President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump depart for the State of the Union Address at the U.S. Capitol from the White House in Washington, D.C., February 24, 2026. REUTERS/Tom Brenner
First Lady Melania Trump is becoming increasingly more proactive and abandoning her past preference for a low profile, creating a major new "liability" for her husband's White House, according to a former Trump biographer.
Michael Wolff is a reporter and author best known for a series of tell-all books about President Donald Trump's first term, based on extensive insider sourcing. Speaking on the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," he revealed the concerns taking over the administration amid the first lady's increasingly vocal behavior. "The Melania of it all," Wolff said, "has now become a matter of serious concern" in the White House.
The trend kicked off earlier in the year with the first lady's new documentary, Melania, which hit theaters to scathing reviews and box office returns that came nowhere close to covering its reported $60 million in total costs. The situation surrounding its absurd budget and production led to widespread accusations that Amazon MGM Studios made the film as a bribe to curry favor with the president.
More recently, her actions have become even more alarming, starting with an impromptu address where she claimed to have never been close associates with Jeffrey Epstein, which seemed to come out of nowhere and put a spotlight back on her husband's relationship to the infamous sex trafficker. She has also reignited the administration's feud with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel after calling for him to be fired for a joke about her being an "expectant widow."
According to Wolff, where once the Trump administration saw the first lady as a "plus" for them politically, she has now become a growing liability.
“I’m having discussions with people I know in the White House, and there is a different side — a very different side — and it’s a side that is very concerning," Wolff explained. “They feel that this has really engendered quite a bit of blowback. Number one, because the movie is ridiculous.”
He added: "In this conversation this morning with the White House people, they see this Kimmel thing as also something that is backfiring."
Sources within the administration reportedly feel that the feud is making Trump look like a "crybaby" to public, willing to shred the right to free speech over jokes that bother him. He faced a similar blowback the first time he attempted to have Kimmel fired, which was one of the earlier examples of institutions beginning to rebuke the president's demands.
