Melania Trump hasn’t been seen at the White House much in the last few months, to the point where she actually joked about it — “I heard you missed me” — when appearing at an event last week. On Sunday, she appeared with her husband at the IndyCar race in Washington, but the two appeared to have a tense moment.
So what’s really going on? According to the Daily Beast, there are some potential explanations.
Sarah Matthews, who served in the first Trump Administration before quitting after January 6, had some thoughts to share this week on a MeidasTouch podcast.
Sarah Matthews worked on the campaign and in the White House.
But she never met Melania.
“Melania gets paid for showing up at events.” pic.twitter.com/gzyT47Zrfy
— Evan (@daviddunn177) August 24, 2026
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“When I was working on the campaign for a year and then at the White House for the last seven months of the first admin, I met the vice president; I met almost every cabinet official. I met members of the first family; I met all of them at one point or another. The only person I never met was Melania Trump,” Matthews said on the podcast.
Melania, she said, didn’t really enjoy being at the White House.
“She thought the White House was old and falling apart, and she wanted to be in New York and do her own thing,” Matthews told MeidasTouch.
“But I have to admit that the timing is a little suspect with all of the Natalie Harp things happening in the news,” Matthews added. “We know too that—it’s been reported—that Melania gets paid for showing up at events when they were on the campaign trail, which is crazy to think that you have to pay your own wife to show up somewhere.”
Melania, the Daily Beast noted, has made only a fraction of the number of public appearances that are typical of first ladies, and has not traveled beyond the East Coast in over a year.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
