Former Trump White House official Sarah Matthews is raising new questions about Melania Trump's limited public presence, saying she never encountered the first lady while working for Donald Trump and speculating that Melania's recent White House appearance may have been influenced by growing scrutiny surrounding presidential aide Natalie Harp.
Matthews, who served as deputy White House press secretary during Trump's first administration before resigning after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, made the remarks on the MeidasTouch podcast "On Sunday with Jack Cocchiarella." Her comments included speculation about Melania's motivations and shouldn't be taken as established facts about the first lady's decisions.
"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 said. Despite also meeting members of Trump's family, she said one prominent figure remained absent from her interactions.
"The only person I never met was Melania Trump," Matthews said. "I never met the first lady, even though I was the deputy spokesperson for the president on his campaign and in the White House."
Matthews said Melania's relative absence was understood among people working around the administration. "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," she said.
She also offered an account of Melania's attitude toward living in Washington during Trump's first term. "She didn't want to stay at the White House," Matthews said, claiming the first lady regarded the residence as "old and falling apart" and preferred New York, where she could "do her own thing."
The criticism comes as Melania's second-term schedule receives increased attention. According to a Daily Beast analysis cited in the source article, she has appeared publicly about once every six days on average during Trump's second term, with that pace falling to approximately once every 12 days during the summer.
The Daily Beast also reported that Melania delivered 29 public speeches during the period it examined, compared with 130 by Michelle Obama during the corresponding portion of Barack Obama's presidency. Differences in how individual first ladies define and perform the unofficial role, however, make raw appearance totals an imperfect measure of their activities.
Melania returned to the White House spotlight at a Rose Garden event for Fostering the Future, her initiative focused on educational opportunities for young people who have been in foster care. Matthews acknowledged that the issue has long been associated with Melania's work but questioned whether the timing carried additional significance.
"But I have to admit that the timing is a little suspect with all of the Natalie Harp things happening in the news," Matthews said.
Harp, 35, serves as one of Trump's closest aides and has attracted increasing media scrutiny over her access to the president. Recent reports have examined her role as a gatekeeper, her constant proximity to Trump and personal letters she allegedly sent him.
Matthews connected that attention to earlier reports that Melania received compensation for certain political appearances. "We know too that it's been reported that Melania gets paid for showing up at events when they were on the campaign trail," Matthews said.
Financial disclosures during the 2024 campaign showed that Melania received payments connected to at least some political events, though the source article doesn't establish that Trump personally paid her to appear alongside him or that her latest White House appearance involved compensation. Matthews nevertheless used those reports to make a pointed joke about the current controversy.
"I wonder if her rate has gone up after all of this news," Matthews said, adding that she believed Melania would dislike the attention surrounding Harp "whether or not it's true."
