm in a confederate uniform”.

The ‘suffragette tribute’

Earlier this year, with rumours of the president’s extramarital affairs dominating the press, Melania hit back in style after a month of self-imposed exile, by stealing the show at her husband’s first State of the Union address.

It was the first time she had been seen in public since the Washington Post broke news of an alleged affair between the president and a porn star, Stormy Daniels, in 2006, just a month after she had given birth to their son Barron.

Wearing a cream Christian Dior pantsuit, a white silk blouse from Dolce & Gabbana and Christian Louboutin shoes, The Guardian says her look “bore similarities to the outfits many Democratic women wore as a tribute to the suffragette movement during Donald Trump’s address to Congress in February 2017”.

There were also similarities to the all-white outfits Hillary Clinton wore at the Democratic National Convention and to Trump’s inauguration. The symbolism caused the New York Post to ask: “Is Melania trolling Trump?”

The pussy bow

One of Melania’s most talked-about fashion choices came at the height of the public furore around her husband’s 2005 comments about grabbing women by the genitals. In October 2016, a recording emerged of Trump boasting: “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy.”

His wife subsequently turned up at the second presidential debate wearing a bright fuschia Gucci blouse - topped off with a pussy bow.

The Daily Telegraph wondered if Melania might have a devilish sense of humour: “Mocking her husband, mocking his detractors, the silent smiling wife and potential First Lady… Is there more going on beneath that blow dry than perhaps we’d so far given her credit for?

“For this fashion desk at least, the debate had one clear winner: Mrs Trump’s blouse.”

The ‘veiled’ political statement

During a meeting with Pope Francis in May 2017, Melania dressed in all black with a veil covering her head.

Glamour says “the move was widely questioned since, days before, she had left her head uncovered during a meeting with the king of Saudi Arabia”.

In her first trip abroad as First Lady, she arrived in Saudi Arabia "dressed modestly" The Daily Telegraph says, but she opted not to wear a headscarf, as Saudi women are required by law to do.

Some Twitter users read Melania's decision as a political statement, counterpointing an image of the First Lady with her hair uncovered against photographs of two of her predecessors – Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton - apparently wearing scarves while visiting the country.

NBC points out the choice to cover up in one country and not the other “is a complicated one and is a matter of personal preference, diplomatic protocol, and religious dictates”.

Yet despite a relaxing of the Vatican’s strict rules in recent years, Melania stuck firmly to tradition.

“This could be because she is believed to be a Roman Catholic.” said the BBC at the time, a theory later confirmed by the first lady’s spokeswoman following her visit.

The ‘I don’t care’ jacket

In a questionable moment of sartorial judgement, Melania wore a jacket with “I really don't care, do u?” emblazoned on the back during her journey to visit a holding camp for child migrants on the US-Mexico border.

The wardrobe choice drew considerable comment, since the message appeared at odds with her mission.

Vox called it “a bizarre and insensitive choice both for the nature of the occasion and in a cultural moment where public outrage for Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ family separation policy is fervid and widespread”.

Manigault Newman had a different view. In her book, Unhinged, she wrote: “I believe Melania uses style to punish her husband. She wore that jacket to hurt Trump, setting off a controversy that he would have to fix, prolonging the conversation about the administration’s insensitivity, ruining the trip itself, and trying to make sure that no one asked her to do something like that again.”

A spokeswoman for Melania insisted “there was no hidden message” in her decision to wear the parka. However, President Trump rather undermined that claim by tweeting that the message on the coat was meant to signify Melania’s contempt for what he called the “Fake News Media”.

Diplomatic dressing

Melania has been described as one of the most important ambassadors for the Trump administration, and by extension the Trump brand.

However, her latest attempt to dress for the occasion on the president’s state visit to the UK was “more on the nose than off the cuff”, says the Washington Post’s Emily Heil.

As she boarded Air Force One on Sunday evening, she wore a £3,500 Gucci dress, whose very fabric “carried an overtly diplomatic message about the importance of our ‘special relationship’”, emblazoned as it was with images of Tower Bridge, the Big Ben clock tower and a double-decker bus, says the Washington Post’s Emily Heil.

Melania’s “approach to sartorially honouring her hosts during her visit to Britain has been about as subtle as Dick Van Dyke’s British accent in ‘Mary Poppins’,” Heil writes.

The first lady stepped off the plane in a “sleeveless Burberry blouse printed with trompe l’oeil military medals and nautical ropes in the red, white and blue of the union jack – and the stars and stripes”, says Jess Cartner-Morley in The Guardian.

This was followed by a white Dolce & Gabbana suit and matching hat, which sparked comparisons to Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady and Princess Diana. “Unmistakably British,” says Cartner-Morley.