First Lady Melania Trump delivers remarks regarding the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein from the Grand Foyer of the White House in Washington, D.C., April 9, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
Michael Wolff has pledged to continue making First Lady Melania Trump's life difficult in court after his initial suit against her was tossed out by a judge, per the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast.
Wolff is a long-time author and journalist who has had extensive access to President Donald Trump in years past and wrote several books about the chaos behind the scenes of his first term in the White House. He had previously sued the first lady, claiming that her own threat to sue him for comments about her alleged connections to Jeffrey Epstein violated his First Amendment right. Last week, however, a Trump-appointed federal judge tossed out his suit with a 45-page ruling that the Daily Beast called "scathing," accusing him and the first lady of "an inappropriate level of tactical gamesmanship."
“In this case, a chronicler of the First Family sues the First Lady because she threatened to sue him for defamation. While Plaintiff and the First Lady have a real dispute, they must litigate it according to the same procedures as everyone else,” U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil wrote.
She continued: “There are many features of this case that make it complicated: the prominence of the personalities involved, the scandalizing content of the underlying statements, and, frankly, an inappropriate level of tactical gamesmanship. But the outcome is simple. The Court will not be conscripted to oversee an abusively presented spat and so declines to reach the merits here.”
During an episode of his podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," Wolff said that this development was not surprising to him and his legal team, and pledged to keep fighting.
“We knew from the beginning when we drew a Trump judge in federal court, in the Southern District in New York, that that was problematic,” Wolff explained to co-hostJoanna Coles. “I think our attitude was, ‘OK, you know, that’s the hand we drew.’ We never had any illusions that this was going to proceed in a straight line, this case. But make no mistake, we are going forward with this.”
He added later: "The question is, what does that mean? And that will be the next chapter in this? Are we back in state court? Are we appealing in federal court? I mean, I assume we’ll probably do both things. But I think, fundamentally, it’s the question now of, can we get before a judge who is not a Trump judge?”