Stephanie Winston Wolkoff was one of the key planners of Donald Trump’s inauguration events in January 2017, and went to work with First Lady Melania Trump in the East Wing at the very beginning of the administration.
A longtime friend of Melania’s with deep ties to the world of fashion and New York society, Wolkoff left the First Lady’s office after a New York Times story detailed controversies about inauguration spending.
There have been some allegations about Melania Trump in Stephanie Winston Wolkoff’s tell-all memoir Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady. However, she was not afraid to speak her mind and make demands, even with her powerful husband.
The attitude I admired about her the most is she did what she wanted, when she wanted to,” said Grisham via Washington Post. “She was pretty much the only person I’ve ever seen who he kind of bows down to.”
Melania has often gone long stretches without appearing beside Trump, but even then she was often his first call after campaign events or when he needed advice. Staffers say they welcome her because Trump slashes his foul and crude language around his wife and behaves less aggressively toward others.
“He would call her from the Oval all the time and ask questions,” said a former member of her staff, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private events. For his reelection launch in 2020, this person told us: “He called and said, ‘Should I come down the escalator again?’ She said, ‘No, you’ve already done that.’”
