Wolkoff’s book is remarkable both for its intimacy and for the sheer volume of receipts it contains. It’s also the first real look at what’s under Melania Trump’s hood—which, in Wolkoff’s telling, is surprisingly callous and ugly.
That simple fact is more revealing than any leaked anecdote in any of these stories. Wolkoff’s book, Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship With the First Lady, out September 1, is the height of this revelation, the ceiling of the floor. Ultimately, it’s an illuminating story of the dissolution of a female friendship, with drama both high and low, slights overt and subtle, and visceral pain.
It just so happens that the two friends are the first lady of the United States and the Vogue alum with event-producing bonafides who helped plan the presidential inauguration and joined the East Wing staff before their relationship came publicly unglued in the midst of questions over inaugural spending and security clearances in the White House. In February of 2019, I reported on the fallout—that the White House tried to throw Wolkoff under the bus by making it appear that she had taken millions of dollars from the inaugural funds to line her own gilded pockets.
This portrayal fit right into the grifter narrative so many in Trumpworld had perpetuated by actually grifting that most people believed it without hesitation. The truth, as Wolkoff lays out, was that there wasn’t a grift on her part, and she was told privately that her firing from the White House had nothing to do with inaugural spending, despite reports to the contrary. Melania did nothing to defend her at the time, and after more than a year of feeling like there was something amiss with the way the inaugural funds were spent and the events were planned, Wolkoff started to protect herself. Since then, she has participated in investigations into inaugural spending.
