Melania Trump has been notably absent from the public eye compared to past first ladies, and according to one former White House staffer, there is potentially a very good reason she is so checked out.
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As The Daily Beast found in a recent audit of the first lady’s public appearances throughout 2026, Melania Trump has been remarkably absent, making only 38 appearances as of August 9, with fewer than 100 appearances in total since President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
In a recent interview for his podcast, progressive commentator Jack Cocchiarella spoke to Sarah Matthews, who served as a deputy press secretary in Trump’s first term, resigning from the role after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and emerging as a vocal critic of his political pursuits ever since. During the interview, Matthews claimed that the First Lady was the one top name in the White House whom she never met.
“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,” Matthews explained. “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.”
She added: “I never met the First Lady, even though I was the deputy spokesperson for the president on his campaign and in the White House. And I think that’s pretty telling … That kind of sums it up, where it was this known thing that she was just not around, and she didn’t want to be around.”
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Matthews also raised the notable fact that Melania Trump, according to reports, was paid for her appearances alongside her husband while he was on the campaign trail, something that would likely not continue upon his return to the White House and which could explain her absence from the spotlight since then.
“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,” Matthews said.
Beyond that possibility, Matthews noted that the first lady never liked staying in the White House, due to her perception of its condition and her own preference for New York City.
“She didn’t want to stay at the White House,” she claimed. “She thought the White House was old and falling apart, and she wanted to be in New York and do her own thing.”
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