Stephanie Winston Wolkoff released a series of conversations she surreptitiously recorded of first lady Melania Trump, her former friend, but the White House said they were “hand-picked and presented with no context.”
Speaking to CNN host Anderson Cooper on Thursday to promote her book Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady, Wolkoff discussed her conversations with Trump, which involved her opinions on first lady duties, the media narrative of President Trump’s immigration policy, and her experience with children trafficked across the southern border.
“I’m working like a — my ass off at Christmas stuff that you know, who gives a f— about Christmas stuff and decorations? But I need to do it, right? Correct?” the first lady is heard asking her friend.
“100%. You have no choice,” Wolkoff responded.
“OK, and then I do it. And I say that I’m working on Christmas, planning for the Christmas. And they said, ‘Oh, what about the children that they were separated?’ Give me a f—ing break. Where they were saying anything when Obama did that?” the first lady said, according to the tapes.
“I cannot go. I was trying to get the kid reunited with the mom. I didn’t have a chance. Needs to go through the process and through the law,” she continued.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Melania Trump’s spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said, “Her only intent was to secretly tape the First Lady in order to peddle herself and her salacious book. There is no way to know if these recordings have been edited and it’s clear the clips were hand-picked and presented with no context. The First Lady remains focused on her family and serving our country.”
The clips also included the first lady discussing her experience with children separated at the border and explaining why authorities placed them in immigration facilities.
“All these kids that I met, they were, they’re here in the shelters because they were brought by through coyotes,” the first lady said.
“The kids, they said, ‘Wow I’ll have my own bed. I will sleep on the bed. I will have a cabinet for my clothes.’ It’s so sad to hear it. But they didn’t have that in their own countries. They sleep on the floor,” she continued.
Wolkoff also asked Melania Trump about how she feels her legacy will be covered in the media. The first lady expressed doubt that media figures care about her well-being.
“I’m doing the same stuff that I did before. They cannot stand him,” she said. “They know that I’m with him.”
