First lady Melania Trump, 56, said family time in the Trump household is “suffering,” telling Fox Business’ “The Big Money Show” co-host Taylor Riggs in an interview on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026, that her work comes first.
“It’s less and less the family time. It’s suffering because of it,” she told Riggs. “But that’s OK. We are here to work, to do a good job, and that’s what matters. And Barron is already a young man, so sometimes he’s maybe even happy that, you know, I just want to do my stuff. And that’s OK.”
She suggested her son, Barron Trump, now 20, may not mind seeing less of her.
When President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, the first lady appeared to have a deal with her husband: she would not be tied to Washington, and Barron would come before her duties as first lady. Twenty months later, by her own account, it is work that matters most.
The Terms She Set
Melania Trump set out those terms publicly on “Fox & Friends” on Jan. 13, 2025, a week before her husband’s second inauguration. “I will be in the White House. And when I need to be in New York, I will be in New York. When I need to be in Palm Beach, I will be in Palm Beach,” she said. “My first priority is to be a mom, to be a first lady, to be a wife.”
Barron was then a freshman at New York University’s Stern School of Business, and she made clear he, not the East Wing, would be her focus. The arrangement echoed her first term: when Trump moved into the White House in 2017, she stayed behind in New York for nearly five months so Barron could finish his school year.
As recently as January 2026, she was describing motherhood in round-the-clock terms. Promoting her Amazon documentary to then-host Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business, she said, “You need to be there for a child nonstop, especially when they need you, especially at that age that Barron is.” Barron was 19 at the time.
Inside the Fox Business Interview
The interview was built around IMPERIA, a new platform for women CEOs, business leaders and investors, which Melania Trump launched that morning by ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. In the clip, she says women are at the center of the economy.
Riggs asked whether the family still gathered for Sunday night dinners, or whether she tried to see Barron when she could. “It’s good to schedule, right?” Melania Trump replied. “It’s always good because everybody’s so busy.”
She said her husband is sometimes in the Oval Office until 9:30 at night, and that she does not wait for him to eat. “You don’t. He’s busy, I’m busy too,” she said.
Barron Trump’s Low Profile
Barron Trump, 20, is now a junior at NYU. People and the New York Post reported in 2025 that he had transferred to the university’s Washington, D.C., academic center and moved into the White House. Neither NYU nor the White House confirmed the move.
In August, the New York Post reported he had become increasingly withdrawn from view. One source said, “He doesn’t go out,” and described him as “pretty reclusive.” That report linked his retreat to propaganda videos from Iranian state media that appeared to threaten his life, as well as a reported $10 million bounty.
An account of his seclusion, updated Aug. 28, attributes his low profile to fear of assassination after three attempts on his father’s life in two years, including one at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in April 2026. The same report says Barron spent much of the summer at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster.
Citing “Regime Change” by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, the report says Barron phoned his father in a “state of distress” after Charlie Kirk was shot last September and told him, “This is what happens when you go out there.”
The New York Times reported last year that Barron “admired” Andrew Tate, 39, and spoke with him on a Zoom call.
Questions About Her Absence
Melania Trump is believed to spend most of her time in New York City while the president lives at the White House, the Daily Beast has reported.
Trump biographer Michael Wolff said in late August that Melania Trump had “abdicated” the traditional role of first lady. In an Aug. 31 post on his Substack, Wolff claimed she “may not have spent a single night at the White House” since her husband returned to office. White House spokesman Davis Ingle called Wolff “a professional scumbag and serial liar.”
A Daily Beast analysis published in August found she had appeared in public on just 38 days in 2026. She was not seen between the FIFA World Cup final on July 19 and an Aug. 20 Rose Garden event.
At that Rose Garden event, she told the crowd, “I heard you missed me. Here I am.”
The “when I need to be in New York, I will be in New York” clause of her 2025 arrangement appears to have become the rule rather than the exception.