Truth About What Melania Really Does Is Exposed

Summary

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The Daily Beast Podcast

Episode Title: Truth About What Melania Really Does Is Exposed
Date: August 10, 2026
Host: Joanna Coles
Featured Guests: Nelle Scovell (writer & contributor), Anthony Scaramucci (former White House Communications Director)

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Episode Overview

This episode launches a special four-part series: "Trump's Women," focusing on the evolving roles, relationships, and public images of Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump. Host Joanna Coles is joined by writer/producer Nelle Scovell and former Trump insider Anthony Scaramucci to dissect Melania’s striking absence from public life, her current projects, the state of her marriage, and Ivanka's retreat from the political sphere. The conversation blends humor, personal anecdotes, and sharp political critique, aiming to illuminate what is known, presumed, and unknown about the women closest to Donald Trump.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Where is Melania? Her Disappearance from the Public Eye

• Melania's White House presence is described as virtually nonexistent, with only 38 days of appearances this year—contrasted with the hundreds of events attended by past first ladies like Michelle Obama and Laura Bush.

  "Her office is virtually nonexistent. It's not staffed and she's not working on projects like she was in the first term." — Anthony Scaramucci [01:00]

• Melania’s staff is whittled down to five people, with Nelle joking:

  "It's like she works the holidays and then gets the rest of the time off." — Nelle Scovell [02:29]

• Discussion of the possible reasons for her withdrawal, spanning personal aversion to the scrutiny of Washington life, a distanced relationship with Trump, and public fatigue.

2. Insider View: The Trump Family Dynamic

• Scaramucci observes that Trump’s political comeback is unprecedented, but uniquely lonely:

  "He's back in the White House... without his family. And I, I was surprised by that... he does everything with his family and they are not in the mix with him." — Anthony Scaramucci [04:26]

• Ivanka has declared politics “too dark,” Melania is “just not there,” and Jared Kushner is “better kept at a distance” according to Trump.
• Scaramucci believes Melania used to have a calming effect on Trump, being one of the only people he would heed:

  "Melania, for that matter... she would tell him to tone it down, and he would actually listen to her." — Anthony Scaramucci [06:20]

• As of now, Trump is “not listening to Melania” because she “doesn’t seem to be there.” The marriage is described as distant, and the couple are likely not living together.

  "I think it's distant for a number of different reasons, but I think they probably have grown apart." — Anthony Scaramucci [06:51]

3. Melania's Public Role and Private Motivations

• Scaramucci underscores the transactional feel to the Trump marriage but says he’s never seen an actual contract:

  "Do they act like they're in a transactional contractual relationship? To my observation, they do." — Anthony Scaramucci [12:23]

• The panel notes Melania's only notable White House initiative this term: the creation of a Menopause Task Force.

  "Back in March, she started a White House menopause task force." — Nelle Scovell [20:17]

• Melania’s fashion shift (“a lot of pantsuits... reminiscent of Hillary Clinton”) is noted, along with speculation about her journey through menopause and its possible psychological liberation:

  "You come out of it feeling like, you know, I'm going to do what I want to do." — Joanna Coles [21:20]

4. Rumors, Secrecy, and Melania’s Subversive Moves

• The biggest bombshell: Melania’s April press conference, in which she directly responds to rumors linking her to Jeffrey Epstein, denies all ties, and calls for congressional hearings for Epstein’s victims:

  "I call on Congress to provide the women who have been victimized by Epstein with a public hearing. Each and every woman should have her day to tell her story in public. Then, and only then, will we have the truth." — Melania Trump (quoted by Nelle Scovell) [23:32]

• Joanna Coles speculates that Melania may be more independent—even subversive—than previously believed:

  "What if it turns out she's actually a subversive voice and that's why she can't bear to be around him?" — Joanna Coles [23:58]

5. On Ivanka: Departure from the Fray

• Ivanka is described as having “completely abandoned” the arena where she was once a constant presence:

  "She was all over that first administration... now she's completely abandoned [public life]." — Nelle Scovell [26:36]

• Recollection of awkward moments—like Ivanka touting her father’s pro-women bona fides at G20 summits, eliciting public groans—and Ivanka's privileging of her father's support over policy:

  "[The audience] groans... and the best Ivanka can do is to say, basically, my dad has been very supportive of me." — Nelle Scovell [27:17]

• Dissection of Ivanka’s book, Women Who Work, with Scovell critiquing its feminist branding as derivative and out of touch:

  "It's just marketing slop." — Nelle Scovell [33:15]

• Discussion of her rapid ascent in the Trump Organization (“suddenly a vice president... that sounds fun”) and the performative aspects of brand feminism.

6. Family, Legacy, and the Next Generation

• Ivanka credited her mother, Ivana, as a role model but arguably has achieved less “actual work.” Ivana, in her own writing, claims Ivanka made voters trust Trump.
• Ivanka’s “confected” American femininity is contrasted to world leaders; “it’s literally like talking to a pink macaroon,” jokes Coles. [37:57]

7. Side Stories: Kimberly Guilfoyle and the Supporting Cast

• Kimberly Guilfoyle (Don Jr.’s ex-fiancée) is “having a blast” as ambassador to Greece, engaged in Mediterranean escapades, and seems far happier far from Mar-a-Lago chaos.

  "You get to be the queen of Greece... maybe being 5,000 miles away from the Trump family is just what the doctor ordered." — Nelle Scovell [39:20]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the transactional Trump marriage:

  "She's loyal, and she's not gonna break from Trump over the fact that he's an idiot. But, I mean, you know, it's prima facie that he's an idiot, which is probably why they're not living together." — Anthony Scaramucci [08:55]

• On Trump's current motivation:

  "The President is on a vengeance tour. He's on a money grift vengeance tour. He's not there to make the price of eggs go down." — Anthony Scaramucci [11:00]

• On Melania’s independence:

  "She did not even tell the president [about her press conference]…announces that all the rumors about who introduced her to Donald Trump were untrue… calls on Congress to have all the victims testify under oath to tell their stories." — Joanna Coles [22:56]

• On Ivanka at the G20:

  "Ivanka just looked completely out of her depth, that she was breathy... She's very much a confection. It's literally like talking to a pink macaroon." — Joanna Coles [37:57]

• On the fate of “Fake Melania”:

  "And you know who else seems AWOL these days? Fake Melania. Well, there's nothing for fake Melania to do because the real Melania isn't doing anything." — Joanna Coles & Nelle Scovell [26:20]

• On Kimberly Guilfoyle’s new life:

  "She gets to be the queen of Greece is the feeling when you scroll through. And maybe being 5,000 miles away from the Trump family is just what the doctor ordered." — Nelle Scovell [39:02]

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Timestamps of Major Segments

• Melania’s Absence and Office Shrinkage: [00:00–02:36]
• Scaramucci on the Trump Family Dynamic: [03:03–06:41]
• Discussion on Transactional Relationship Rumors: [12:13–13:06]
• Melania’s Menopause Task Force: [20:17–21:34]
• Melania’s April Press Conference on Epstein: [22:56–24:26]
• Fake Melania Gone Missing: [26:14–26:36]
• Ivanka’s Withdrawal, Book, and the Girlboss Era: [26:40–34:31]
• Comparisons to Ivana Trump; Legacy: [34:31–36:54]
• Kimberly Guilfoyle’s Greek Dispatch: [38:39–41:37]

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Tone and Style

The conversation is brisk, witty, often irreverent, but underpinned by a core seriousness about power, image, and consequences. Sarcasm, pop culture references, and personal asides—especially from Scovell—make for a dinner-party feel even as the subject matter turns to high-stakes politics and personal drama.

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For Listeners Who Haven’t Tuned In

This episode demystifies Melania Trump’s current status: she’s receded from the East Wing, focusing on niche projects like menopause awareness, not living with Trump, and is perhaps more quietly radical than the public suspects. Ivanka has walked away from politics for privileged privacy, her brand of empowerment exposed as performative. The absence of these women leaves a power vacuum—and plenty of room for new “Trump women” to step forward, to be discussed in the next episode.

Listeners will leave knowing just how much (and how little) is known about Melania and Ivanka, why their absences matter, and how the spectacle of “Trump’s Women” continues to shape the American political stage—sometimes by what isn’t said as much as by what is.

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Transcript

[A]

I think it's distant for a number of different reasons, but I think they probably have grown apart. And I think her attitude is she's not going to embarrass him. He's the President of the United States and she will serve as First Lady. But I think it's pretty clear that they're not living together. If you look at the East Wing of the White House in terms of the way traditionally the east wing, I mean, when the east wing's not there anymore, I mean, they blew up the pieces. But I'm saying the, let's say the First Lady's office, her office is virtually nonexistent. It's not staffed and she's not working on projects like she was in the first term.

[B]

I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast and welcome to a special four part episode on Trump's Women. Who is here to give her thoughts and help guide us through it? None other than, than a woman who has made you laugh when she's written for the Simpsons, when she created Sabrina the Teenage Witch, when she wrote for David Letterman, and when she created that moment at the end of President Obama's last White House correspondence dinners speech where he does the mic drop. I'm talking about Nelle Scovell, contributor to the Daily Beast, Brilliant writer. Her memoir, Just the Funny Parts is one of the best books by I've ever read about Hollywood. And she's here to talk about. Well, she's here to talk about Trump's women. And for the first episode, where's Melania? Where's his wife? And where is his first daughter, Ivanka Trump? Nell, welcome.

[C]

Thank you.

[B]

Welcome.

[C]

We're going inside Trump's Women.

[B]

We're going inside.

[C]

Sounds a little rude.

[B]

It sounds rude and yet is it. We're going inside Trump's Women. But before we get into it, we're joined by Anthony Scaramucc to talk about Melania. Where is the First Lady? We know she's only turned up 38 days so far this year, which isn't very much. And for a First lady, it's nothing. Michelle Obama had two and a half dozen staff and did between 150 and 200 events a year. Laura Bush did at least 120 events a year. And as did Jill Biden, Dr. Jill Biden. So.

[C]

And Melania has five people on staff.

[B]

Has five people on staff.

[C]

I mean, it's funny because it's like she works the holidays and then gets the rest of the time off.

[B]

That's very good.

[C]

Not a bad Deal.

[B]

I like Easter. I don't like. Who fucking likes Christmas. I like Easter. Easter Bunny roll.

[C]

Fuck Christmas.

[B]

Yeah, fuck Christmas. So, Anthony, let's come to you. Anthony Scaramucci, thrilled to have you joining us. You've seen the first relationship up close. Why is Melania missing?

[A]

I haven't had a conversation with Mrs. Trump in a long time, but I think the team that came in, the family unit that came into Trump won, didn't like it. I think they didn't like the blistering in Washington. They didn't like the 360 degree firing squad. I don't think they like the spotlight that was put on them. It wasn't really a spotlight. It was almost like if you were a mean kid, let's say you were Howard Lutnick growing up. I guarantee Howard Lutnick had a magnifying glass out and he was like, burning up ants. Right? I mean, that's. That's what they were doing. You know what I mean? And so they were under that magnifying glass and they were getting hit with that sunlight, and it was really bad, and I don't think they liked it. And I think that when he ran again, they all more or less said, okay, that one was on all of us. This one's on you. And he didn't care. And you can like Trump or dislike Trump, but, you know, it would be hard not to admire his tenacity, and you'd have to stipulate, and you guys could disagree with me, but this is the greatest political comeback in US History. I don't know of any other. Grover Cleveland's comeback wasn't like this. I can't point to anything. I mean, some people will say, well, Lincoln lost to Stephen Douglas in the Senate race, and then he rose to the presidency. It's very different. This guy was torched on January 6 and 7, and he was on the ash heap of history, and he's back in the White House and he's there without his family. And I, I was surprised by that, by the way. I would have said this is gonna be hard for him because he does everything with his family and they are not in the mix with him.

[B]

So what is the impact of that on him, do you think? Not having his wife there and not having his family there. I mean, Ivanka's very specifically said, politics is too dark, it's cruel. I don't want anything to do with it. Melania just doesn't show up.

[A]

Yeah. Also, listen, Trump was fighting with Kushner. Trump likes his relationship with Kushner now at a distance, he didn't like him inside the White House, cuz Jared was getting too much credit for things. And again, you can like or dislike Jared, but I like Jared because Jared was a hockey goalie on Trump won. Okay, you know, we can talk about what he did with the Saudis and all that other stuff. I'm just talking about we're gonna put punitive tariffs on everybody and blow up the global economy. You, Jared, and Gary Cohen are trying to put that in the paper shredder. We're gonna do something completely stupid and then try to invade Greenland. You know, Jared was like, okay, that'll pass. Let's move on to something else. And so he was very, very good at that. And without him there, you know, the domino, like the spirit animal of Trump, too, is Don Jr. Are you gonna let my father be Donald Trump? Is Trump gonna be allowed to be Trump? You know, Kushner, Cohen, Mnuchin were like, okay, he's a little crazy, so let's rein him in, and let's get General Kelly's help on reining him in. Now you got nobody in there. You know, I mean, but. But buttlick is not gonna do it. I mean, you allowed to say butt lick on your podcast?

[B]

I think you probably, I think probably

[A]

can't say nut lick, so I'm not gonna say nut lick. So we're just gonna go with butt lick. Okay. For this.

[B]

Okay. Well, you're determined to bring the tone down, Anthony.

[A]

Okay, but I'm just saying you're not. You're not gonna get those people to do what Kushner and those other guys did. Right? And Ivanka, by the way, was on that side. Right. And Melania, for that matter, would. When she was more friendly with him, she would tell him to tone it down, and he would actually listen to her. There's very few people that Trump listens to. Those two would be two people that he would listen to, actually.

[B]

So he's not listening to Melania now, as far as we know, because she doesn't seem to be there. What is the nature of their relationship, do you think?

[A]

Well, again, so I'm, Again, I always want to be the reason why I love coming on. We always talk straight to each other. I don't speculate. I think it's distant, you know, and I think it's distant for a number of different reasons, but I think they probably have grown apart. And I think her attitude is she's not going to embarrass him. He's the president of the United States, and she will serve as First Lady. But I think it's pretty clear that they're not living together. And I think it was probably pretty clear to the journalists in Trump one that they weren't living together. But that doesn't mean that she's not gonna show up and be friendly and she's not gonna do certain things. But if you look at the East Wing of the White House in terms of the way traditionally the east wing, I mean, the east wing's not there anymore. I mean, they blew it to pieces. But I'm saying, let's say the First Lady's office, her office is virtually nonexistent. It's not staffed, and she's not working on projects like she was in the first term. And, you know, and I think people understood that going in. I think people on the campaign, remember, even though I'm out of MAGA and I don't socialize with these people anymore, I do talk to a lot of people inside of Magna. You know, the podcast I have weirdly has lended me to have more conversations with these people. Even though I excoriate them. You would be thinking that they wouldn't talk to me. They end up talking to me more. And I would say that there's a distance there and it's understood. But here's something I will say, though, about the Trumps. When I got into the fight with the president, they had a cut out come to me and they said, listen, we like you. We don't want to be fighting with you. Don't say anything bad about us on Twitter. We won't say anything bad about you. Keep the fight between you and my father or keep the fight between. And then the other line that was used was, hey, if a family fought with every single person that our dad fought with, we'd be at war with everybody. We don't want that. You know, Eric Trump came to my cryptocurrency conference last August, you know, and people were like, well, what the hell is he doing there? Well, he likes bitcoin. He owns a business in bitcoin. And he asked to come, and so I interviewed him. I'm not after the family, Joanna. I'm not like one of these people. I think Trump has hurt the country. I think he's been a horrific president. I think he's been bad for America's brand. He's been bad for our national security, he's been bad for our economy. But that doesn't mean that Eric Trump has been banned for those things. I mean, we could debate their businesses and things like that. But I think those two women, I got along with both of them, and particularly Melania. I thought Melania was very down to earth. Believe it or not, is like a classic Taurus. You know, she's stubborn, she's down to earth, and she's, you know, she's loyal, and she's not gonna break from Trump over the fact that he's an idiot. But, I mean, you know, it's prima facie that he's an idiot, which is probably why they're not living together.

[B]

Does she know that he's an idiot?

[A]

Everybody knows he's an idiot. There's nobody on the planet that doesn't know that he's an idiot. Okay? Even he knows he's an idiot. But, you know, that's life. He won the presidency. You know who are bigger idiots than Donald Trump? The biggest idiots, that would be the Democrats. Okay?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you know who runs the Democratic Party? The biggest idiot of all of them? Donald Trump runs a Democratic Party. If you think anyone else runs the Democratic Party, then you don't understand what's going on in America. Donald Trump is chortling away at El Sayed's victory, and he wants these guys to lurch into the hard left ditch and put themselves into oblivion. And he understands the culture way better than they do, and they want to fight with each other. So, you know, you got him running the Democratic Party, laughing at them and his family laughing at him.

[C]

I wanted to ask if Ivanka and Melania could be positive influences on him, then for the good of the country, shouldn't they be in Washington?

[A]

Well, I mean, that's how you think, but that's not how they think. They're looking at this, saying that the cost benefit analysis is overwhelmingly negative. The President is on a vengeance tour. He's on a money grift vengeance tour. He's not there to make the price of eggs go down. He's not there to figure out how gas is going to go down. He's not there to rebuild our military. I mean, the one good thing about Trump is he did expose the nexus between our military, the lobbying community, and the defense contractors. We're blowing a trillion dollars on military nonsense, okay? We don't even have enough precision point missiles. After four months of fighting the Iranians, it's laughable. So you, dude, spent a trillion dollars on nonsensical hardware and machinery because you got feathered by lobbyists and defense contractors to funnel money into jackass projects that are obsolete for America. So the good news is, at least Trump's idiocy with Iran exposed that now, hopefully we can get a transformative political leader involved that can fix this and renovate it. But this is what Eisenhower said. Eisenhower said this was gonna happen, and it happened, and Trump has, frankly exposed it.

[B]

You know, do you think that Melania and Donald Trump have a contract? I mean, she behaves as if she's contracted like a model, and obviously her background is a model.

[A]

Reporters have suggested that. I've never seen the contract. Reporters have said that there's a deal with them and that there's an understanding, and she's, you know, she's accustomed to a certain lifestyle, and he's making sure that she gets that lifestyle. And reporters have said that. Okay, if you're asking me point blank, have I seen a contract between them, I have not seen a contract. If you're saying to me, as an observant person, in 2016 and 17 and even the later part of 2015, do they act like they're in a transactional contractual relationship? To my observation, they do. I have not seen that prima facie, though, so I'm just giving you my third party hearsay observation.

[C]

You've spent time with him in social events. Do women find him attractive at age 80?

[A]

Probably not at age 50? I've known him. The first time I met him was in 1995. So let's do the math. He's probably 50, right? Or 49 years old? I think they probably did. I'm not gonna say that they didn't. He had a series of girlfriends. I think today they probably don't. But he's become an uglier guy, though. And again, I don't mean uglier because he's gotten fat and he's painting his face with too much orange makeup. He's just a mean guy. I mean, you know, it's. You're. You're dealing with somebody that is plaintively mean. Okay? So to put a Kaitlan Collins in an AI rendition of the Bud Light commercial, when you're the President of the United States, you are an asshole, but you are also plaintively mean. So again, I don't want to speak for women. I can't put it in women's mouth. But generally, women that I've associated myself with throughout my lifetime, they're not into meanness. Generally. You know, I mean, there might be some women that are into money that would accept meanness, but I don't. I think he's just mean. And so I think It's a huge turnoff, actually. You know, niceness is a superpower, ladies. Okay? Nice is a superpower.

[C]

If he had the choice between Melania spending the weekend with him and Natalie Harp at this point, who do you think he would choose?

[A]

Well, I mean, I would say go by his actions, right? Rather than go by what I'm saying, let's just look at his schedule and look at who's traveling with him, and there's your answer. You know, But I think. Also, I don't think she. I don't think. I don't think Melania wants anything to do with this. You know?

[C]

Where is she then?

[B]

Well, I don't know.

[A]

She's probably living her life. She. Listen, I mean, you know, I.

[C]

Is she in the Hamptons?

[A]

I don't know where she is. You know, some people say she lives in Sunny Isles. Some people say she lives in Trump Tower. Maybe she's traveling right now. I don't know where she is. But I will say this. She was always good to me. I always had a nice relationship with her. I had a good rapport with her. If you want to hear something funny and bizarre and you guys can analyze this. After I leave, I had one dinner with him. It was in the blue room of the White House, and it was on Wednesday night. And I know it was a Wednesday because I was only there for one Wednesday. So I know it was a Wednesday. And we had dinner in the blue room. And for some reason, I was sitting next to Melania, and he got pissed at me. And he looked. He's a taller guy than me, right? And he looked over. He looked down on me, and he's like, why are you sitting next to my wife? And I looked at him. I was like, first of all, I have no idea. Do you think I made the place cards? I have no idea where. I'm sitting next to your wife. And I think it unnerves him when people have a good rapport with her. And I was like, okay, this guy doesn't want me sitting next to his wife. And then when he realized that I had nothing to do with the seat selection, he's. Oh, it's okay. It's okay. And I sat next. I sat in between him and her. Why? I don't know. Maybe Hope Hicks made the place cards. I have no idea. I didn't. You know, she was always very nice to me. You guys spend any time with her? I mean, I always liked her. My wife liked her. She was down to earth.

[B]

You know, it sounds like she did the placing, she put you next to her, who knows?

[A]

But classic Taurus stuff. You know, I'm a Capricorn. I always get along with the Tauruses. You know, very, very classic Taurus stuff.

[B]

All right, so we have one more question for you. What do you think the impact of the E. Jean Carroll case has been on him?

[A]

Negligible. He would like to beat her. He didn't beat her. I think the E. Jean Carroll case is positive for the country. And let me explain why. He keeps losing court cases and he keeps abiding by the judges in the court cases. And so he paid the 5.6 million. He'll eventually pay the 83 million. And I think if he didn't make the 2 billion, I think he's made way more than that. That'll be a whole other topic in another podcast. I think he's probably made tens of billions of dollars trading oil on the Iran conflict and the super fast tweeting and all that nonsense, but he's made so much money that to spend 83 million, 5 million, it's not a big deal. But I think we should end it on a positive note. That's a really good sign for the country that the Republicans suck. They're a bunch of babies and cowards. The Democrats are run by Trump, so they don't know what they're doing. They're like a billiard ball shooting all over the pool table because they can't handle the cue ball of Donald Trump smashing into them. But the courts have held And I think 50 years from now, people look back at this, they'll say, we had a complete asshole that got back into the presidency because of the Democrats, couldn't field a competent candidate and. And a result of which he tried to ruin the system, but the system held. I think that's what the narrative will be. And they'll also say, man, he was really weird with people with some weird sexuality to do, but who could figure that out? And they'll be still studying that and not know the answer.

[B]

Anthony Scaramucci, thank you so much for your show. Fantastic, Anthony. I know you'll be back for next week's episode. Thank you so much and looking forward to talking to you soon. He obviously likes Melania. He sees Melania and Ivanka as trying to be, as he said, brakes on Donald Trump, which is not how I thought of them. I thought of them as just sort of couldn't bear to be around him. And in fact, well, I guess they can't better be around him. But they don't like what he's doing. And I thought his point. Point about Donald Trump has gotten meaner, means that he's just not nice to be around, even if you're his close family.

[C]

Right. Well, you do wonder if some red line was crossed, that he obviously has a lack of impulse control now that he had in the first administration, and if at some point either or both Melania and Ivanka felt that wrath where previously they had been spared. I mean, it's pure speculation, but, you know, I. I wish they were there. I never thought I'd say that, but, yeah, I wish Ivanka were in the White House in an office down the hall where she could, you know, bring in her dad's Diet Coke and soothe his furrowed brow.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, also interesting that Melania, it turns out, although she hasn't been doing very many things, she has done one thing, hasn't she, which caught both our eyes.

[C]

It did. Back in March, she started a White House menopause task force.

[B]

I've often wondered why the first ladies don't do more around helping women in the age group, sort of largely 40s to 50s when the menopause strikes, and can often be bewildering for women.

[C]

Right. Well, she would have been. She's 56 now, so at the start of the first administration, she'd be 46. You know, the. The average age for women experiencing menopause is between 45 and 55. So I think we can safely say that one of the major differences with the first lady is that she, in the interim, has gone through the change. We're not doctors. We don't know what's going on with her hormonally. But the fact that she started this task force does make you think she's thinking about it.

[B]

Right. And she's obviously enjoying some time on her own. And one of the great joys of the menopause, and I think we can both agree we have experienced it, is that you come out of it feeling like, you know, I'm going to do what I want to do.

[C]

Right. I think, you know, there's a lot of physical stuff that's hard, and we'll talk about that. But psychologically, for some women, the idea that I don't have to be fertile and I don't have to be sexually attractive to every person on the planet anymore can be very freeing. We have noticed changes in the way Melania's dressing this time around. She's wearing a lot of pantsuits, which reminds us of Hillary Clinton. She even wore, remember she wore pants to a black tie event at the White House not too long ago.

[B]

I think she wore a pantsuit to her. The premiere of her movie, and it was a sort of business suit with a white silk shirt, I think. Yeah.

[C]

And she used to wear more short skirts, and she's mostly wearing midis. And I think she's not showing off her body the way she used to. Of course, no criticism there, but it is a distinct change from the first time around.

[B]

She's done almost no appearances this year, but she did one particular appearance, which is the one that undoubtedly got the most attention.

[C]

She's mostly been out of view, except in April, she steps forward and holds a press conference, did not even tell the president, according to him, and announces that all the rumors about who introduced her to Donald Trump were untrue. She did not know Jeffrey Epstein. They traveled in similar circles. She was never on his plane and. But she went further than that. Right? She called on Congress to have all the victims testify under oath to tell their stories and really to get justice. And she actually ended with. I can quote her. I call on Congress to provide the women who have been victimized by Epstein with a public hearing. Each and every woman should have her day to tell her story in public. Then, and only then, will we have the truth.

[B]

What if it turns out that Melania Trump, and I don't think this is the common perception of her, is actually a subversive influence? I mean, Donald Trump says he wouldn't have advised her to make that press conference. He was surprised by it. What if it turns out she's actually a subversive voice and that's why she can't bear to be around him, because she knows she sees exactly who he is. And to Anthony's point, he's meaner now.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, we also. We've talked about ushavants being slightly subversive, too, with her story time with the second lady and slipping in ideas like Darwin's evolution.

[B]

Well, and also when we read, you know, reading, reading, Hello. When we read We Grow, which is what she does on every podcast, it

[C]

did undermine him big time. I mean, he's been fighting to hear less about the victims, not more.

[B]

And then his wife comes forward and says, let's hear from them. And of course, the speculation was that she was trying to forestall a former friend of hers. Amanda Ungaro, who had been a model at the same time as she was a model and whose husband was Paolo Zampoli, a modeling agent, had introduced Melania to Donald Trump. He is an ambassador. He's a trade ambassador. They had a custody battle, and she got deported. She had overstayed her visa, and Amanda Ngaro had gotten deported, went online and said, I'm going to tell everybody everything I know. And then suddenly, Melania came out with her press conference.

[C]

Well, she does seem to save her own skin, which also ties into starting a menopause task force. It's very focused on what she's going through and how it affects her image. We know so little about her, though.

[B]

Well, she is essentially unknowable, isn't she? I mean, as you say, we know what she looks like. We've seen endless pictures of her. We know what she sounds like, but her background is actually still quite fuzzy.

[C]

And you know who else seems AWOL these days? Fake Melania.

[B]

Fake? Well, there's nothing for fake Melania to do because the real Melania isn't doing anything.

[C]

Well, she could show up in the big sunglasses, but they're not even bothering. Like, whatever it costs to outfit fake

[B]

Melania, they're not doing it.

[C]

They're not doing it.

[B]

So the other person that's missing is Ivanka Trump.

[C]

Right. And she was all over that first administration. She was in there fighting for women and families who I guess she has now completely abandoned. She'd show up at these G20s. I remember one where she told the audience about her father's commitment to women. And just this massive groan came through the audience. And I think she may be with Christine Lagarde. And they stop her and say, you heard that reaction. Can you address it? And the best Ivanka can do is to say, basically, my dad has been very supportive of me.

[B]

So imagine how weird it is being Ivanka Trump. I mean, being the daughter to that father. A man that talks of you and talked of you when you were little, or at least a preteen in sort of weird ways. And you found a great quote where he was asked what he had in common with his daughter Ivanka.

[C]

She says real estate and golf, and he says sex. She just gives him this look. What are you talking about?

[B]

Right.

[C]

You know, I want to acknowledge, like, there's all this photographic evidence of her as a young girl sitting on her father's lap, sitting on a bed, kissing him. I'm not suggesting anything other than I don't know about you. I was a daddy's girl. I loved doing the crossword puzzle with my father. And I would sit on the arm of the chair he was in and help him. I did not sit on his lap. And they are very strange photos.

[B]

They're very unnerving photos. But she's born into a world of privilege. She's still living obviously in a very privileged world. But she was at one point, and certainly when I was at Cosmopolitan, I used to talk to her fairly often actually. And I liked her. I thought she was impressive and I do. It's hard not to feel somewhat for what she has been through because she didn't choose this. She wanted, I think, a sort of family life where she got to be a fashion designer and she got to run a business and she got to do development within the Trump Corporation, which is what the kids all have to do. She's much happier out of the public eye, except for some of the podcasts she does where she sounds absurd.

[C]

Oh, her hour and a half meditation at the beginning of each day. And her Instagram account, this is 45 year old woman wearing mini dresses posing with her daughter, who's actually wearing a

[B]

much, much longer dress. Much longer dress well, and she looks incredibly fit. She does a lot of workout videos. But I cannot the contrast between Ivanka Trump as a career woman 10 years ago and who she is now. There's almost nothing in they have nothing in common. I mean, she wrote a book, as you know, and I was going to ask you to read something from it about what it was like empowering women. And she was part of that sort of lady boss, girl boss moment.

[C]

Right. So she writes a book, women who Work, that comes out the same year her father wins the presidency to I think it came out either early 2017. It's a remarkable piece of history now because if you go to her Instagram, it's all about my family, my kids,

[B]

my husband, my paddleboarding, my paddle boarding, my abs.

[C]

And she sang a very different song then. Back when feminism was a lucrative who knew the big coin was in feminist publishing. So here's an excerpt from her book's preface, which I grabbed because I only got the sample from Amazon because you

[B]

weren't going to pay for her book. Do you know, I went through her book and I underlined all sorts of things because it seemed so derivative of almost every other book that was written around this time, including the book that you wrote with Sheryl Sandberg, Lean in a Book I very much, that very much spoke to me and the book

[C]

that is the reason we became friends because we were looking for a magazine to excerpt the book in and Vanity Fair wanted it and the New York Times Magazine wanted it. And I remember Cheryl calling me up and Saying, I just had a great phone call with the editor of Cosmo, who I think she's right. That's our audience. We should excerpt it with them. And you were in la and she said, go have breakfast with her.

[B]

Yep, that's right. And then we ended up doing a 24 page excerpt of it, actually, which her publishers then credited us with getting it on the bestseller list, although I suspect it would have been on the bestseller list anyway.

[C]

Well, that was amazing. Anyway, so Ivanka kind of is building on what the success of Lean in and then Girlboss. And so this is her take on empowering women. After starting my fashion brand, it was exciting to see women on the street with wearing my heels or carrying handbags from my collection. I was really proud of the fact that my collections captured a femininity and a sense of fashion that working women hadn't been able to express even just a decade before. My company was not just meeting the lifestyle needs of today's modern professional woman with versatile, well designed products. It was celebrating those needs at a price point she could afford.

[B]

So what do we think about that?

[C]

I mean, what's weird is this was before AI,

[B]

right?

[C]

But clearly AI has been trained on this. I mean, it's just marketing slop.

[B]

Marketing slop.

[C]

You know, there's just. And the preening. In fact, one of the things we say in Lean in is that women aren't liked when they say that they're proud of something. So, you know, you've got to, you have to acknowledge your team and the process. And so when I read, I was really proud of the fact that my collections. She kind of doesn't get feminism at all. It's strange because she actually has not had the success except when working for her father. You know, Ivanka comes out of. She goes to UPENN like her father. She studies economics, she takes a job being a project manager at a real estate company in New York. She lasts a year and then is suddenly a vice president of the Trump Organization. So speculating, I think she had the attention of, I should learn the ropes, I should pay my dues. And then after a year said, wait, I could be a vice president. That sounds fun.

[B]

So she goes to work for Trump, and she credits her mother, Ivana, with having been there every morning, giving her breakfast every morning, always being there in the evening, having some sort of dinner or working through homework with them before she on the town with Donald. So an interesting role model for Ivanka in Ivana. And of course, Ivana, it turns out, actually ends up doing more than her daughter.

[C]

Ivana is ahead of her time. She really is working, although famously, for a dollar. And all the dresses she could buy, although she did used to buy, like, 20 Oscar de la Renta dresses every season, so.

[B]

And how do we know that, Nell? Because we found a piece that you wrote in American Vogue about Ivana's buying habits.

[C]

Yeah, back in the very late 80s when I crossed paths with her. But she gives Ivanka a lot of credit for doing for her husband's victory in 2016. And one of the things Ivana says in her book, which I also didn't buy but read the opening to, she said voters looked at Ivanka and thought, I like her. I trust her. She loves her father, so he can't be that bad. Who knows, one day she might be the first female and Jewish.

[B]

Yes, I noticed that. Isn't that amazing?

[C]

I would give that more, you know, weight. Except that, like, the next page, she talks about how her son, Don Jr. Was, quote, utterly smitten with his five kids and wife Vanessa, soon to be ex wife Vanessa, soon to be ex wife Vanessa. So Ivana didn't get it all right, but. But, you know, Ivanka seems kind of lost to me to have had such a lofty position where she was, you know, that famous cocktail party where she's trying to keep up with all the prime ministers and they're kind of.

[B]

Well. And she's on a panel with Angela Merkel.

[A]

Oh, right.

[B]

Do you remember that panel?

[C]

No. I remember the cocktail party where Christine Lagarde literally rolls her eyes.

[B]

She also spoke on a panel with Angela Merkel, who at the time was the Chancellor of Germany at a G20 summit alongside the, I think Canadian, was it, Finance Minister Christa Freeland. And people said that Ivanka just looked completely out of her depth, that she was breathy and that she looks, you know, weirdly American. She's very much a confection. She looks like a confection of a kind of blonde woman who's had plenty of surgery. And she's very appealing in a certain way. Very thin, very blonde. It's like talking to a macaroon. It's literally like talking to a pink macaroon. Talking to Ivanka. And now she's got this very confected voice, too, which is very different to when you hear early tapes of her compared to what she sounds like now.

[C]

Yeah, she's just conforming to what she was raised to be.

[B]

Well, she's conforming to a sort of weird combination of Miss Universe and I Guess her mom. Yeah.

[C]

And now she and Jared are trying to take a beautiful island off the coast of Albania and turn it into a luxury resort. We'll see if that happens. The Albanians are protesting.

[B]

Well, as you say, they've managed to unite at least one country, Albania and its protest. These are the biggest protests since.

[C]

Yeah, since World War II. But you know who I do think is having a grand old time?

[B]

Go on.

[C]

So Melania's off, Ivanka's off. Kimberly Guilfoyle, Don Jr. S former fiance, tossed aside for Bettina Anderson, was banished to the Greek islands. Based on Instagram, I think she's having a blast.

[B]

So she's now the Greek ambassador. I'm assuming she's based in Athens, but she's got all of the islands to go. Can we show two of the pictures we've got of Kimberley, which I just absolutely love, with some local Greek. Some local Greek men, But, you know,

[C]

she gets to be the queen of Greece is the feeling when you scroll through. And maybe being 5,000 miles away from the Trump family is just what the doctor ordered.

[B]

Well, you've got sun, you've got sand, you've got a lot of Greek men. She can hang out on Mykonos. And of course, again, just the head fake of her having once been married to Gavin Newsom, having, I guess, sort of moved in theory, up the ladder, almost nailed Don Jr. And now she's on her own in Greece. But I'm sure she won't be on her own for long.

[C]

Well, and it was recently announced that Don Jr. Had to pay her $7.6 million, which was her share of the huge mansion they had bought in Jupiter that was gonna be for the two of them and their blended families. She has one son, he has five kids, including Kai. Including, yes, the up and coming Kai. But another point is she has no Greek relatives, does not speak the language, had no ties to Greek. But I've been thinking, Mediterranean diet is very popular. And I do wonder if she was like, I've been meaning to try that.

[B]

So that's what I'll move to Greece. I wonder why Donald Trump chose Greece for her.

[C]

I assume she was given a choice, don't you? And she chose it.

[B]

I didn't think of that. Where else would she go?

[C]

Yeah, it's. I personally would have gone probably with Italy, but Greece is fine. And I do wonder if she'll get tired of it. Will she be there three years from now?

[B]

Well, I can't imagine how she's going to survive the winters in Greece. The winters in Greece are cold. They don't have proper heating, and they have a kind of weird, depressing wind. They're equivalent of the mistral that rolls through the south of France. I actually think almost nowhere more depressing to be than a Greek island in the middle of win.

[C]

Well, I think she still has a place in Florida.

[B]

Oh, happy, happy, Kimberly. Well, Nell, always fun to discuss this with you. And we'll be back to understand in Ivanka and Melania's absence, who are the four women competing to fill that gap? We'll be back next Sunday to talk about that.

[C]

Can't we?

[B]

Big thanks to our production team, Ryan Murray, John Romero, Rachel Passer, Heather Passaro and Neil Rosenhaus. So the good news is we have so many Beast tier members now, there are too many names to read out. And we really appreciate.