Last month, White House reporters received an email announcing that first lady Melania Trump would immediately deliver an important statement to the press. Reporters rushed over and found Melania standing behind a podium, spending six minutes denying any connection to Jeffrey Epstein.
“The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end,” Melania said, seemingly out of nowhere in the middle of the war against Iran. “Numerous fake images and statements about Epstein and me have been circulating on social media for years now. The false smears about me from mean-spirited and politically motivated individuals and entities looking to cause damage to my good name to gain financially and climb politically must stop.”
When she walked away from the podium, reporters were left confused, unsure why she had chosen to speak at that moment or which reports she was referring to.
A month later, it is still unclear what prompted the statement. But one conclusion was unavoidable: the Melania Trump of the second term is not the same first lady Americans saw during the first.
No one really knows who she is, and she still often moves through public life like an elegant artificial intelligence creation. But while during the first term she genuinely appeared miserable in a role she neither imagined nor wanted, this time she is far more vocal, publicly supportive of her husband and increasingly skilled at extracting personal benefit from her position. Donald Trump had three wives, and Melania Knauss may be the one most suited to him.
When Donald Trump left Washington on January 20, 2021, two weeks after the January 6 attack and without formally transferring power to Joe Biden, it seemed the Republican Party had finally decided to move on from him. Only a few dozen loyalists accompanied him to the airport, and most of his family appeared relieved.
Trump returned to Mar-a-Lago and quickly discovered that the Republican Party had not abandoned him at all. He had raised children who adored him and were running for office across the country, and at the very least he could continue making substantial money off the prestige of being a former president.
Melania Trump, meanwhile, disappeared almost entirely.
Like nearly every first lady before her — perhaps with the exception of Hillary Clinton, who was always as politically ambitious as her husband, even if less skilled at the game — Melania was pulled into a role she never wanted and forced to endure often brutal public scrutiny.
“She felt like she had won the lottery when it ended after just one term,” a Republican activist in Washington said. “And you can’t blame her. In this respect we’re still in the 19th century — the woman is expected to stand behind the man in the White House. Hillary was the only one who rebelled against that, and it cost her dearly in public opinion.”
Melania returned to focusing on raising her son, Barron Trump, then still in high school, and enjoying the quiet luxury she had expected when marrying a New York real estate developer 24 years older than her. She had no plans for a post-White House career and no interest in public activity. She simply wanted to be left alone.
For two years, it appeared that chapter was completely behind her. But in Trump’s offices at Mar-a-Lago in Florida and at his golf club in New Jersey, the groundwork for a comeback was already taking shape.
Republican leaders kept making pilgrimages to see him, while his supporters told him exactly what he wanted to hear. The string of criminal cases against him fed Trump’s perpetual sense of victimhood and gave him renewed motivation: he would run again, win and take revenge on all the people who “stole” the 2020 election from him and launched what Trump called a witch hunt.
Trump needed Melania’s formal approval, though he knew it would not truly matter.
“Melania never ruled it out,” the Republican activist said. “Like him, she learned a lot from the first term and understood the second would be much easier for her. She also believes Trump won the 2020 election. It’s nonsense — I say that as a Republican — but that belief runs deep in Trump’s world and everyone became obsessed with revenge.”
If Melania had any doubts, they ended on July 13, 2024, when Trump was shot during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. The bullet fired by Thomas Matthew Crooks narrowly missed Trump’s head and grazed his ear.
Melania watched the shocking scene unfold on television and, after recovering from the shock, fully supported — even if reluctantly — Trump’s campaign for a second term. She also began to recognize the enormous personal opportunity before her.
Less than a month before the 2024 election, her official autobiography, Melania, was released, selling 85,349 physical copies in its first week. That was nowhere near the 630,000 first-week copies sold by Michelle Obama’s memoir, but enough to top the bestseller list.
In total, about 150,000 copies of “Melania” were sold. During the publicity campaign, CNN was reportedly asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement and pay $250,000 in exchange for an interview. CNN refused, the interview never happened and Melania ultimately appeared on Fox News instead.
The book revealed little about Melania herself, but included details about her ongoing business ventures. Among the 64 pages of photographs were images promoting a digital collectible of her face, sold on her website for $150, and a customizable “Love and Gratitude” Mother’s Day necklace priced at $245. A collector’s edition of the book sold for $250.
The amount she earned from the book deal remains unknown, but shortly after Donald Trump won the election, it became clear this was only the beginning of a highly profitable second term for Melania Trump.
During her husband’s first term, Melania spent the first year in New York because Barron, then 11, was not removed from school midyear. A year later, he moved to Washington and Melania finally left Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
She remained primarily focused on raising Barron, who was only weeks old when his father had an affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels and who has since grown to 6′ 9″ (~205 cm). Melania spent four years largely unnoticed, drawing attention mainly when cameras caught her grimacing at her husband or, most memorably during Trump’s first visit to Israel, swatting away his outstretched hand.
She entered the second term with Barron already studying at New York University (NYU) and far more time on her hands.
She got to work immediately.
Shortly after Trump’s inauguration — attended in the front row by American tech billionaires including Jeff Bezos, each of whom donated $1 million to the ceremony — came the announcement of a documentary film about Melania, produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Maye Studios, owned by Bezos’ Amazon.
Director Brett Ratner, who was effectively exiled from Hollywood after multiple sexual misconduct allegations, was handed a controversial comeback opportunity and directed a film critics dismissed as propaganda.
“Melania” opened in U.S. theaters on January 30. It earned $7 million during its opening weekend and grossed roughly $16.5 million overall — a strong result for a documentary, with two caveats: it received the kind of nationwide release usually reserved for Marvel films, opening in more than 3,000 theaters, and Amazon spent $75 million on it.
Forty million dollars reportedly went directly into Melania’s pocket. She also served as a producer and retained final approval over the content.
Amazon lost tens of millions of dollars on the project, but Trump’s policies have been extremely good for billionaires like Bezos, whose wealth grew by tens of billions during the past year. From Melania’s perspective, the entire episode was a massive success. She revealed nothing truly personal and returned to her separate bedroom in the White House with another $40 million in hand.
And that was only the beginning.
Compared to the money the Trump family has generated since returning to the White House, even $40 million is relatively modest — and Melania has not been left behind. Not when even Barron, who transferred to NYU’s Washington branch and moved back into the White House, now has a financial portfolio of his own.
Barron’s personal fortune, at age 20, is estimated at $150 million, and he has reportedly become the family’s true crypto king.
Donald Trump, who until a few years ago dismissed cryptocurrency as a scam, changed his mind once he realized how much money could be made in the industry — and no one seemed willing to question whether it was appropriate for a sitting president to enter the world of speculative crypto ventures.
Both Trump and Melania launched cryptocurrencies that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in initial sales before their value collapsed, leaving many small investors, including loyal Trump supporters, with devastating losses.
Blockchain analytics firm CryptoRank found that the Trump token plunged 92% to $3.55 from its all-time high of $75, while the Melania token fell 99% to 11 cents from $13.05.
According to CryptoRank, the collapse wiped out more than $4.3 billion in value from roughly two million digital wallets belonging to ordinary investors.
The Trump family’s profits from the coins are hidden behind shell companies and anonymous wallets. Still, financial disclosures, lawsuits and blockchain investigations have made it possible to estimate the scale of the money flowing into Melania’s projects alone.
Direct profits from fees and initial sales were estimated at $58 million to $65 million. Former crypto exchange executives estimated the management team behind the coins, including the family and developers, made another $58 million in trading fees on launch day alone.
According to an investigation by the Financial Times, entities behind the coin collected approximately $64.7 million through token sales and fees over time.
Similar to what has happened in oil markets since the war against Iran began, there were also signs that certain people somehow knew what was coming shortly before the Trump crypto launches.
One investigation found that 24 digital wallets purchased $2.6 million worth of Melania coins exactly two and a half minutes before Melania published the official social media post that sent the coin soaring. Those wallets later sold at the peak and pocketed $99.6 million in cash.
According to a The New York Times investigation, Trump’s first year back in the White House generated at least $1.4 billion in direct cash and profits for him and his family — more liquid wealth than he had accumulated throughout the rest of his life, including his inheritance, earnings from The Apprentice and decades of real estate licensing deals.
Where most of Trump’s fortune was once tied up in physical real estate assets such as towers and golf courses, his second presidency has become an unprecedented machine for generating cash and liquid assets within the American presidency.
Including digital assets, stocks and paper wealth created through the Trump family’s newer companies, estimates place the increase in their fortune since the election at between $4 billion and $9.7 billion.
No wonder Melania prefers the second term.
The “first lady” brand carries enormous potential. More Americans recognize first ladies than vice presidents, and first ladies can leave a lasting imprint.
During the first term, Melania largely gave up on that opportunity. The only major initiative she attempted was an anti-cyberbullying campaign. The intention may have been sincere, but she struggled to overcome the obvious question: “If you oppose online bullying, why not start with your husband?”
In the second term, Melania has tried to build a narrative of herself as an independent, strong woman who built everything with her own hands.
At a White House event marking Women’s History Month in March, she said: “As a visionary, I know success is not borne over night, but rather, takes shape after a long, and sometimes challenging process. Often alone at the top, I follow my passion, listen to my instinct, and always maintain a laser focus. In solitude my creative mind dances—filling my imagination with originality.”
It was an inspiring message, undermined mainly by reality.
At the end of 2025, Melania had an opportunity to do something nearly heroic that could genuinely have secured her place in history, when Trump decided to demolish the East Wing — traditionally the first lady’s domain — in order to build himself a ballroom.
Associates leaked to the American media that Melania was “upset” by the move, but she did nothing to stop the destruction, which reportedly proceeded without authorization.
Last month, Melania proudly unveiled a new beehive installed on the White House lawn and designed to resemble the White House itself. It became the third hive on the grounds, joining two placed there in 2009 at Michelle Obama’s initiative.
In a short video released by Melania’s office, bees buzzed around the hive alongside footage of honey production and packaging. Nowhere in the video was Michelle Obama credited.
The internet quickly reminded the Trumps that the project was not actually Melania’s initiative. But Melania has never shown much interest in honoring the women who came before her — and in that respect, too, she resembles her husband.
Perhaps the area where Melania has most fully changed since the first term is in her attacks on the media and her ability to turn explosive situations into political weapons.
That became evident following the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which nearly ended in another assassination attempt against Trump.
After the incident, Melania went online and demanded that ABC fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over a joke he told days earlier during his monologue parodying a White House Correspondents’ Dinner performance.
“Our First Lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful,” Kimmel said. “Mrs Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”
Kimmel was clearly joking about the couple’s age gap and growing concerns over Trump’s health as he approaches 80. But several days later, a man named Cole Thomas Allen allegedly attempted to enter the Washington Hilton armed with a weapon.
The White House saw an opportunity to once again target Kimmel, following the recent ousting of another late-night host, Stephen Colbert.
Melania posted on X demanding ABC fire Kimmel.
“People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate,” she wrote. “Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.”
The complaints about hatred and political toxicity might have sounded more convincing had she not been married to Donald Trump himself, who quickly joined in by calling Kimmel’s joke “a disgusting call to violence.”
Disney, ABC’s parent company, may have learned from the previous year, when it briefly suspended Kimmel following pressure from Trump before reversing course amid subscriber backlash. This time, Kimmel was not even asked to apologize.
The following night, he mocked Trump’s frequent late-night social media posts, joking: “At 11:04, he posted this even more unbelievable picture of Melania smiling, which is… I don’t know the last time we saw that.”
A little more than a year into Trump’s first term, Melania was the only member of the Trump family with positive approval ratings in the United States. Polls at the end of 2017 showed her popularity climbing by double digits while the rest of the family sank.
A little more than a year into Trump’s second term, the story is entirely different.
A CNN poll in April gave Melania just 29% approval. At the same point in their husbands’ presidencies, Nancy Reagan stood at plus-50, Laura Bush at plus-46, Michelle Obama at plus-42 and Hillary Clinton — the most politically involved first lady in history — at plus-25.
A YouGov poll produced a similar result, with Melania at 30%.
That is hardly surprising. The qualities that generated public sympathy for Melania during Trump’s first term have largely evaporated during the second — especially the strange liberal fantasy that she was secretly part of the anti-Trump resistance.
“We spent entire nights laughing about those liberals,” the Republican activist said. “What idiots. Melania knew exactly what she was doing when she married Trump. She’s not a victim. She’s a very smart woman, and during this term they’re making a great deal of money together.”
How will history remember her?
“She doesn’t really care.”