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.

“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”.

Could robotic dogs help clear landmines? What can we learn from a new approach to urban renewal? And how much power rests with political spouses?

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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".

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."

From colonial-style hats to the now notorious “I really don't care” jacket, Melania Trump’s wardrobe was a talking point throughout her time in the White House.

And her fashion choices are back in the spotlight after the former first lady decided to auction off the white, wide-brimmed hat that she wore when she and Donald Trump hosted their first state visit at the presidential residence.

The hat was custom designed by French-American designer Herve Pierre for the South Lawn arrival ceremony for Emmanuel Macron in April 2018 and “garnered media attention worldwide”, said a press release from the Office of Melania Trump in January announcing the online auction.

The so-called Head of State Collection sale featured what was billed as “three important one-of-a-kind signed items”: the hat, a watercolour showing her wearing it by Paris-based artist Marc-Antoine Coulon, and “an exclusive digital artwork NFT with motion”.

‘Victim of the crash’

The auction began on 11 January and was intended to open with a minimum bid equivalent to $250,000 (£186,000). Bids “were only accepted in the cryptocurrency of the Solana blockchain called SOL, which was then trading at a price of about $170 per token”, The New York Times (NYT) reported.

But the former first lady’s “much-discussed” online sale became “a victim of the crash in the cryptocurrency market”, said the paper.

SOL had “enjoyed the title of ‘Ethereum Killer’ till a few weeks ago”, said The Economic Times, in a reference to the popular rival cryptocurrency. But along with many other digital currencies, SOL “has lost its mojo”.

When the auction closed early on Wednesday, each SOL was worth about $95.

Only a handful of bids appear to have been made, “each hovering around the required minimum bid of 1,800 Solana tokens”, said the NYT. The final listed bid was equivalent to around $170,000, “with the exact dollar value fluctuating along with the volatile crypto market”.

The “deflated results” are likely to disappoint Trump, “who could hold on to the Solana tokens and hope that their value increases”, the paper continued. But “the dip in value might continue, leaving her with an even smaller take”.

The former first lady “had promised that part of the proceeds – not all, but part – would go to help children in foster care learn something vague and unspecified about computers and technology”, wrote Robin Givhan at The Washington Post.

But Trump had not said “how much of the proceeds she will keep herself”, the NYT reported. NFT-backed cryptocurrency auctions have “become a magnet for celebrities” including Justin Bieber, Lindsay Lohan and Snoop Dogg, the paper added. Trump held another NFT auction, in December, at which virtual watercolours of her eyes titled Melania’s Vision sold for $150 each.

But “it remains unclear if the virtual currency system is reliable enough to build a profitable business”.

Break from tradition

The then first lady’s choice of the “striking” French-designed hat to meet the French president back in 2018 marked “one of the rare occasions for which Trump seemed to dress with diplomatic vision in mind”, said Robin Givhan at The Washington Post.

Critics argue that her decision to sell the hat was less well judged, however. An anonymous former White House staffer from the Trump era told CNN: “It’s unseemly. She is trying to build herself a nest-egg of cash built upon a role that the American people elected her husband for her to inhabit.”

Traditionally, “much of a first lady’s wardrobe” is cataloged and archived during her time in the White House, and later “given to a presidential library or a museum”, according to the broadcaster.

Though Trump has every right to sell items from her collection, “it is inconsistent with what other former first ladies have done”, said Mark Updegrove, head of the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation, a non-profit organisation that supports the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library.

Trump’s predessors generally donated “items to the National Archives and presidential libraries in the interest of preserving history and giving back to the American people”, Updegrove added.

CNN approached Trump’s office “numerous times” for clarification on how much of the hat sale proceeds would go to charity, but reportedly received no response.

An explosive new book by former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who famously held no official news briefings during her nine months in the role, has described a vengeful and defensive side to Melania Trump.

Grisham’s I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House is described by publisher HarperCollins as the “most frank and intimate portrait” of Donald Trump’s presidency yet. It’s the latest in a stream of memoirs by former Trump staffers – from ex-press secretary Sean Spicer to former national security adviser John Bolton – that have been published over the last couple of years.

As one of the longest-standing members of the Trump inner circle, Grisham – who served as Melania’s communications director and chief of staff, as well as press secretary – had unrivalled access to the first family during Trump’s four years in power. As one source told CNN, Grisham “knows things no one else has been told”.

One of the most revealing claims in Grisham’s tell-all book is her account of Melania’s reaction when reports of her husband’s infidelities surfaced, prompted by adult film actress Stormy Daniels’ allegations in 2018.

Grisham’s book claims the then first lady told her that she didn’t believe her husband’s denials and sought retaliation by finding ways “to omit her husband from photos and tweets”. She even made a point of irritating her husband by showing up to events on the arm of a handsome military aide, reported The New York Times, which had access to an advanced copy of the memoir.

Another revelation is what happened after Melania wore her notorious “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” Zara jacket for a visit to a camp for detained immigrant children in a Texas border town. According to Grisham, Trump asked his wife “What the hell were you thinking?” before instructing an aide to imply that she was referring to the media.

Melania’s refusal to comment publicly on the Capitol riots on 6 January this year was what Politico described as the “last straw” for long-term Trump loyalist Grisham, who resigned later that day. The book claims that at the time of the riots, Melania was at the White House preparing for a photoshoot of a rug she had selected.

According to Grisham, Melania and her husband did see eye to eye on at least one matter: the election being illegitimate. The book reveals that instead of asking Grisham to set up a traditional inauguration White House meeting with the incoming first lady Jill Biden, Melania instead told her that they should “see what the West Wing does”, reported Politico, which also had an advance copy of the book.

Described as “part giddy travelogue, part belated apologia, part petty payback, all personal-therapy session” by The New York Times, Grisham’s highly anticipated memoir, which will be published on 5 October, has been pre-emptively slammed by Melania’s team.

A statement by her office released to Politico dismisses I’ll Take Your Questions Now as Grisham’s “attempt to redeem herself after a poor performance as press secretary, failed personal relationships, and unprofessional behaviour in the White House”.

The statement added: “Through mistruth and betrayal, [Grisham] seeks to gain relevance and money at the expense of Mrs Trump.”

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.

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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

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Rafael Behr in The Guardian

on a loss of patience on the Conservative backbenches

The Tory party has been hollowed out and filled with Boris Johnson's vanity

“There is a warning in the condition of the US Republican party, which this week adopted a policy platform of explicit, blind allegiance to Donald Trump. Nothing else. Differences of culture and constitution diminish the comparison with American politics, yet there is a likeness in the way the Tories fell in thrall to a cult of incoherent nationalistic vandalism, called it renewal, and allowed their party to be hollowed out for use as a vessel to be filled with one man’s vanity. Last year Conservative MPs thought Johnson was their saviour. In time they may see him as a parasite. They aren’t at that stage yet, not while the party is just about ahead in opinion polls. If that changes, the unravelling could be fast and messy. The one Tory ethic that persists through every ideological mutation is the will to power. Johnson delivered it, thus earning the right to mould what it means to be Conservative in his own image. But it is a thing without substance, a brittle shell around a void. It only looks solid in the hands of a winner.”

2. Alice Thomson in The Times

on getting children back in the classroom

It’s adults who are the real school snowflakes

“It’s not children who are the snowflakes any more: they have been resilient and adaptable as they learn to cope with the dystopian Covid world that is discombobulating their vital early years. It’s adults who are having the meltdown... As a school governor I’ve seen the endless conflicting advice given to head teachers by the government, preventing parents from discovering what the new arrangements will entail. No wonder their WhatsApp groups are full of anxious concerns as they weigh up whether to buy new shoes for next week. Instead we should be sending all pupils back and promising their education will improve, that we have learnt from the virus, that there will be less of an obsession with exams and more emphasis on hobbies that they may have enjoyed during lockdown — sport, art, leisure activities — and more judicious use of online learning.”

3. Patrick O’Flynn in The Daily Telegraph

on heritage being progressively eroded away

We, the patriotic majority, must fight for the Empire against woke culture warriors

“Ladies and gentlemen, from this point on we must gather our courage and speak up in public, in mixed gatherings, online and everywhere else in defence of and even outright praise of the British Empire, risking the wrath of ‘cancel culture’ in the process. We must insist on a balanced account of its pluses and minuses, noting the gifts of the ideal of an impartial civil service and a robust, non-corrupt courts system that it bestowed on many countries, along with amazing wealth-generating infrastructure. We must point out that the Empire inspired genuine affinity among many of its subjects, such as to inspire them to lay down their lives when Britain stood against the unique evil of Nazi Germany. And we must say that the creation of the Commonwealth after the voluntary rolling back of the Empire was an inspired and humane way of Britain expressing its sense of ongoing sense of obligation towards former colonies and they, in return, expressing their complex and abiding bond with us.”

4. Tom Peck in The Independent

on another strange night at the Republican National Convention

Melania Trump really did just say America deserves ‘complete honesty’ from its president

“Giving her first speech in four years, the keynote address at the second night of an ever more unhinged Republican National Convention, she did her best to stick to her one true guiding principle of complete moral invisibility, but circumstances rendered the task impossible. Ultimately, the potential re-election of Donald Trump in three months’ time rests on the bullshit-swallowing capacity of the American people, and it’s best to understand the still early stages of the race as a kind of test run. Here really was Melania Trump, standing in the White House Rose Garden, reading from a teleprompter, offering solidarity with the fears of mothers all across America about what social media is doing to their children. She said these words as part of her own central role in the presidential election campaign of the world’s leading online troll, whose own accounts have had to be censored and moderated on account of their containing flagrant lies and mad conspiracy theories. She really did do her level best to look America in the eye and tell them that they ‘deserve complete honesty from their President.’”

5. Frank Bruni in The New York Times

on lies and conspiracy in Trump’s re-election pitch

The Epic Shamelessness of the Republican Convention

“Conventions lie. Or at least they tell extravagant fibs. That’s how they transform their nominees from mere mortals to near messiahs. That’s how they whip up the faithful and woo the agnostics. But the Republican convention is going well beyond that. It’s less a feat of pretty storytelling than an act of pure derangement. To turn Donald Trump into a president worthy of a second term, speakers are conjuring an entirely different person in his place. I can tell that Trump is the man they’re talking about, because he keeps popping up amid all the monumental imagery. (Did Leni Riefenstahl consult via séance?) But I otherwise don’t recognize their version of Trump. Their Trump brims with empathy. Their Trump burns with passion to improve the lives of ordinary Americans. Their Trump heroically spared the country from the worst ravages of Covid-19, which is surely news to the relatives and friends of more than 175,000 Americans (and counting) who have died from it.”

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.

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.

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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.

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

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

First Lady Melania Trump has unveiled the White House’s Christmas decorations - to mixed reviews.

This year’s festive theme, American Treasures, pays tribute to the nation’s heritage and feature more than 14,000 red ornaments hanging from 29 trees, some of them blood red. There are also gingerbread versions of monuments including the Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol building and, of course, the White House.

“This is a joyous time of year when we decorate the White House for the Christmas Season,” the first lady said in a statement.

“Our theme honours the heart and spirit of the American people. Thank you to the many volunteers and staff who worked hard to decorate the halls of the People’s House in Christmas cheer. On behalf of my family, we wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.”

The White House will hold 100 “open house days”, during which more than 30,000 visitors will tour the decorative rooms and hallways.

But not everyone is taken with the display. The “towering blood-red cones” are a “macabre take on ‘trees’ that taints what might have been a bounty of winter fruit with the flavor of death”, says Slate.

Doubts were also cast on last year’s White House Christmas decorations, which followed the theme of Time-Honoured Traditions, adds the AOL news site. But Twitter users are giving the latest offering even shorter shrift, comparing it to everything from ground meat to scenes from The Handmaid’s Tale.

Click on the gallery above to see what you think.

Melania Trump has taken the extraordinary step of publicly demanding the firing of a senior White House official, following a reported argument during the first lady’s recent trip to Africa.

Deputy National Security Advisor Mira Ricardel (pictured above) is being given time to “clean out her desk”, following a statement released by Melania Trump’s communications director Stephanie Grisham, according to CNN.

Ricardel and the first lady reportedly “feuded” over seating arrangements on the plane used to take Melania Trump to Africa last month.

“It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that (Ricardel) no longer deserves the honour of serving in this White House,” the statement from the East Wing reads.

News of Ricardel’s imminent removal comes amid a flurry of rumours that other senior officials will join former attorney general Jeff Sessions on the list of people who used to work for the Trump administration.

Donald Trump is reportedly considering firing Homeland Security secretaty Kirstjen Nielsen, despite knowing that her dismissal may result in White House chief of staff John Kelly’s resignation, the Wall Street Journal says.

Melania Trump opens up about her time in the White House in a rare solo interview to be screened later this week.

The ABC interview, Being Melania - The First Lady, was filmed during the her recent trip to Africa and is to air on Friday evening.

According to the Daily Mail, “no question was off the table”, with topics ranging from the state of her marriage and her husband’s infidelity to her views on the #MeToo movement. The former model is also asked about her now-infamous decision to wear a jacket with the message, “I Really Don’t Care Do You?”, printed on the back during a visit to an immigrant detention centre.

The London Evening Standard says “hype around the interview is building as the channel prepares to air the frank conversation on Friday only hinting at how Mrs Trump is to open up to viewers”.

It has been over a year since she gave an interview with a major US network, with almost all her appearances on TV taking place by her husband’s side.

The ABC interview is expected to be far more extensive than the one Melania gave to Ainsley Earhardt, host of US morning show Fox & Friends, in June last year, when she answered just four questions about living in the White House and how her son, Barron, had handled the move.

During her visit to Egypt last week, Melania did respond to reporters’ questions about the recent sexual assault allegations about now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

She said: “I’m glad Dr [Christine] Ford was heard. FBI investigation was done, is completed, and Senate voted.” However, she refused to respond when asked: “Did you believe Christine Ford?”

The ABC interview is also set to touch on subjects that would normally be off limits to a first lady.

In a preview, chief national affairs correspondent Tom Llamas is seen saying: “You did agree to this interview, to your credit, with no preconditions. Knowing that there could be some tough questions asked.”

Llamas asks Melania whether women in the #MeToo movement “can call you a supporter”.

Discussing her relationship with the president, he says: “You’re not the first first lady to have to deal with your husband’s infidelities - has this put a strain on your marriage?”

The preview ends with him asking about “the jacket,” and what the first lady considers to be the biggest misconception about her.

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.

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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

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 will visit a British school on Friday to talk about the dangers of cyberbullying as part of her Be Best campaign.

The US president and first lady touch down in the UK this evening for a four-day visit that will include meeting the Queen at Windsor, a black-tie dinner with the prime minister at Chequers, a military parade at Blenheim Palace and a round of golf in Scotland.

Melania will accompany her husband for most of the week-long European trip, which began in Brussels at the Nato summit and ends in Helsinki where he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, but she will have her own solo events and agenda.

“She's looking forward to representing the United States, and also exchanging ideas around issues facing children with her counterparts,” said Stephanie Grisham, the first lady's communication director.

What is the Be Best campaign?

Launched in May, the first lady’s “Be Best” campaign is designed to teach children about “the importance of social, emotional, and physical health”.

The drive urges children to use social media in a “positive” way and warns about the dangers of opioid addiction.

“As a mother and as first lady, it concerns me that in today’s fast-paced and ever-connected world, children can be less prepared to express or manage their emotions and oftentimes turn to forms of destructive or addictive behaviour such as bullying, drug addiction or even suicide,” she said during a White House briefing to launch the three-pronged programme.

“I believe our responsibility lies in the critical time before a child reaches adulthood.”

Following the announcement, spectators were quick to critique the campaign slogan’s grammar, with President Trump reportedly laughing off queries about whether it was grammatically correct, says Newsweek.

On previous trips abroad, Melania has focused predominantly on children, “her main area of interest”, says the Daily Mail.

She tends to focus on children's hospitals, having spent time with sick children on five of her last foreign trips, although she also visited schools during her trip to Japan and China last year.

Where will she visit?

Details haven't been released on what school she will visit. Last month The Daily Telegraph said an event in London had been ruled out “amid fears it could become a focal point for protesters voicing their opposition to Donald Trump”.

The paper said British figures involved in the planning were “keen to avoid a repeat of the Hamburg G20 gathering last year, when Melania was unable to leave her hotel due to protests”.

However, reports in the Daily Mail suggest that, while the president is likely to avoid the worst of the protests, as he'll be having meetings and events in the countryside, “the first lady will be in the capital city in the centre of the storm”.

It is likely press will only be notified of the location at the last minute to avoid a clash with protesters but UK officials say the final decision is up to the first lady’s team of advisers.

If the visit does go ahead, Melania will be mimicking another first lady's visit to London. Michelle Obama's stopped at a London girls' school in April 2009 in one of her first solo events abroad as first lady.

What else is on Melania's UK itinerary?

As well as their joint engagements and her individual trip to a British school, the Mail says Melania will also meet with army veterans.

While her husband meets May, Melania will have her own meeting with the prime minister’s husband, Philip May, who has apparently bought a new suit for the occasion.

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!”

Even before her husband’s election in November 2016, Melania Trump has never been the kind of political spouse to seek the public spotlight.

The 48-year-old has made a name for herself as “one of the most independent first ladies in recent history,” says CNN, often “separating herself from her husband's travel plans, outings, rallies and, on more than one occasion, motorcades”.

However, her recent absence has been astonishing even by her own low-profile standards.

Melania has not been seen in public for more than three weeks - highly unusual for a modern first lady, whose role typically comes with a busy schedule of personal appearances at charitable, social and diplomatic functions.

Her last public appearance was on 10 May, when she joined her husband to greet three American hostages released from captivity in North Korea.

Aside from five days in hospital for surgery to treat a “benign kidney condition”, little is known about her whereabouts since then.

For comparison, Hillary Clinton’s calendar from her time as first lady shows only two days without a public engagement in June 2000.

The reason for Melania’s prolonged absence from the public eye has been the subject of speculation, with theories ranging from the plausible to the outlandish.

Politico summarises some of the more creative theories circulating online: “She’s left the White House and moved back to New York City. She’s cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller. She’s holed up with the Obamas, working on a tell-all book about her husband - unless she had a secret nip and tuck, in which case she’s just healing.”

Melania’s only public communication during this time has come via six tweets. The most recent, sent on 30 May, addressed the mounting interest in her absence - but the unusual style of the message inflamed rather than cooled the speculation.

The First Lady spoke of the media “working overtime” and herself “working overtime on behalf of the American people”, before signing off with an exclamation mark - all trademarks of her husband’s idiosyncratic Twitter style, HuffPost notes.

Donald’s own attempt to quell the chatter also backfired. Asked how his wife was doing, a week after her return to the White House, he pointed towards what appeared to be an empty window, saying: “She’s doing great... She’s doing great. Just looking at us, right there.”

Melania’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, has dismissed the rumours as “silly nonsense”, while the official line maintains that the First Lady is hard at work behind the scenes working for good causes.

Whatever the reason for her lengthy seclusion, those starting to suspect that the First Lady has disappeared altogether will at least have their concerns put to rest.

A White House spokeswoman has confirmed that Melania will accompany her husband to a reception for families of deceased service personnel today, ending her 24-day purdah.

However, don’t expect the speculation over her low profile to die down anytime soon: it has also been revealed that she will not attend the G7 leaders’ summit in Quebec on Friday, nor the president’s high-stakes talks with Kim Jong Un in Singapore later this month.

Trump’s

’s

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House

Melania Trump has unveiled her decorations for the Trump family’s first Christmas in the White House, eliciting praise - and some hilarity.

Her theme of “Time-Honored Traditions” is intended to pay homage to “200 years of holiday traditions”, says HouseBeautiful. As well as a traditional Nativity Scene, she has deployed more than 1,000ft of garland on staircases, a 18ft 6in Christmas tree with ornaments representing each US state and territory in the Blue Room, a Christmas tree made of books in the library and a hallway of winter trees.

When Trump began her tour of the White House decorations, says the Daily Mail, “she was greeted by three ballerinas performing to the Nutcracker Suite, which was the first White House Christmas theme”.

Wearing a white Christian Dior dress with gold accessories, she was surrounded by visiting children from the nearby Joint Base Andrews military facility. One boy said, “She's beautiful, like an angel!”

But when Stephanie Grisham, Trump’s director of communications, posted pictures of the decorations on Twitter, the reaction was not universally adoring.

Some believed the hallway decorations would make a better backdrop for a horror film.

Official photographs prompted a more positive reaction:

Melania Trump attended to “every detail” of the decorations, which took 150 volunteers 1,600 hours to prepare, says RT.

Her husband, meanwhile, today denounced a quote from a friend of his wife, who had told Vanity Fair that Melania did not want to be first lady.

“As a magazine tailored to women it is shameful that they continue to write salacious and false stories meant to demean Mrs Trump,” a Trump spokesman told CNN, “rather than focus on her positive work as first lady as a supportive wife and mother.”

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump spoke to reporters on the White House lawn to defend his administration’s response to the emergency in Puerto Rico.

With wife Melania hovering wordlessly by his side, Trump insisted his government had done a “great job” at providing hurricane relief.

The clip passed mostly under the radar until last night, when some tweeters noticed that there was something a little bit… off about the First Lady.

In the traditional “incognito” uniform of buff overcoat and dark glasses, Melania’s conspicuously inconspicuous demeanour raised a few questions - namely, was there something the White House isn't telling us?

Thus began a frenzied, if (mostly) tongue-in-cheek investigation into the rapidly developing conspiracy theory:

The suspicion was compounded by the fact that the President used some very unusual language to refer to Melania.

Considering that multiple clips of Donald and Melania’s supposedly frosty interactions have already gone viral, some wondered if we were seeing evidence that the First Couple had finally reached a tipping point:

Thankfully, reason prevailed - courtesy of Larry the Cat, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office:

Myth-debunking website Snopes took the opportunity to look into the unusual case, and ruled that conspiracy theorists pedalling the rumour of a fake Melania “purposely used a blurry (and possibly distorted) video of Melania Trump in order to make this claim seem more plausible”.

Originally, when the rumour had first circulated online, it was accompanied by a video, captured by a Twitter user filming their own television screen with what appears to be a smartphone camera.

The site points out that, when watching the actual raw footage of Trump's statement, available on CNN's website, the distortions of Melania's facial features and overall shape are absent, and she looks normal. As Snopes puts it: “This not evidence of a body double. It’s evidence of a poorly working television.”

Adding insult to injury, the site then doubles down by pointing to Getty Images and the Associated Press, both of which have plenty of photos of the Trumps at the same event as the CNN footage was filmed, which appear to confirm that it is her and not a body double.

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."

Ivana Trump, the first wife of former US president Donald Trump, has died aged 73 at her home in Manhattan.

The Czech-born businesswoman married Trump in 1977 and was the mother of his three eldest children, Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric. The couple divorced in 1992 in a multimillion-dollar settlement that attracted huge tabloid attention.

“She was a wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life,” Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social. “Her pride and joy were her three children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric. She was so proud of them, as we were all so proud of her.”

Reports suggest that the cause of Ivana’s death may be accidental. Two people familiar with the situation told The Associated Press that she “was found unconscious near a staircase in the home” and police are investigating whether she fell down the stairs. “The medical examiner’s office will determine an official cause of death,” added the news agency.

Early life

Ivana Trump, nee Zelnickova, was born on 20 February 1949 in Zlin, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) and attended the prestigious Charles University in Prague.

She was an avid skiing enthusiast, partaking in the sport from an early age. Numerous reports said Ivana was competitive and part of at least one Czech Olympic skiing team, although the Czechoslovakian Olympic Committee denied these claims in 1989.

The high-profile marriage

After a brief failed marriage to a real estate agent, Ivana moved to Canada, became a model and met Trump while in New York. They married in 1977 and became one of the city’s most high-profile couples. Ivana was credited with coining his nickname, “The Donald”.

Ivana and Trump also forged a working partnership, with her status as a model and socialite no obstacle to her being hands-on in the business. A Vanity Fair article from 1990 said: “Ivana had been given the responsibility of supervising all the decoration [in Trump’s hotels]; she was hard at it, despite the fact that she was wearing a white wool Thierry Mugler jumpsuit and pale Dior shoes as she picked her way through the sawdust.”

Post-Donald

Ivana’s life didn’t slow down after her relationship ended with Trump – a split fuelled by his affair with Marla Maples, who became his second wife.

She wrote advice columns, launched her own lifestyle magazine and even had a cameo in the 1996 comedy-romance film The First Wives Club, where she had the line: “Ladies you have to be strong and independent. And remember: don’t get mad, get everything.”

In the late 1990s, she bought a large share in Croatia’s second-largest daily newspaper, wrote novels and set up her own fashion, beauty and jewellery lines. In 2010, she took part in the seventh series of Celebrity Big Brother in the UK, alongside Alex Reid and Dane Bowers.

After Trump, Ivana had two more marriages and two more divorces, to Italian businessman Riccardo Mazzucchelli and Italian model Rossano Rubicondi.

The Pizza Hut advert

Ivana had another strange claim to fame: she and the former president introduced the world to Pizza Hut’s stuffed crust pizza.

In 1995, the divorcees appeared in an advert for the fast food chain. “Do you really think this is the right thing for us? It’s wrong, isn’t it?” asked Trump. “But it feels so right,” responded Ivana.

“Viewers must have thought they were about to see the beginning of a torrid affair, the reigniting of a tabloid marriage,” said Adweek in 2016. ”But no, the couple proceeds to pop open a Pizza Hut box and dig into a stuffed-crust pizza. (Part of the joke – now lost in the fog of branding’s past – was that stuffed crust encouraged consumers to eat pizza the ‘wrong way’, meaning crust first.)”

They even cracked a divorce gag, with Trump telling his ex-wife that she was only “entitled to half” of the last slice.

“Whether it was the cheesy TV spot or just the cheese-stuffed crust, the ad was a smash hit,” said Adweek, helping push the chain’s sales up by $300m by the end of the year.

No regrets

In 1987, when Trump was asked about running for public office and Ivana about being a prospective first lady, she told the Palm Beach Post: “I wouldn’t like it. I treasure the family privacy too much.”

But when questioned whether her husband could become president, she added: “I never say never. He is 41 now. Who can say in ten years what he will do?”

By 2016, she seemed confident that he would become US president. Asked if she was also going to vote for her ex-husband, she told reporters: “Yes, of course I’m going to vote for him. He’s going to run the country as a business. He’s going to negotiate and he knows how to make decisions.”

In 2018, she made headlines for saying that Trump should only remain in the White House for one term. “He has a good life and he has everything. Donald is going to be 74, 73 for the next [election] and maybe he should just go and play golf and enjoy his fortune,” she told the New York Post.

Jet-setting life

More recently, Ivana spent time travelling between Miami, New York and the south of France, and she enjoyed being “Ivana-ma” and “Glam-ma” to her nine grandchildren.

“I’m not dating,” she told the New York Post in 2018. “I have companions. They’re based all around the world.”

She said she spoke to Trump once a month and he even offered her the role of US ambassador to the Czech Republic, but she turned him down as it would interfere with her jet-setting lifestyle.

“My ex said, ‘Ivana, if you want it, I give it to you,’” she said. “It’s four years in Prague, so bye-bye to Miami, bye-bye to New York in spring and fall, bye-bye to Saint-Tropez in summer.”

Spilling the beans

In October 2017, Ivana published a book focusing on her three children with the then president: Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric.

Raising Trump also reflected on her childhood in Czechoslovakia, her escape from the communist regime, her whirlwind romance in New York and her career in business.

Ivana said she was sharing “unfiltered personal stories about Don, Eric and Ivanka from their early childhood to becoming the ‘first sons and daughter’”.

Her book made it “inadvertently clear” why Ivana and Trump once “got along so well”, said Slate’s review. “Together, we made three children who have the best of both of us,” she wrote. “And, as I’ve always said, if you can’t be the best, don’t bother.”

As Obama delivered a tearful farewell address following the most remarkable election in US political history, the world is beginning to prepare for Donald Trump's presidency.

But it won't be just him making the big move into the White House, he will be accompanied by wife Melania, so what can we expect from the soon-to-be first lady?

Melania Trump – nee Melanija Knavs – was born in the town of Novo Mesto in Yugoslavia (now modern-day Slovenia), making her the second foreign-born first lady after London-born Louisa Adams, John Quincy Adams's wife.

Despite being second in that list, she takes first place on a number of others: she will be the first non-native English speaker, the first third wife of a president and the first to be fluent in five languages.

Another unusual first is that she will become the only first lady to have posed nude. Three years before she met her husband, Melania was photographed naked by Ale de Basseville for a French men's monthly magazine. The "bombshell" photo set was uncovered during the presidential campaign by the New York Post, but didn't seem to have any effect on the outcome of the election.

As for her character, Jean Wahl Harris, who studies the role of the first lady at the University of Scranton, tells USA Today Melania is probably going to take on a role similar to that of Jackie Kennedy, rather than Michelle Obama. "In terms of the evolution of the first lady, I see her moving us back to the more traditional role," says Wahl Harris. "She's not going to want to be in the public eye. Jackie Kennedy wanted to protect her children and herself."

However, Melania may face an uphill struggle, with polling website Gallup suggesting in July that her favourability rating "makes her among the least well-known and least well-liked" of all potential first ladies it has measured over the years.

Later in July, she made a rare foray into the spotlight to campaign for her husband's presidential bid, but faced a backlash when her speech at the Republican National Convention was later revealed to have been mostly copied from a similar address given by Michelle Obama.

The Sydney Morning Herald says "subsequent interviewers failed to press her on the gaffe" before she returned to the campaign trail to announce that "ending online abuse" would be her first assignment as first lady.

"I see now in 21st century, the social media, it's very damaging for the children," she said in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper. "We need to guide them and teach them about social media because I see a lot of negativity on it and we need to help them."

Some noted the irony of Melania's commitment to protecting children from abuse on social media, given her husband's track record of attacking his political enemies online.

Again, she faced criticism from high-profile celebrities, including singer Lady Gaga.

When Cooper asked whether there was anything she would like to change about her husband, Melania replied: "His tweeting."

But after being married to the businessman for more than a decade, she "knows what to expect from her spouse," the Daily Telegraph says.

Asked about her husband's controversial statements about women that were released midway through the campaign and temporarily threatened to derail his presidential bid, she said: "People talk about me like, 'Oh, Melania, oh poor Melania.' People don't really know me. I'm very strong. I can handle everything. Don't feel sorry for me."

Melania has hinted she is unlikely to be as politically active as Michelle Obama was during her time as first lady, telling GQ Magazine: "I chose not to go into politics and policy... Those policies are my husband's job."

Despite her desire to take a back-seat role, Melania has already come under fire for announcing she intends to stay in New York next year rather than move with her husband to the White House in Washington DC. More than 100,000 New Yorkers have signed a petition demanding the former model leave the city, given keeping her secure there will reportedly cost city taxpayers $1m (£870,000) per day.

Before her husband is inaugurated, Melania may be able to profit from the guidance of the current First Lady, whom she met when she visited the White House last month. Obama has enjoyed massive popularity throughout her husband's presidency and is now tipped by some to be a prospective presidential candidate in her own right.

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.

Melania Trump, the wife of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, has filed a £114m lawsuit against the Daily Mail and an American blogger over allegations she was a sex worker in the 1990s.

"These defendants 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 article, which appeared in the Daily Mail and online, said Melania Trump "may have worked as a part-time escort in New York" and that she had "met husband Donald Trump… earlier than previously reported", the BBC says.

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.

In a blog post, which has since been removed, blogger Webster Tarpley claimed "it is widely known Melania was not a working model but rather a high-end escort", reports The Guardian.

Tarpley has since issued a retraction of the allegations, saying that writers for the site were "not diligent in fact-checking or maintaining a healthy distance between innuendo and fact".

What can we expect from Melania Trump's press conference?

12 August

Donald Trump's wife, Melania, will hold a news conference "over the next couple of weeks" to address questions over her immigration status, the US presidential candidate has promised.

"They said my wife, Melania, might have come in illegally. Can you believe that one?" he told supporters at a rally in North Carolina earlier this week.

"Let me tell you one thing - she has got it so documented so she's going to have a little news conference over the next couple of weeks," he added. "That's good. I love it. I love it."

The potential first lady's path to US citizenship hit the headlines after the New York Post published nude photos of her taken in 1995, "raising questions about whether the former model had obtained the appropriate visa to work as a model in the United States", CNN says.

Trump's wife told the broadcaster earlier this year that she had arrived in the US in 1996, one year after the images were taken. She "obeyed the law" during that time and "flew to Slovenia every few months to stamp" her visa, she added.

However, "while tourist visas need to be renewed periodically, the visa Melania Trump would have needed to work legally in the US as a model would not have needed to be renewed for at least three years," CNN says.

Neither Trump, who deny the allegations, has offered any hint at what will be said in the press conference, nor has a date for it been set.

The controversy threatens to undermine the Republican's key policies. Trump has put immigration at the heart of his presidential campaign, promising to stop Muslims from entering the country and to build a wall between the US and Mexico.

"So whilst the Trump campaign encourages its supporters to deport the undocumented and build that wall to keep them out it seems his own wife's papers may be causing his troubled campaign some sleepless nights," says Irish Central.

The site points to numerous examples of the Slovenian demonstrating "an ambiguous relationship with the truth" and says the Trumps should make her immigration documents public to prove they have nothing to hide.

"If it takes weeks instead of hours for a presidential campaign to respond to a simple question, something's up," it says. "It's an old rule of Washington, the longer you wait the more they're probably hiding."

Melania Trump: Questions over model's green card

8 August

Questions are being asked about Slovenian model Melania Trump's path to US citizenship after an attorney claimed he received her green card application "based on marriage" in 2001 – four years before her wedding to the Republican presidential nominee Donald.

In 2005, Trump, who worked as a model in Paris and Milan before arriving in the US on a working visa, told chat show host Larry King she had never been married prior to meeting the New York businessman.

But according to news website Univision, immigration attorney Michael Wildes, who worked for The Trump Organization, alleges she was married before.

Wildes said that Melania "obtained a green card four years earlier in 2001, 'based on marriage,'" Univision's investigative unit says.He told the site: "Ms Trump received citizenship in 2006 and prior to that she had a green card based on marriage.

"Before that, she had a work visa and was in full compliance on her visas and never disrespected any of them. That has been made clear to me."

The site adds: "When asked to explain the marriage discrepancy, Wildes said he would seek clarification presumably from the Trump Organization. He later sent an email saying 'I didn't hear back, sorry.'"

A spokesperson for Trump denied the report, telling the Daily Mail: "Contrary to inaccurate reports today, Melania was not married prior to her marriage to Mr Trump in 2005. She obtained a green card on her own."

During his time with The Trump Organization, Wildes acted "on behalf of Trump models". He was also responsible for acquiring the appropriate legal paperwork for the Miss Universe models when the company owned the pageant.

Trump's journey to becoming a US citizen has been subjected to considerable media scrutiny following her husband's campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigrants

The businessmen's supporters "regularly chant 'build the wall' at his rallies, referring to his plan to block Mexicans without proper documentation along the southern US border", the Daily Mail reports.

Melania: Did Donald Trump leak wife's nude photos?

3 August

Were the photos of a naked Melania Trump leaked by her husband? Gossip website Gawker has speculated that "The Donald" encouraged the release of the photos to deflect the controversy over his comments to the family of a US Muslim war hero.

To support the theory, Brendan O'Connor points to the unruffled response of Trump's camp to the story. He also raises questions over the manner in which they emerged.

"If they've been around since 1995, why are these just coming out now?" he asks. "And why in a paper owned by conservative powerbroker Rupert Murdoch?"

Other commentators have asked why the prospective first lady has not been given a rougher ride by the media. Rajiv Menon, a cultural analyst for TruthCo, told The Wrap this was because "she just doesn't fit into the mould of what other first lady candidates have shown in the past".

Jack Pitney, a professor of US politics at Claremont McKenna College in California, agrees. "She's the trophy wife of a billionaire, a former model, so she doesn't have to meet high expectations in a way that a Harvard educated lawyer like Michelle Obama does," he says.

However, Pitney believes there is a little more to it and that Trump's wife also benefits from the fact that her husband "is a black hole that consumes all criticism within the vicinity".

However, even commentators who oppose the Trumps have called for people to avoid criticising the former model. Michael Arceneaux says the photos were leaked in the New York Post, a paper that is "right-leaning, routinely racist, consistently sexist, and typically terrible".

The outrage seeks to "play off archaic ideas of nudity and sexuality and perpetuate elitist ideas of what kind of woman should be first lady", he adds.

US election 2016: Melania's naked photos 'will win gay vote for Donald Trump'

2 August

Naked photographs of Donald Trump's wife, Melania, may help him win the LGBTQ and single white male vote, according to a right-wing US commentator.

The photos, published by the New York Post, were taken for a for a French men's monthly magazine three years before Melania met her husband and show her posing nude alongside Scandinavian model Emma Ericsson.

Speaking yesterday, prominent US talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who has a long history of colourful views on race, feminism and the environment, said the "nude girl-on-girl photos" would help Trump attract votes in the race for the White House.

"I think this probably might wrap up the LGBTQ vote for Trump," he said. "And the single, white male vote, particularly the some or no-college-educated white male vote."

He continued: "I mean, isn't this kind of stuff that makes people big stars today on Twitter and Facebook, TMZ? I mean, this is just the Kardashians in a sense of the subject type stuff. I mean, it’s relatable."

Trump himself said: "In Europe, pictures like this are very fashionable and common."

Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, told CNN: "These were photos that are 20 years old, before Mrs Trump met Mr Trump. They’re a celebration of the human body as art."

This is the second time the 46-year-old wife of the Republican candidate has hit the headlines in recent weeks. Last month, she was accused of plagiarising her speech at the Republican National Convention from an address made by First Lady Michelle Obama in 2008.

Over the course of the election season, anti-Trump groups have attempted to weaken Donald Trump's base by going after his wife, Melania. During Utah's primaries in March, for example, the conservative super PAC Make America Awesome published a nude photo of the Slovenian model with the text, "Meet Melania Trump. Your next first lady. Or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday."

Although the New York Post endorsed Trump in April, the tabloid on Monday continued the trend of "shaming" Melania Trump by publishing her "lesbian-themed pics … from a two-day photo shoot in 1995." The pictures, many of which depict Melania Trump nude, were printed alongside a familiar line: "Here's the nation's would-be first lady."

The pictures were originally taken for the now-defunct French men's magazine Max Magazine, and were defended by their photographer, Jarl Ale de Basseville. "This is beauty and not porn," he said, adding, "I think it is important to show the beauty and freedom of the woman, and I am very proud of these pictures because they celebrate Melania's beauty."

When reached for comment by the Post, Trump also defended his wife. "Melania was one of the most successful models, and she did many photo shoots, including for covers and major magazines. This was a picture taken for a European magazine prior to my knowing Melania. In Europe, pictures like this are very fashionable and common," he said.

Along with an entourage of security personnel, advisers and officials said to number around 1,000, Donald Trump has been accompanied on his three-day state visit to the UK by his family.

The most high-profile of his five children is his daughter Ivanka, who as well as having had a senior role running his business empire is now a top White House adviser along with her husband, Jared Kushner.

Together they form one of Washington’s most powerful couples, with many seeing Trump’s favourite child as the real “First Lady” of the United States.

The president has previously been scrutinised for having an “unusually close” relationship with his daughter, regularly complimenting her appearance and intelligence, Newsweek says.

So what else do we know about her?

Exclusive upbringing

Ivanka was born in New York in 1981, the only daughter from Donald Trump’s first marriage to Czech athlete and model Ivana Trump (nee Zelnickova). She spent her early years among the Manhattan elite studying first at the Chaplin School, whose former alumnae include Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and then moving to Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut, where JFK himself studied. Her ability to master many an exclusive social circle has given her an “urbane self-assurance that her father never mastered”, says Politico.

Like father, unlike daughter

In the Trump family business, Donald gave Ivanka a “level of authority none of his wives, or for that matter executives, have ever had”, says The New York Times. She handled some of the Trump Organization’s biggest deals and along with her elder two brothers, Donald Jr and Eric, has often preached fiscal conservatism in direct contrast to her father’s bellicosity.

‘Proxy wife’

Throughout her father’s presidential campaign, Ivanka found herself being used more and more to get across Trump’s political message. A profile in Vanity Fair described her as a “proxy wife”, saying this was in part due to Donald’s current wife, Melania, not being a “conventional campaign spouse”.

“The Trump campaign appears more comfortable using the candidate’s daughter to spread his message than his wife,” the magazine said.

Quartz suggested Ivanka would serve as Donald’s “actual first lady”.

Conversion to Judaism

Ivanka was raised Presbyterian but converted to Judaism in 2009, to marry husband Jared Kushner. The couple have three children: Arabella Rose, Joseph Frederick and Theodore James.

She told Vogue in the run-up to the election that the family are kosher and observe the Sabbath, turning off their phones to enjoy time together. “We don’t do anything except play with each other, hang out with one another, go on walks together - pure family,” she said. Ivanka described herself as a “very modern”, but also “a very traditional person”, adding that her conversion was “a great life decision”.

Ivanka rarely discusses her religion, calling it a “personal thing”, but her father invoked it several times during his campaign to assure voters he was pro-Israel. “I have tremendous love for Israel,” he said. “I happen to have a son-in-law and a daughter that are Jewish, OK, and two grandchildren that are Jewish”.

She has written two books

Ivanka published her first book, The Trump Card, in 2009. The self-help tome is aimed at working women - but the average reader would be forgiven for giving up after the first few sentences “to preserve her sanity”, writes Jia Tolentino in the New Yorker.

In it, Tolentino continues, a woman “born with a silver spoon in her mouth” offers life-coaching to “people who use plastic forks to eat salad at their desks”.

Ivanka also displays massive “cognitive dissonance” in asserting that her birth played no part in her success and wealth, says the critic.

Ivanka’s second outing, Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success, hit the shelves in 2017 and focuses on her career advice and “best practices”.

It is very much a spiritual successor to The Trump Card - and received even more brutally scathing reviews.

She is a White House adviser

After initially suggesting she would not take an official role in the White House, Ivanka was appointed to an official government post, joining her husband as an adviser to her father.

At the time, the New York Times said Ivanka’s role “amounts to the formal recognition of the value Mr Trump places on the judgement and loyalty of both his daughter and his son-in-law”. However, the paper added, while past presidents have called on family members to provide unofficial counsel and advice, “giving them a formal role has few precedents”.

Ivanka stepped down from management and operations of the Trump Organization to comply with ethics regulations once her father became president. She also quit her eponymous fashion brand.

The couple have also made “substantial divestments” from some of their holdings, People says.

However, ethics experts have criticised the appointment, arguing it allows her to avoid financial disclosure rules.

“This arrangement appears designed to allow Ms Trump to avoid the ethics, conflict-of-interest and other rules that apply to White House employees,” Norman Eisen and Richard Painter, ethics lawyers for former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, respectively, wrote in a letter to the White House counsel.

Eisen added that the decision to appoint a nuclear family member to such a position was “a lot of nepotism”.

Yet half way through her father’s first term, “Ivanka Trump remains as much of a mystery as ever”, says The Atlantic.

At first seen as a moderating force in a White House full of hawks, she seems to have done little to temper her father’s most impulsive instincts, be it withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, the ongoing trade war with China or the controversial immigrant ban.

“Ivanka is a mystery, less powerful than she seemed at first, but still firmly wedged in there at the very center of whatever is going on in our strange, unpredictable, and increasingly dangerous White House,” says the Atlantic.

She’s into art... bigly

Ivanka’s apartment, which stars in many of her thousands of Instagram posts, “seems to telegraph contemporary good taste”, says Bloomberg.

But while the furnishings may project an air of low-key affluence, the art that adorns the walls does not.

In one image on Instagram, Ivanka “shimmies” in front of a Dan Colen “chewing gum” painting - a comparable work by the artist sold for $578,500 at Phillips New York in 2012.

Another post, taken from a Harper’s Bazaar shoot, shows her posing in front of a piece by Alex Israel, whose pieces also raise similar amounts at auction, adds Bloomberg.

However, not every artist is happy with the coverage. “I think there are a lot of artists that are uncomfortable now being incorporated, or leveraged, as part of the Ivanka Trump brand,” said art dealer Bill Powers.

Indeed, some are even calling for their work to be removed from Ivanka’s walls.

Giving his support to Halt Action Group, an anti-Trump collection of artists, curators and activists Israel wrote on Instagram: “Dear Ivanka, Please stand with artists and so many people around the world who believe that America means equality for all people.”

Alex Da Corte, meanwhile, posted underneath a photo of her posing in front of one of his paintings: “Dear Ivanka, please get my work off of your walls. I am embarrassed to be seen with you”.

She was a model aged 14

Ivanka might have made a name for herself as a canny businesswoman, developing her own line of jewellery, shoes and accessories, but her first career was as a model.

At the age of 14, the “First Daughter” was approached by a modelling agency while a student at Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut.

When the prestigious boarding school was reluctant to allow Ivanka time off for jobs, the quick-thinking teen showed an early flash of her negotiation skills to get around their objections.

She told The Guardian: “They’d granted similar leave to a student who was training to be an Olympic skier, so I used precedent to my advantage and got what I wanted.”

Before her 15th birthday, she had featured in the pages of Elle and over the next few years appeared in magazines, catwalk shows and an advertising campaign for Tommy Hilfiger.

However, she fell out of love with modelling - the industry was “ruthless”, she told Marie Claire in 2007 - and instead entered Wharton business school after graduating.