Melania Trump suggests she doesn't 'give a f--k about Christmas stuff and decorations' in secret recording

(Image credit: Screenshot/Twitter/CNN)

published 2 October 2020

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former friend and senior adviser to first lady Melania Trump, gave some of her covertly recorded phone conversations to CNN, and Anderson Cooper played excerpts on his show Thursday night.

The recordings include one, written about in Winston Wolkoff's new book, where Trump says the migrant children separated from their parents under her husband's policies are happy they have beds. But a new recording has the first lady using NSFW language to complain about people blaming her for child separation and other unpopular Trump policies, and having to decorate the White House for Christmas.

"They say I'm complicit. I'm the same like him, I support him, I don't say enough, I don't do enough where I am," Trump said in the July 2018 recording. "I'm working ... my ass off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a f--k about the Christmas stuff and decorations? But I need to do it, right? ... Okay, and then I do it and I say that I'm working on Christmas and planning for the Christmas and they said, 'Oh, what about the children that they were separated?' Give me a f---ing break."

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Trump's chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham, slammed Winston Wolkoff in a statement to CNN: "Secretly taping the first lady and willfully breaking an NDA to publish a salacious book is a clear attempt at relevance."

President Trump has made saying "Merry Christmas" a big part of his pitch to conservative Christian supporters. So some people trolled the first couple for Melania Trump's newly unveiled opinion about Christmas decorations. "As a Catholic, I resent when Donald Trump and his family mock Christians and look down on our faith," tweeted Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.). "We believe Christmas is the day Christ was born, and we are not 'hustlers' as Trump has called us. I urge the president and first lady to stop disrespecting Christians."

Others, like Obama White House alumnus Patrick Dillon, suggested Melania had a point. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.