Melania furious over shooting upstaging documentary: Trump biographer

First lady Melania Trump makes an address from the Grand Foyer at the White House in Washington, D.C., October 10, 2025. REUTERS/Jessica Koscielniak

"This was supposed to be the Melania week."

That's according to Michael Wolff, a veteran reporter and author of Fire & Fury, an inside account of Donald Trump's tumultuous first term in the White House. On the Tuesday edition of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," he discussed the situation surrounding First Lady Melania Trump, explaining that she was furious about the latest Minnesota shooting upstaging the premiere of her $75 million documentary from Amazon.

On Saturday morning, CBP agents in Minneapolis shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse who had been attempting to help a woman who had been hit with pepper spray, kicking off a new wave of backlash against Trump's mass deportation agenda. Later that same day, a special screening of Melania Trump's documentary was held at the White House ahead of its proper premiere at the Kennedy Center on Thursday.

This confluence of events, Wolff explained, left the first lady "truly p—— off" about the coverage of Pretti's death and the broader immigration enforcement surge overshadowing the rollout of her film. This reaction, he added, was part of what ultimately led Trump to push out CBP commander Greg Bovino and sideline DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and push for a de-escalation and shift in strategy in Minnesota.

“You cannot alienate the first lady to the extent that she makes it an issue with the president,” Wolff explained to his podcast co-host, Joanna Coles. “Almost everyone within the White House acknowledges that this is a tripwire.”

Trump, Wolff added, is "not moved by normal political considerations," when considering the backlash to his decisions, "but he is moved by a p—— off wife."

"What he does not want is a p—— off and uncontrolled Melania," Wolff continued. "The shooting of Alex Pretti is Saturday morning. Saturday evening is the screening of Melania, the movie. So during this period, the president, Donald Trump, begins to shift in his view of this."

In the wake of Pretti's death, Melania Trump made a rare public statement about the situation, calling for peace and unity.

The first lady's film, titled simply, "Melania," was purchased by Jeff Bezos's Amazon MGM Studios last year for $40 million, a remarkably high sum for a documentary, leading to allegations that the acquisition was done to curry favor with the incoming president. Those allegations continued as it was reported that the company had sunk an extra $35 million into marketing the film for a worldwide theatrical release.

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