Melania Trump just might be the only person allowed to leave the White House

last updated 18 January 2019

If you work for the White House and have any travel scheduled, you'd better hope your passport says "Melania Trump."

On Thursday afternoon, President Trump put the kibosh on a secret overseas trip House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) planned on taking to meet with troops in Afghanistan and NATO allies in Brussels. Just a few hours later, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement saying that another trip was off, as Trump canceled the U.S. delegation's jaunt to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum.

Sanders said the trip was canceled "out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed." Trump tweeted earlier this month that he was no longer going to take his "very important trip" to Davos, and the delegation would have been led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and Chris Liddell, deputy chief of staff for policy coordination, attending.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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