Melania Trump is unlikely to move to Washington full time in her second go-round as first lady, multiple sources told CNN, once more showing signs of her willingness to buck tradition as she returns to her high-profile but unelected role on the world stage.
Discussions about how and where she’ll spend her time are ongoing, the sources said.
One of her first official decisions was to skip the traditional and symbolic meeting with outgoing first lady Jill Biden at the White House when President Joe Biden hosted the president-elect in the Oval Office on Wednesday. After Jill Biden extended the invitation, there was discussion about the incoming first lady’s attendance, with members of Donald Trump’s team making clear that it was important for her to go. Sources cited a prior scheduling conflict for Melania Trump related to her book.
But the episode signals that Trump, who spent her first four years in office redefining the role, is laying an early marker — and indicating she will have even more autonomy the second time around.
“I’m not anxious because this time is different. I have much more experience and much more knowledge. I was in the White House before. When you go in, you know exactly what to expect,” Trump said in a recent friendly interview with Fox News as she promoted her eponymous memoir.
Trump is expected to spend a majority of her time over the next four years not at the White House, but between New York City and Palm Beach, Florida, sources familiar with the thinking told CNN. However, they insisted she would still be present for major events and would have her own platform and priorities as first lady.
During his first term as president, Donald Trump spent winter weekends at Mar-a-Lago and summer weekends at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, and he is expected to continue to do so. The Bidens have similarly spent significant time at the family’s Delaware homes, though the White House has been both Joe and Jill Biden’s primary residence on weekdays for the past four years.
Melania Trump has developed a life and circle of friends in Florida over the past four years and is likely to continue spend a lot of her time there, sources said.
After the 2016 election, Trump delayed her move to Washington, opting to move into the White House months after the inauguration as son Barron, then 10, finished the school year. Barron Trump, now 18, is attending New York University.
Sources suggested the incoming first lady would also spend a significant amount of time at Trump Tower in New York to be close to her son, Barron. She was seen in the city Sunday, returning with him from Florida aboard the president-elect’s private plane.
“I could not say I’m an empty nester. I don’t feel that way,” Melania Trump told Fox News’ Ainsley Earhardt last month.
“It was his decision to come here, that he wants to be in New York, study in New York, and live in his home and I respect that. … He’s enjoying his college days. I hope he will have a great experience because his life is very different than any other 18-, 19-year-old child,” she said.
The prospect of a first lady declining to live full time at the White House offers a remarkable break in precedent but should not be surprising to those who have long observed Melania Trump.
“She has carte blanche – she can be as active in the East Wing or as inactive as she cares to be,” said Kate Bennett, a former CNN White House correspondent who chronicled Melania Trump’s first tenure and the author of “Free, Melania.”
Trump telegraphed those plans in the difference between how she participated in the 2024 election versus her husband’s first two runs, when she was more active on the campaign trail. This time around, she was largely absent, attending only his announcement that he was running for reelection; his October Madison Square Garden rally, where she delivered brief remarks; and his election night party in West Palm Beach.
Her preference, sources familiar with her thinking said, is not to be publicly involved, and there is no internal backlash among the president-elect’s team. Sources often cite her as a constant voice in her husband’s ear, giving him advice. One source said they heard her give him a pep talk before a CNN town hall, while another said she weighed in before his June debate against President Biden.
The first FLOTUS era
As first lady, Trump kept a relatively low profile but reveled in the pomp and circumstance of the office, hosting the spouses of world leaders and taking special care with state visits and holiday celebrations. She employed a skeletal East Wing team compared with her modern predecessors, with about a dozen staffers.
In May 2018, she unveiled a platform high on hopes and short on execution, titled “Be Best.” The three-pillared program aimed to tackle children’s well-being, the opioid crisis’ impact on kids and families, and online behavior, a pillar seemingly at odds with the then-president’s social media bullying.
Trump has indicated interest in reinvigorating her “Be Best” platform and suggested she could take on “new issues.”
“Children are suffering. We need to help them and educate them,” she told Fox News last month, providing no further details.
Bennett questioned whether Trump might streamline the platform in her second term.
“Does she bring back ‘Be Best’ in a way that offers more clarity to what it is? It was an incredibly broad and, at times, convoluted platform. I would be curious to see: Is it streamlined? Does it focus on one or two things? And then I’m curious to see whether she fleshes out her East Wing staff to include a more robust policy agenda,” she said.
Trump faced her share of detractors and missteps, including setting off a public firestorm in 2018 for her stunning decision to wear a jacket emblazoned with the phrase “I really don’t care. Do u?” as she made a trip to McAllen, Texas, where she was set to tour an immigrant children’s shelter.
Her aides tried to explain away the wardrobe choice, with communications director Stephanie Grisham saying at the time that there “was no hidden message.” Other aides tried to say the coat was directed at the media. Trump herself later said it was aimed at those who criticized her. But the episode remained seared in the public psyche.
And a former friend and senior adviser, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, secretly recorded Trump expressing frustration at being criticized for her husband’s policy of separating families who illegally crossed the southern border – while also needing to perform the more traditional first lady duties.
“They say I’m complicit. I’m the same like him, I support him. I don’t say enough, I don’t do enough where I am,” she said in the tape recorded by Winston Wolkoff.
“I’m working … my a** off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a f*** about the Christmas stuff and decorations? But I need to do it, right?”
Four years later, Trump was still railing against Winston Wolkoff, writing about the episode in detail in her book and calling her former friend a “disgrace” on Fox News.
When her husband departed the White House, Trump exited with the lowest favorability rating of her tenure, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS, with 47% of respondents having an unfavorable view and 42% favorable. Her highest favorable rating came in May 2018 at 57%.
A post-White House retreat
After leaving office, Trump divided her time between Palm Beach and New York as her husband faced a series of legal troubles while also mounting his third presidential bid. Though other members of the Trump family frequently joined the former president in court and on the campaign trail, Melania Trump largely retreated from public life, resurfacing on social media to promote limited edition jewelry, Christmas ornaments and non-fungible tokens that, she said, would benefit foster children.
Trump eschewed the opportunity to use the past four years to substantively build on her platform as first ladies such as Laura Bush and Michelle Obama have done.
First ladies, Bennett said, “can retreat into relative privacy, but they still maintain the platform agenda that they established. That’s a big rift. We can respect her need for privacy, but we have to question how deeply she did not use her global recognition.”
She added, “The missed opportunity of this period between her tenure in the White House has been the lack of a continuing platform or policy agenda that most first ladies build on.”
Last year, Trump surprised some by making a rare former first lady appearance, at the funeral of Rosalynn Carter. Sources close to her said her decision was made in part to quash the media cycle she believed would occur if she did not appear with other former first ladies at the event.
Trump spoke at a pair of political fundraisers this year for the Log Cabin Republicans, receiving a six-figure paycheck for one of the appearances – a highly unusual move.
In the hours after the July assassination attempt on her husband, Trump spoke out with a lofty letter to the American people: “Ascend above the hate, the vitriol, and the simple-minded ideas that ignite violence. We all want a world where respect is paramount, family is first, and love transcends. … We must insist that respect fills the cornerstone of our relationships, again,” she wrote.
And her memoir, released in October, made waves for a rare public break with her husband on the issue of abortion.
“Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard. Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth: individual freedom. What does ‘my body, my choice’ really mean?” she said in a video posted to X.
Donald Trump, she told Fox News, had known her stance on the issue “since we met” and “wasn’t surprised at all.”
Melania Trump is, otherwise, extremely aligned politically with her husband, sources and observers say, speaking out on issues with a conservative lens.
“She is not someone secretly supporting the resistance, tapping SOS on the windowpanes – that’s not her,” Bennett said.
It remains to be seen what lessons she will take from her first term as she continues to redefine the role and make it her own.
“She still has to walk the fine line any first lady does, which is why it’s a terrible job: You have to be smart – but not too smart. You have to care about what you look like – but not too much. You have to have thoughts about issues facing the world – but you also have to have a holiday cookie recipe,” Bennett said.
She added, “It’s one of the of the most unsung, challenging roles in a presidential administration.”
This story has been updated with additional developments.