Support truly
independent journalism
Melania Trump’s former close acquaintance has attacked the former first lady after she celebrated a “personal milestone” on her US citizenship.
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, 53, was once 54-year-old Trump’s closest confidant and ex-adviser. The pair became friends two years before Trump became a naturalized US citizen in 2004. But the allies have become enemies after Wolkoff’s departure from the White House in 2018 resulted in a very public falling out, including the publishing of her 2020 memoir Melania and Me—an expose about her time spent with the then-first lady.
Since the pair have been embroiled in a feud, Wolkoff has launched a series of personal attacks criticizing Trump as being inauthentic and her relationship with former president Donald Trump as “transactional” in a series of scathing social media posts.
On Sunday, the Slovenian-America model took to X to share her gratitude about being a US citizen for almost two decades.
“Becoming an American citizen is an achievement that inspired my ongoing commitment to this great nation,” Trump wrote on X. “Today marks the 18th anniversary of this personal milestone.”
Six years into the saga, Wolkoff was quick to attack the former first lady as she shared an NBC News article about the Republican presidential nominee pledging to bring an end to birthright citizenship if he takes the White House in November.
The end of the constitutional right would mean that both parents would be required to have legal status in the US for their child to be considered a citizen. The law currently states that it requires at least one blood or adoptive parent being a US citizen by birth or naturalization at the time of the child’s birth.
Wolkoff claimed that Melania, who became a citizen after her son Barron, 18, had benefited from that very piece of policy.
“Melania’s ‘Personal Milestone’ is JUST that, only for MELANIA TRUMP! Melania became a US citizen on 7/28/2006 AFTER Barron was born on 3/20/2006,” she wrote.
“BUT…for EVERYONE ELSE, Trump said he’d end the long-standing CONSTITUTIONAL Right & he’d sign an executive order that ‘ENSURES children born to parents who do not have legal status in the U.S. will NOT BE CONSIDERED U.S. Citizens.’”
Six years into her on-and-off relationship with the Trump Organization owner in 2004, the former first lady was introduced to former Vogue special events planner Wolkoff in a bid to help her transition to New York life. After more than a decade of friendship, Wolkoff joined the then first lady’s office as an unpaid advisor in 2016, after Donald Trump defeated his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the primaries and took office.
Just two years later, the Wolkoff-Trump relationship soured after a scandal involving the then-president’s inaugural committee, which allegedly paid $26 million to Wolkoff’s firm WIS Media Partners, The New York Times reported.
She denies the claim and says that her firm kept $1.62 million.
“Was I fired? No. Did I personally receive $26 million or $1.6 million? No. Was I thrown under the bus? Yes,” she told the paper in 2019.
Following the release of Wolkoff’s bombshell, self-proclaimed “tell-all” book, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit in October 2020 calling that the former aide violated a White House nondisclosure agreement by publishing the memoir.
It was voluntarily dismissed without reason in February 2021.
Wolkoff has since regularly attacked the Trumps whenever they draw in media attention. She continues to peddle the narrative that the Trumps’ relationship was created by the television executives behind her husband’s hit show, The Apprentice.
“Millions of Americans watched The Apprentice. Donald was a household name. He needed a woman who looked and played the part and let him be the star,” she claimed on X last month.
She said in a Daily Beast op-ed in May that the former first lady is a “ruthless survivor and opportunist – willing to do whatever it takes to resort to any means necessary for self-preservation”.
Wolkoff also claimed last year that the Trumps had a temporary split after the first lady found out about her husband’s alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels – which became central in his recent criminal hush money trial and saw him found guilty of 34 felony counts.
Now, Melania is getting set to release her own memoir, her publisher Skyhorse Publishing announced last week. The self-titled Melania is billed as “a powerful and inspiring story of a woman who has carved her own path, overcome adversity and defined personal excellence.”
