Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, former senior advisor to Melania Trump, steps into the spotlight in our latest episode, revealing the intricate web of high fashion, politics, and personal tribulations she navigated during her time in the White House. From orchestrating the Met Gala to being thrust into legal battles post-administration, Stephanie's tale in "Melania and Me" is a rare window into the cloistered world of a First Lady. Her reflections on Melania's strategic sartorial communication and the broader implications of her choices, including that infamous jacket, offer an unfiltered glimpse into the consequences of silent messaging.
Our conversation charts the emotional landscape of working within the Trump administration, opening up about the fear and bravery intertwined in the daily machinations of power. Stephanie doesn't hold back as she discusses the transactional nature of the Trumps' marriage, the cult-like loyalty demanded in their orbit, and the bracing reality of her own experiences—from legal confrontations to personal sacrifices. This episode isn't just a narrative; it's a wake-up call about the influence of authenticity and the vital role of the First Lady in shaping our nation's values.
As Stephanie shares her poignant insights, we're compelled to contemplate the future of American politics. The prospect of a former president's return looms, stirring discussions of legacy, beliefs, and the importance of integrity in leadership roles. We examine the potential impact of Melania's re-emergence on the political stage, questioning whether another term could reshape her influence or cement her previous approach. This episode goes beyond the headlines, pressing on the heart of democracy and the courage required to stand by one's convictions amidst the tumult of political storms.
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, former senior advisor to Melania Trump, steps into the spotlight in our latest episode, revealing the intricate web of high fashion, politics, and personal tribulations she navigated during her time in the White House. From orchestrating the Met Gala to being thrust into legal battles post-administration, Stephanie's tale in "Melania and Me" is a rare window into the cloistered world of a First Lady. Her reflections on Melania's strategic sartorial communication and the broader implications of her choices, including that infamous jacket, offer an unfiltered glimpse into the consequences of silent messaging.
Our conversation charts the emotional landscape of working within the Trump administration, opening up about the fear and bravery intertwined in the daily machinations of power. Stephanie doesn't hold back as she discusses the transactional nature of the Trumps' marriage, the cult-like loyalty demanded in their orbit, and the bracing reality of her own experiences—from legal confrontations to personal sacrifices. This episode isn't just a narrative; it's a wake-up call about the influence of authenticity and the vital role of the First Lady in shaping our nation's values.
As Stephanie shares her poignant insights, we're compelled to contemplate the future of American politics. The prospect of a former president's return looms, stirring discussions of legacy, beliefs, and the importance of integrity in leadership roles. We examine the potential impact of Melania's re-emergence on the political stage, questioning whether another term could reshape her influence or cement her previous approach. This episode goes beyond the headlines, pressing on the heart of democracy and the courage required to stand by one's convictions amidst the tumult of political storms.
Welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast, where stories about the power of focus and resilience are revealed by the people who live those stories. And now the host of the Jack Hopkins Show podcast, jack Hopkins. All right, and welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast. Jack Hopkins.
Speaker 2:All right and welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast. I'm your host, jack Hopkins. Today, my guest is Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. She was the former senior advisor to First Lady Melania Trump. Now it's important. There would be some sports fans out there angry with me if I didn't.
Speaker 2:In college, stephanie was an NCAA basketball player at Fordham University and then later transferred to Loyola University, new Orleans, where she graduated with a degree in communications. Where she graduated with a degree in communications In 1996, she started with Vogue magazine as a public relations manager and she helped organize such events as the VH1 Awards and the Met Gala Pretty premier stuff. In 2003, while working at Vogue, stephanie met Melania Naus, who we now know as Melania Trump, and at that time, melania was the girlfriend of Donald Trump. They got pretty close. Stephanie went to the Trump wedding. Stephanie was invited to and attended Melania's baby shower, and she frequently I can't talk today went out to lunch or had dinner with Melania Trump Early in the Trump administration. Very early on we're talking 2016, stephanie was named the senior advisor for then first lady Melania Trump. But by 2018, a couple of years later, their relationship had soured considerably and Stephanie had been, as she described, scapegoated.
Speaker 2:So in 2020, stephanie published her book Melania and Me. This was a barn burner. This was a book, a tell-all book, and not everything in that book was something that Melania Trump or Donald Trump wanted out there in the public eye. It's a great book. By the way. If you want a really complex and detailed look at what was going on in and around the White House during this time period, especially regarding Melania Trump period, especially regarding Melania Trump, just get the book Melania and Me. Just get the book no-transcript. And this went on for a while very costly to Stephanie, as these things tend to be, especially when you've got the full weight of the DOJ bearing down on you. Fortunately, the Biden DOJ dropped the civil suit in February of 2021.
Speaker 2:Look, there's a whole lot here to talk about. Clearly, stephanie Winston Wolkoff is somebody who has spent a great deal of time in very intimate situations with Melania Trump. She knows her, I would argue, as well as anyone can know her. She was with her not only in the good times, but she was with her during some was with her not only in the good times, but she was with her during some incredibly stressful times, and I've always said that you can know somebody for 20 years and be around them during that time period in calm, relaxed conditions and not know them as a fraction as much as you will know somebody who you've watched for 60 seconds in stressful conditions. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff watched Melania Trump in stressful conditions.
Speaker 2:Stephanie maintains that Melania Trump is just as dangerous for democracy as Donald. I want to say that again that Melania Trump is just as dangerous for our democracy as Donald Trump. If you are like me, you want to know why that is so, without further ado, let's jump right into my conversation with Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. All right, stephanie, welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me, Jack.
Speaker 2:I've been looking forward to this. I know there's so much to cover and so little time, so I'm going to just kind of carefully go through, I think, some of what I'm going to ask when I have a guest. I like to try and find some things that other hosts haven't asked them before, or, if they did, they only had you know 20 seconds to answer and I I want you to just really be able to open up and blossom and go for as long as it takes to answer the question oh boy, oh, here we go, you might need three.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's start just just kind of give a little foundation, because I don't. I think your, your fashion background is well, but I think doesn't get asked a lot is how did you get into the fashion industry? And then, what role did that play in bringing you and Melania together?
Speaker 3:Right, it doesn't get asked very often and I appreciate it because it was my life. You know, it was such a big part of my life that I gave up to serve the first lady of the United States, who I happen to believe was my friend, the first lady of the United States, who I happen to believe was my friend. But many, many years ago, decades ago, I was working at Sotheby's, which is an auction house, and I had gone to. I was asked to come to a dinner by Vogue as someone who was going to be photographed for the magazine and, being there with some of the editors, I had gone into conversations with them about really what I wanted to do with my life. Again, you know, after graduating college, I wasn't really sure and so, being asked if I was interested in public relations and communications, which was something that I majored in and I was excited about, and I went in for my interview at Vogue.
Speaker 3:Two weeks later, and five years after Sotheby's, I was, you know, accepted the job at Vogue magazine as a public relations assistant in Anna Winter's editorial department and then became, several years after that, the events director, working on all of Vogue's and bringing me in for the first time in-house to Vogue magazine, all the events overseeing the Met Gala, the CFDA, vogue Fashion Fund, the 7th on Sale Fashions Night Out you know VH1, vogue, I just the events became my life and Vogue became my home away from home.
Speaker 3:Right, I remember nursing all three of my children at my desk and you know it was an amazing experience and I loved everything about it. My work was really important to me and, you know, having Anna as my mentor and boss, she understood my loyalty to my responsibilities but at the same time, having a family, I was able to balance both and do them simultaneously. But it was a 24-hour, seven days a week job and that was okay with me. And it was in the hallways of Vogue that I met Melania Trump and I wish I never had, but I do know that me sitting there and being, you know, the director of special events at Vogue definitely lent a lot of access to the red carpet and interest in the fashion world that she would have never gained acceptance into or had access to. So I was there, not realizing it at the time, the pawn or the patsy for them that enabled them to start their debut and grand entrance into the world of fashion.
Speaker 2:And that's so interesting, because when we hear people talking about Melania, one of the main areas of focus is this former model. Right, and what's interesting is that that really came largely from you and your connections, and yet we rarely hear that mentioned about you. It's it, you know, it's always. Here's the former model.
Speaker 3:Well, here's the thing though I won't give myself credit for that, because I just happened to be an employee at Vogue I happened to have a front row seat to this, to watching the making of Melania.
Speaker 3:What did give Melania that entree was the fact that she was got engaged to Donald. Right, like she was a model. But it wasn't until she got engaged to Donald and she was going to be Vogue's cover model because she was marrying, you know this, the, the, the, the apprentice star, did she actually become a supermodel? And and as you said, that's true, like I had a front row seat watching that transition and transformation from, you know, the little girl to the bell of the ball. And when people do speak about her, donald speaking about her being supermodel, he needed to use Vogue and the red carpet at the Met Gala to create that perception into a reality, not only for Melania to be able to say she was now a cover girl and a cover model, but for him, it legitimized him to say he was with a supermodel because, again, melania was a model, because, again, melania was a model, but it really wasn't until the Vogue cover that she actually could claim that title.
Speaker 2:And so largely then that came out of Donald's need, not so much Melania's. It was just kind of a byproduct of the image that he needed. Would that be a fair?
Speaker 3:I think they both needed it. They legitimized one another and he needed that perfect arm candy and she needed what she got out of him, which she was willing to take at the time and continues to do so.
Speaker 2:Given that you started in fashion, let me ask you this what role do you think fashion plays in not only shaping the perceptions of the First Lady, but the president and the entire administration? How important is that that sometimes people may overlook just how critical that is.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that fashion for Melania, it's her coat of armor, it's her voice, it's you know, silence speaks louder than words for Melania and she speaks through her fashion and you know people think, oh, it's not intentional or it doesn't mean anything. I mean she does choose, you know, and her she went again. When you look at what she used to look like when she first got engaged to Donald, I mean she was, did not have this aesthetic of more of an elegance that she does now portray, more like a Jackie O, which she again in 1996 interviews, was like oh, that is how I would want to portray myself if I were to be first lady. So her, her fashion is her everything and I think that she's used fashion in her life to portray herself as someone that you know. To portray this again, everyone thinks of the Sphinx-like enigma and she is not Okay. So that we want to make sure people understand and dispel that, because there is nothing mysterious about Melania Trump.
Speaker 3:She is a beautiful woman who can afford extremely elegant clothing, couture clothing, and has incredible hairstylists and incredible fashion stylists and an incredible makeup artist, and with those things she presents herself elegantly and beautifully and that is all she needs to do and she has a very warm smile. She has these blue beaming eyes and you know they, the warmth you feel from them. I used to feel it. It's so penetrating and you want and you believe it. You believe that empathy is there, you believe that she's reaching out to you.
Speaker 3:Melania and Me was to share the truth about who this woman really is, and she is no different than Donald, except I do say you know, she's a woman in a pair of heels and she dresses a lot better than he does, but everything is about her clothing and her hair and her makeup, and that's really it. So the humanitarian part doesn't exist, the philanthropic individual does not exist, and that, to me, is just a wasted opportunity, unfortunately, when you're the first lady of the United States of America and you're given a platform to effect change for so many children, children across the country and the world.
Speaker 2:When you were in the role of advising her. I listened to one of the phone calls this morning that you had recorded and that's when she was describing to you the jacket that she had worn to the border right and the controversy that created, and what I found was so interesting. You did not hesitate at all to say why did you buy it. Then you know, why did you buy the jacket? Because she was giving you one answer about why she wore it, which I think you sensed did not line up with. So when you would encounter situations like that I know I've heard you say that Donald responded very well to advice, oftentimes from Melania, when he would listen to nobody else how did she respond to you?
Speaker 3:Oh, she would pretty much laugh at me. I mean, really like you know by that time. And I just want to back up for a second about the recording. I think it's so important that people still don't realize and understand that I didn't start recording Melania until after the February 15th 2018, you know, headline that Stephanie Winston Wolkoff received $26 million, which was never retracted. It was changed to my company got $26 million. Then it was changed to I got $1.62 million. Then it was changed to I got $500,000.
Speaker 3:And the facts have never been actually properly printed by the New York Times. And so there's this mysteriousness that says, oh my God, you went and recorded a friend. No, I would have never recorded Melania had she not told me that there was going to be an investigation into the presidential inauguration committee and her lawyers. Stefan Pasatino, in particular, the White House ethics lawyer the same lawyer who was representing Cassidy Hutchinson in the January 6th case that she had fired so she could tell the truth was who I spilled my guts to about everything I had witnessed during the planning of Trump's presidential inauguration. These people were the ones that were going to decide my fate and blame me for all the nefarious activities that they were doing. So you bet I pressed record and thank God I did Right All the nefarious activities that they were doing. So you bet I pressed record and thank God I did.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Thank God I did. And one of those conversations, yes, happened to be the jacket recording. And I did. I'm Anderson Cooper.
Speaker 3:I kept saying in my interviews stop attacking me, melania Trump, don't use your Twitter to attack me twice already to say that I was lying, that I hardly knew you, that I didn't do anything or I'm going to have to release something that shows I actually did. You bet was all about attention. It was never about the intent to do good. She wore the jacket because she wanted to make sure that she got publicity when she went to the border and she knew that that jacket, which she had purchased on her own at another point in time that was in her closet, would get the attention. And I said to her literally Melania, if I were standing there, I would have jumped on you and stopped you. And she said to me no, you wouldn't, no, you. And this is the converse.
Speaker 3:The rest of the conversation, which I don't believe, is out there and I said she goes. No, you wouldn't, she was, you weren't there. And I said no, I know I wasn't there. I said, but if I were there, that is what I would have done and you know that whole time that you know, grisham, stephanie grisham at the time was saying to Melania you know it's just. Or to the press it's just a jacket.
Speaker 3:I mean the attitude, just the, the, the, the, the disrespect and disregard for everyone involved and Melania thinking I'm driving liberals crazy, it's great and it's to me. Me, it was what are you doing and why? I mean, I kept saying, and it was I who said to her she, melania, it should be a message to everyone. I don't care what the right is doing, I don't care what the left is doing, I'm going to do the right thing, I'm going to go to the border, because that is what the first lady of the United States is supposed to do. That must be why you were wearing the jacket. No, that wasn't the reason, but that is the reason that eventually came out.
Speaker 2:And it was that phone call, or that recording of the phone call, that kind of started directing me to. She's just like Donald. Just like Donald, she does not see herself as a representative of the United States of the citizens of the country, because in that moment her aim, as she stated, was to piss the liberals off. That's not how your typical first lady operates.
Speaker 3:I really didn't think she was like him at all in the beginning. Honestly, I didn't even understand anything about politics when I said yes to helping her. It wasn't a political. I was asked to produce the inauguration. After producing some of the largest fashion events and television events, I saw it as an honor. Asking me to set up her East Wing and hiring I believed I would be hiring a Lincolnian group of women who could create a children's initiative about social and social social emotional intelligence. Working with Yale University and Castle and Aspen Institute was a real opportunity to to have impact in the world. She was going along with it. The fact that I wish I would have seen through all that, that she was fine with me doing it all, but I believe she wanted it too seen through all that.
Speaker 2:that she was fine with me doing it all but I believe she wanted it too. So you kind of felt joined, kind of this warmth and connection of we're doing something noble together 100% because at that time, with Ivanka there, there was so much controversy and so much debate.
Speaker 3:And Ivanka came into the White House, took all of Melania's staff, so I was like this guardian for her right I became. Melania wouldn't have known anything about the planning of the inauguration or where she was supposed to be, what was going on, what Bible Donald was going to be holding. I mean, truly, you know down to down to those specific details. So with that, so with me there, it was like I was her eyes and ears on the ground and Ivanka taking the budgets in the White House and taking the staff. And again that joined Melania and I. It made us closer to one another because I was there, felt like, ok, I'm protecting the office of the first lady.
Speaker 3:Politics though I thought I could separate ethics and politics because I had never voted before. I voted for Donald, like I didn't couldn't have told you and I know I shouldn't admit it, but I couldn't have told you who the vice presidents were. Like. My world was so tunnel vision between my work, my kids and that was my life. So it's no excuse. What it did is. It taught me the hard way you have to know what's going on and it taught me the hard ways you have to know who you're getting into business with. And it taught me the hard way.
Speaker 3:I almost lost my life, literally and figuratively, working for the Trumps, and so you can't get into bed with anyone that you don't know.
Speaker 3:And I believed I knew Melania because I would spend my time alone with her, but in retrospect but in retrospect, that time was just one-on-one at a restaurant and I hardly ever spent time with Donald until I started working for her planning of the inauguration, and that's when I started seeing the things that I saw. And I have to tell you, he is so convincing, so believable, that my heart goes out to so many millions of people that actually believe him, because there were points in time that I would have given my left and right hand and said he is absolutely telling me the truth right now. Right, you get so wrapped up in the discussion and his ability to convince you that the sky is purple is like oh my God, the sky is purple, I don't know what it is and it's frightening. Um, but it took me forever I mean, even it took me years to really break away from this and chip away at the root of who these people were, what I got myself involved in and what can I do so this does not happen to anybody else.
Speaker 2:How powerful. You touched on it, but to the degree that you can convey this, how powerful is their ability to suck you in to believing that this movement, our approach, what we are doing, is the only way, it's the right way, and everybody else that the people are talking about the crimes we're committing, or things of that nature. They're nuts. How skilled were they both at saying you're, you are in the right place.
Speaker 3:Oh, jack, it's it, it it's. You know people refer to it as a cult and it and it really is. I mean it is. It's so deceptive and deceiving. You know the fact that women are waiting for Melania to appear at an event to begin. When is she going to be on the campaign trail? I mean, what does that mean? What has she ever done for any woman or child? She gave what? Two scholarships, or one, maybe two scholarships, right. Since she's left the white house, I mean, she's sold NFTs and she's created, had someone create, you know, again, different ways for her to profit. I mean, what has she done? And so my question to all of these women our rights are being stripped from us. If you have children, your children's rights are being stripped from you.
Speaker 3:What mother thinks that by seeing Melania Trump and looking at her is going to actually affect any change in their lives? I mean, she wouldn't even put on a mask when there was COVID and she would walk into schools. I mean, how dare you? And to think she is any different than Donald? She's not. And to think that she is the compassionate side of Donald? She is not. Donald is definitely the showman, the brass knuckle guy Melania is supposed to be that softer, warmer side, you know, that shows empathy and kindness and caring. Those are speeches, those are words that were written by me. That doesn't exist. It exists in the moment, it exists when you're in her presence and in that aura of oh, I'm here for two hours and I'm going to smile. But the genuine feeling, the realness of what's going on is we must they believe themselves. So I think convincing others is not so difficult when they themselves believe what they're saying.
Speaker 2:So what we see with her, then, is the equivalent of being on a Hollywood set and somebody saying action.
Speaker 3:You bet and that's actually no one's ever said it like that jack, like that is actually a perfect way of saying it. You're right.
Speaker 2:Action, oh my god, like yeah and then when the the lights are off and the camera's not rolling, that's she steps out of character she steps out of character, but there is look.
Speaker 3:There is that she steps out of character, but there is look. There is that she steps out of character in the sense that she still portrays herself. She is. How do I explain it? It's so hard to put into words, because there's this feeling, when you're with her, that you feel that warmth and you have those giggles and you're talking about things. She definitely gives her point of view. She is very um, you know, doesn't hold back with.
Speaker 3:Donald picks the right time. There are certain times of the day or if he's certain issues were going on, she didn't want to discuss certain things in front of him. I get the eyes, you know, don't? You know, not now, um, but any anyone would do that right, right, I mean, that's typical, but she definitely there is. She's a human being. However, she's not a mere mortal, like. That's. The difference is like she has it, but it does. It's real in that moment in time, but her end game is so different than anyone else's. Her end game is just about herself and about Donald, and so if anything is getting in the way of what she needs done or what they need to affect, then you are just, you know, you're roadkill.
Speaker 2:And is her end game almost always top of mind.
Speaker 3:Let me tell you something.
Speaker 3:I didn't even realize it at the time, but you know, when Melania was first lady, there was this whole controversy about her being making sure that her image reflected that she was the supermodel she was this intelligent woman.
Speaker 3:I mean, she sued, you know, for millions of dollars for magazines and people calling her things that you know she claims otherwise. The reality of that is you know what she had to make sure that, not only after the fact of being first lady, but while she was first lady, getty Images actually licensed her photographs. She was being paid for her photographs on the Getty site, and it's something I think no one has actually really reported on in years, or even maybe once I saw it, or twice. It's something that people need to understand is that when you're the elected official, the wife of an elected official, you do not profit off of your imagery or your likeness. But that was her main intent the whole time and that is why she needed her lawyers to get involved at that time to make sure that she had the ability to have a clean slate when she was ready to start promoting herself again.
Speaker 2:At what point and I know this is asking you to speculate a little bit, but at what point? What would have to happen for at least one of them to realize I don't need the other any longer?
Speaker 3:Oh, I don't think that's ever going to happen.
Speaker 2:Okay, so there's always going to exist that need on some level.
Speaker 3:I don't even know if it's a need and I'm speculating. I don't. You know, as many people say what they say about Donald and Melania's relationship, I always say it's a transactional marriage and they're not going anywhere right and I think you view the transactional marriage, I suppose the way their marriage has been structured.
Speaker 2:I read that even when in the White House, they've almost never slept in the same place, they sleep in separate places and they spend a great deal of time apart.
Speaker 3:So I suppose in that situation you can really be at odds with one another but still stay together forever, because you know I think very difficult. But I think that you know it's important to again, it's the messaging and the perception of what they need to be portrayed to the public, of what is in their best interest to make sure people think is at the top of their what their priorities are. And Melania's messaging has always been the same right, she's staying behind in New York for her son. She's staying out of the campaign for her son. She's again.
Speaker 3:I'm the mother of three children. Someone had to go to the White House to set it up for the First Lady of the United States because the First Lady wasn't there. I too have children that are my first priority. People in this world do more than one thing and so excuses upon excuses upon excuses. We all have a life to live and no one's life is more important than anyone else's. And that's where I don't feel anyone has challenged that whatsoever. And it actually really upsets me and it didn't at the time because I bought into it.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go back just a little bit, because you said something that I think is so important for people to understand. Usually, when we hear people talking about you know it's a cult. I think they are usually describing the people who attend the rallies, the MAGA folks that support him and the MAGA movement, but you hinted that that cult environment also existed within the White House. Am I correct in that?
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely. Look, I didn't spend that much time in the West Wing at all. I mean, I may be tiptoed in there a couple times, but I was in the East Wing and I only brought people in that I could trust, that I knew wouldn't speak out, that. And again I had to beg, borrow and plead to bring people that actually worked for me in New York to go work there, because nobody wanted to be in in the east wing, nobody wanted to work for the Trumps that I knew in the fashion entertainment industry, and I even brought in a family member. I mean I, when I tell you it was kept silent, right, we wanted to make sure no one said anything.
Speaker 3:So for me to have gone and written a book had to be a reason, and people again have to understand why. It's important to understand the mentality that we all had about protecting them. Right, it was me protecting Melania all these years, and I'm talking about even when I was at Vogue. I mean I was that silent person behind the scenes speaking to journalists, reporters, you know, and not just silent, I mean I was on the record all the time too. She did something, I did it. I was from Vogue, I was my name. Again, it lends itself to credibility.
Speaker 3:So having those people in the White House for her was instrumental, and she couldn't have done anything without them. But at the end of the day, I was still protecting her, knowing what she had done to me, but knowing what they had all done to me, not just Trump but his allies and all the people that worked on the inauguration. So by protecting her, I was still protecting them, and they all used me right. I was the perfect scapegoat and cover girl for them. And so to share my story through my friendship with Melania enabled me to figure out who the players were, what they were really up to, and again, everything was based on communications that I had Texts, emails, signals like nothing. No one could sue me for defamation because I back up to all of it, and that is really important. But when you're again, right afterwards from the Southern District of New York, sued, came after me with a grand jury subpoena, you bet I was trying to figure out what just happened.
Speaker 2:Right, tell us then again. These emotional experiences are difficult to convey to someone, but, as best you can, what's it feel like when you get hit with a subpoena from that level, coming from who it came from?
Speaker 3:So, when I was still working in the White House in 2017, I had actually after I'd gone to Stefan Passantino and I sort of was dismissed and there was just a rumblings and I didn't know what was going on I had gone and hired my own lawyers outside of the white house from Paul Weiss, who are still my lawyers today and who represented me and all of the cases that were brought against me. Um, because I knew that something wasn't right and, thank God, I did. And when you are sent a grand jury subpoena from Southern District of New York regarding the planning of the presidential inauguration and the people involved, you can. First of all, I wasn't allowed to tell anyone. Only my husband was allowed. So I couldn't even tell my mom who I speak to all the time. So I was suffocating Not only the expenses that I had to incur to protect myself to go into the prosecutor's office you know it's scary because you do not know who you're going in there to speak to and then you're in there with the FBI and you're in there with the prosecutors and you're sharing all of your information.
Speaker 3:Again, I had nothing to hide, but you've got to put it together. You've got to know what you're presenting, you've got to get the. I mean, I never had access to any of the financials. I had to go to my partners, who also ended up screwing me, to get that information to give to my lawyers, because everything was thrown on me. No one came to my defense, no one stood up by my side, not one person, and that was just one. So then the weight of knowing that that was coming, and then the weight of the Department of Justice, jeffrey Clark now indicted Jeffrey Clark suing me to silence me Again. My First Amendment rights don't matter.
Speaker 3:And my contract was a gratuitous contract. There was no transaction because I was working for free for melania, because there was no budget, because ivanka had taken it. So, and melania knew that the contract that we had created was, as per her own words, a risky contract because it was me doing everything, everything for the first lady, for free, and so they couldn't make me a government employee, even though that's what they said I was, and they had to hide the fact that there was another person in there with the same type of contract. There's just, it was such a, honestly, had I not had the resources to protect myself. And then there was the Attorney General from the District of Columbia that I became a lead witness against the Trump org and the PIC Presidential Inauguration Committee. Like. Had I not had the resources to protect myself and have the lawyers, I don't know where I'd end up, most likely in jail, right. How can you protect yourself? You can't.
Speaker 2:And at that point I'm assuming, all of that became your life. How?
Speaker 3:could it not? My life was over. That was my life. I was preparing document after document, deck after deck, and then it became my life's work to make sure that I found out everything I could and connected those dots to figure out again how can I help the prosecutors put these pieces together? How dare these people think that they're going to accuse me of wrongdoing?
Speaker 3:What I know I am not is someone who needs immunity, and I'm not someone who has ever done anything wrong. I am an open book and I have shared all my experiences with all of those people that have asked whether that be out front to prosecutors, grand juries, any committee that's ever asked. Again, I have my lawyers. I also have lawyers from Davis Wright Tremaine, from my First Amendment rights, don't you know? Unfortunately, many people don't have access to those type of lawyers. I'm grateful and thankful that I do.
Speaker 3:Because of that, I stand here today being able to say what I say and do what I do, because I'm doing it from a place of honesty and I'm doing it from a place of trying to alert the rest of the country as to who these people really are. And fear comes with that, anxiety comes with that, stress comes with that. But you know what, Again, like we talked about a little bit earlier, I had to be put in this position for a reason. I don't believe things happen by accident. I believe my experiences in life have led me to where I am today and that it's my duty to speak up and speak out, and I won't speak out of turn. And if I don't know something, I'm going to be the first person to tell you I really don't know. But I am who I am and I just want people to understand that, again, I'm speaking from really from the point of view of the inner workings of the White House. From being Melania's, I was her only friend.
Speaker 3:This is not OK. This is not good for any of us, and you know people think, oh, but you know they think about the things that the possibilities of having another four years, you know, with Joe Biden God bless Joe Biden, because with Joe Biden, in four more years, if you want to vote for Republican, go for it. You will still have your democracy and you will still be able to vote for whoever you want. Otherwise, we will lose our democracy, we will lose our rights and we will become an autocracy and a dictatorship, and I guarantee you no one's going to be looking out for anyone except themselves.
Speaker 2:Right, and so the next logical step in this. Let me ask you when President Biden was elected and that was thrown out by the Biden DOJ? Am I correct in that? I've got another follow-up question. I'll ask this one first what? I've got another follow-up question. I'll ask this one first. What would have happened and where do you think you would be and what would be going on today had Donald Trump have won that election? Would he have kept coming?
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely. I mean Donald Trump had his personal lawyers in New York City coming after him, had Kazawitz coming after me, you name it. They throw lawsuits around, like, like, like we throw, you know, baby toys and pet toys around they can't have, they can't sue people enough to try and silence the truth. So I have thought about it and I do think about if he were to become president again. You know people have asked me would you move? You know, have you? Have you thought about relocating? And this is my home.
Speaker 3:I'm not moving from my home and I do not believe that our country will actually again, no matter what he says and what his people are saying, I do not believe that he will be the president. I don't, I don't, and I have to continue to believe that and I have to continue to believe that, yes, justice is slow, but I do believe accountability is around the corner and I really do. And I know that people say you know what if? And, yeah, what if? But again, I am just grateful to know that I had the opportunity to share the facts, to get the truth out and to try and make sure that my children know that I lived my life in such a way that they can be proud of and that all those headlines that they changed on me, you know, trying to kill my legacy and ruin my life's work.
Speaker 2:No, and in fact I think it has elevated you, because, if we go back in this actual podcast episode, you said something earlier which really stood out to me as okay. This is a straight shooter, because you said before I went to work for the Trumps, I hadn't even voted. Now you are far from alone in that, of course, but not many people come forth and say you know, up until then I had never voted. So when I heard that, I was like you know, she just she puts it out there and then you can digest it however you choose, but she's going to tell you the truth and then let you take it and do whatever but she's going to tell you the truth and then let let you take it and do whatever.
Speaker 3:And I have to tell you like, and and to that point, like my mom used to be head of the women's national Republican club, like my family, half are Republicans and half are Democrats Like, can you imagine what it's like, are you? I'm sure you can, because again, you are so vocal, and thankfully you are, and we deal with both sides of the sword. But I don't understand. My mom is my best friend. She decides who she wants to vote for Anyone but Donald Trump but, that being said, you want to vote for a Republican. You believe in Republican policy.
Speaker 3:This is not about policy for me. This is about democracy and autocracy. This is about right versus wrong. This has nothing to do with politics anymore, and so I am passionate about that, and so we can agree to disagree. And there's a lot I still don't know, and there's so much I have to learn still, but what I do know is a good person versus not a good person, an honest person versus someone who is going to lie, steal, cheat and grift off of you until you give them everything that you have, and that's all that really matters to me right now. Really like that's it.
Speaker 2:Right. Likewise, you know I'm doing what I'm doing now. At this point in my life. It was just one of those things I thought there's never going to be another time in my life where throwing myself in 100% for a cause it is going to be any more significant than this. If we lose this election, everything we grew up learning about and enjoying the freedoms that we enjoy, it goes away. It goes away. So I applaud you for what you are doing, because I have to imagine in fact, I don't think there's any imagination required with your background and the things that you have done and the contacts that you have, and on and on and on, you could be doing about anything you wanted to right now, and you've chosen to do this, and we need people like you.
Speaker 3:And you and thank you, and I don't understand why there aren't more of us.
Speaker 2:Quite honestly, I don't either. I don't either. Like you said, you had Republicans and Democrats in your family, as did I Growing up and I'm talking. I think you're a little younger, I just turned 58, but the 70s.
Speaker 3:I'm 71, so just a few years, but I'll take them.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right, yeah, at this point, right, I don't get real excited. I know I have a birthday each year, but the number is irrelevant to me it is completely.
Speaker 2:As I'm sure you recall, people from both sides maybe had discussions and at the most in my family you might hear a cute little joke thrown out about the opposite party, but they would both laugh. They knew it was in fun and they respected each other. You nailed it when you said we aren't talking about differences in policy. We are talking about differences in the elemental goodness or not of the human being sitting in that desk in the Oval Office. He's not a good person and, as we are learning, and as I'm sure your book lays out several examples, melania is not a good person. Person.
Speaker 3:And it's so sad.
Speaker 2:Do you think she would take a different or more expanded role if he were back in the White House, or do you think it would be more of the same or maybe even less?
Speaker 3:Oh, I think you know people think, oh, my God, she's going to take on this amazing role and she's going to expand her horizons and she really please. First of all, the amount of people she'll have to help her will be that much less. She's not going to have a speechwriter like me. She's not going to have someone who's who's hiring everyone for her. I mean, this is a woman who would need to put a team together, which is not something that she's going to spend her time doing. The expectations you know that I, that that that everyone's talking about right now are so far and few between in in, in my, in, in my take on this. My reality of all of this is you know she'll, she'll show up where she wants to. She would do what she go to the dinners that she's hosting, but that's it. Like I and be best.
Speaker 3:I mean again, like we said, it was a wasted opportunity, um, and to not be able to build on something that truly was instrumental or affected change. Uh, I don't, I don't see it. I mean, look at what she's been doing since she left the white house. I mean it's piggybacking on other charitable causes. It's using money from trump's pack to pay for her stylist because she didn't want to pay him out of her own finances. You know, while she was in the white house, I was trying to find him money. I mean, this is who these people are, right, I wasn't paid anything, yet I was accused of getting paid $26 million. I mean, hervé, her stylist needed to be paid for taxi cabs. I had to go to her for his taxi cabs and now he's making $18,000 through the Pax a month. I mean, this is what they do, right? And and unfortunately, it's the American people that are suffering and they don't even realize it, they're the ones paying for this, right? And so, you know, aren't they sick and tired of listening to this? I mean, isn't everyone exhausted from hearing about Donald and Melania Trump? I mean, don't you? We don't need this.
Speaker 3:It's not even a reality show, it's a nightmare, and it would be so much easier to move on and to hold him accountable. I mean the way he has affected every single human being. I mean, even with the trial coming up on Monday, the fact that people still call it, you know, a hush money. It's like a hush money scale. No, it is not a hush money case. This is, this is like an election interference case, right, right. And it's not just about Stormy Daniels, it's about Karen McDougal. It's about the catch and kills with, with, with Pecker and the Enquirer. I mean it's so much bigger than what they've been able to make people believe it is, and these lies and misinformation and disinformation. It's like people talk about peace and hope and tranquility. These people create chaos so other people will forget about all the other chaos.
Speaker 2:I could not agree more. I think using the term hush money it makes it sound like some dinky misdemeanor that you just go pay your ticket and go home. We are talking about real crimes here. A hundred percent Interference. And I know you do a lot of talking with the media. How supportive or not have you found the media when you go on? Do you have a sense that somehow, some way, there's always someone in the background who has a little sway for Donald and pulls strings so that no one can ever come out and be the real superhero they are in the moment through what they are doing to reveal the truth? Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Speaker 3:I think Donald and Melania are moneymakers for the media and so, at the end of the day, you know there's only so much screen time they're going to allow for anyone that speaks out the truth Right. And again, it's one thing when you, when someone's saying something and they cut away because you know it's a lie Right or it's been proven. But if you have people that are credible, that bring the communication, documentation, the backup with them, the media have to say you know it's like oh, why didn't you speak out sooner? Why didn't you? Why'd you have to write a book? Because no one was listening. No one wanted to write the true story, right. So I became discredited. My life's work was discredited, my name was discredited. So I became discredited. My life's work was discredited, my name was discredited and everyone wanted to believe that.
Speaker 3:Allen Weisselberg, who is now spending his second five months in Rikers Island, who was auditing the books of the pick but that's who you should listen to. I didn't even get a phone call before the stories went out. So you know everything is planned. Everything is before before the stories went out. So you know everything is planned. Everything is it's the machinations of the white trump white house and the propaganda machine or the wheel spins so fast, and the media. There's someone everywhere that doesn't want, for some reason, the entire truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Speaker 2:And I, I, I don't get it so the, the, the whole thing with the, the inauguration, was that, from their perspective, was that nothing more than just a character hit on you that that really had no meat, but they needed to discredit you was. Is that really what we come down to?
Speaker 3:It comes down to that.
Speaker 3:Yes, they needed to discredit me and make me seem like a little floozy girl who did some parties in New York City and was a socialite I mean, that's what they called me, right?
Speaker 3:So they needed to portray me as someone who didn't do much in life but loved to hang around Melania. And then I got this money, because the biggest question all year round was what happened to $107 million, right? Well, what people don't understand also is that the inauguration is where so much happens, right, that's where everyone got together before the White House. That is where everyone started kissing Donald's ring and shoes and everything else. And let me tell you, the things that happened around the inauguration is what everyone should still be concerned with, because it's those relationships and it was those events that brought together the likes of the people that are running our country today and have been instrumental in infecting not only our Supreme Court but our entire infrastructure with the type of people that neither you or I are proud to call United States citizens, Right? So, so, yeah, I have a lot to say about the inauguration and no one wanted me speaking up.
Speaker 2:I had a lot to say about the inauguration and no one wanted me speaking up If there were a second term. I know the answer to this. I just kind of want you to elaborate on it. We know he's going to have screen and in fact I'd say they already have. They know who they would put in place this time and they know they are people who would follow through. There would be no pushback. If Donald says jump, they ask how high. When you talk about what went on at the inauguration, you say this was kind of where the power hitters out there were. Was it almost kind of like a big interview, so to speak, where people are looking at their future and Donald is looking at them and saying, okay, would this guy or would this woman cut the mustard? Is that kind of what you are?
Speaker 3:I think it was more that so many people didn't believe he was going to win. So it was everyone trying to play catch up to let him know like here we are, we're going to support you now and the money rolled in. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:You had instant friends, like a lottery winner.
Speaker 3:You know, all of a sudden you've got cousins and and they all played well in that sandbox together because it was beneficial to all of them and the way the money flowed was the way the money flowed right. It was private funding. So it was a non-story really in the sense of, but it really wasn't a non-story because so much happened that people still aren't aware of and it's it's. It's just for me. It's just for me. It's heartbreaking, it really is heartbreaking. And so many of those people are living their lives doing whatever they want. So many of the little guys have been taken out and, you know, people have been put in positions of power that shouldn't be, and they are controlling industries and moving things along. So they are all profiting. This is very strategic. This is not. You know, oh, you're my, you know I'm here, so I'm going to bring my friend. And no, this is like. These are infrastructure. This is bridges, tunnels, water technology, hotels, casinos, you name it. These guys know exactly what they're doing.
Speaker 2:Tell me just a little bit about what an undertaking it is to plan an inauguration. Like I said, I'd never even plan an inauguration.
Speaker 3:Like I said, I'd never even watched an inauguration. Oh boy, yeah. So I thought I was going to be doing, like you know, two events ended up being 18. And and again, that was part of their setup. It really was a setup and a takedown. I think it was instrumental in the way that you know, donald was able to have Mark Burnett come in and create this production for him. That looked really good and sounded really professional.
Speaker 3:And I think I, you know, um, and I think I, you know, was the uh person put out front as the visible um, you know person who had the name and the reputation uh, that could be destroyed, uh, and make a great headline. Especially it was attached to Melania, so it took all the attention away from where the real attention should be. But that planning was, um, like I said, I ended up in the hospital with two spinal fusions, two pulmonary embolisms. I spent a month there and I almost died and and and I gave you're going nonstop. I mean the Met Gala. I would do a billion times over, because I was also dealing with people that are again. When you're working at Vogue, you know that you're dealing with people that are legitimate. Not only was I working the way I was working, but the type of people I was working with, and so many of them, are the names that are still out in the front as we speak today, who are still involved with Donald Trump and, like you said, yes, I guarantee you that if there is another term God willing there is not that those people are the yes people. I mean we know Project 2025, it exists. We know that he is implementing and making sure. Like again, first time around, it was like the first thing they were doing on the first day was figuring out like who are the moles in the office? And they were firing them. That is not going to need to happen. Their transition will be very different and that is why it is so scary and we better hope that more people do speak up that were involved in the administration.
Speaker 3:I mean my heart aches not to hear General Flynn, general Kelly I'm sorry, my heart aches to hear General Flynn and not General Kelly. We need General Kelly's voice. We do Mark Milley's voice. We need these people to speak up and, you know, be a part of our messaging to the American people, and I know they don't think that it matters anymore. I know people, so many people have given up and have said, oh, it doesn't matter, why are we even doing this? This is just. It takes your life out of you, right? I mean it's exhausting, right? Well, what, jack? We can't give up.
Speaker 3:You can't give up we cannot, we cannot.
Speaker 2:I I want to ask you this because I I well, first let me, let me qualify the question, because I don't want to ask a question based on something that's not, uh, correct. You are, you, of jewish faith? Yes, I am okay, great, I I great. I've not heard this asked of you as a person of the Jewish faith, what concerns do you have about this country under Donald Trump?
Speaker 3:Well, the hate and vitriol that we've all witnessed already is only exacerbated more daily by his incessant vitriol of his own words. Constantly, he has shown us to be an anti-Semite. He has allowed anti-Semites to sit next to him, share and break bread with him. He is someone who again Ivanka and Jared, it doesn't matter, netanyahu doesn't matter. You know those relationships to Donald Trump are based on. What does that do for me? Meaning him right? It is not. What is the best thing for my, for the country.
Speaker 3:So, as someone whose grandparents survived the Holocaust and whose mother came here as an immigrant, I wholeheartedly cannot believe how disingenuine an individual he is. You know, it's like flapjacks. It's like if it works one day and it's good for this crowd, well, next crowd I'm going to flip tomorrow because I'm going to be with a different crowd and that is how he rolls. But that's like that with everything, all of his policies. So there's so much hate right now and there shouldn't be. There's so much misunderstanding and so many people are so uneducated as to the facts of what are going on in, not only here but abroad, and so we need someone who will take the time to actually understand it themselves and explain it and bring us together as people of one nation under God, as opposed to like disbursements of, of, of of. What group can hate the other group more, right? I mean he just he breeds that. Every word he he takes is is, is. It's like almost like he's contemplating how do I hate people, how do I get people to hate one another even more?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Right, it's like he calls us and the things he says. It's so forget about people like, oh, it's so unpresidential. I'm like, forget about being unpresidential, it is just so wrong.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Do you fear, or have you at any particular point in time? Or have you at any particular point in time you have a legitimate fear for your safety or the safety of your family, perhaps because of something that has happened. But then thoughts of the future and places, maybe that it's safe for you to go.
Speaker 3:But I'm sure you also have an idea in mind of areas of the country that you wouldn't feel safe going. Can you tell me I'm protected? Good, I make sure to be protected, and I also you know I say this with pause, but I never tape Melania for an I gotcha moment, but I have my tapes and hours and hours and hours of them, and I know that that is a protection unto itself. I also know that so much hasn't been disclosed. Again, I tried, but when the Southern District of New York closes investigations down, or DCAC you know, the Attorney General of District of Columbia closes cases down.
Speaker 3:I mean, there's a lot of things that people some the important people know. So, again, it's almost like it's better for all of us who have spoken out to continue speaking out, because our voices need to be heard, but also our safety needs to be recognized. How important it is that we are every bit as scared and every bit as determined, though, not to live our lives in fear, but to know that we are doing the right thing. And you know what, whatever it takes, I just pray. Again, the fact that we even have to think this way is just.
Speaker 2:I think you and I think a lot alike in this way. You said we can't be afraid, we can't show that we are stepping back. I kind of have a personal I guess mantra that I walk towards I go towards the fear. I do, I go in that direction, so it's like a magnet for me. Regarding Donald Trump, the threats to democracy, rather than, as we are kind of hardwired to do by default, sensing the fear and then moving away from it, I kind of use that as my North Star. That's where I am headed, because I know that is where the things that need to be said and done, because I know that is where the things that need to be said and done have to occur Absolutely.
Speaker 3:And again, we all have our days that we retreat, we regress, we isolate, we get depressive, we don't want to talk to anyone, we don't see anyone, we don't communicate with anyone. I mean, there's only so much every day that any human being can take, and so I know myself like I know that there are days where I can go so strongly and then I have days where I just need to retreat and again I have a family but there's nothing left. Right, I'm so emotionally drained and psychologically tormented and you know people talk about PTSD and you know what, After being in that arena.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Again, there should be no reason for our country to live in fear, for anyone to live in fear, in the United States of America and also to think that our country is being literally held hostage by a family that doesn't deserve to hold anyone hostage. They want to. It's like what are we doing, people?
Speaker 2:I think that's the perfect description a country being held hostage. Because in a general sense, that's exactly. Look at the number of people that you run into or I run into, on all different socioeconomic levels, who kind of have their lives on pause right now because they don't know what the future holds, and it could go into very different uh. So people are kind of like let's just wait and and again.
Speaker 3:And this is big money for big time industries, right, like so. So these people are like I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna toe the line, and it's like. Then you have people. So these people are like I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna toe the line. And it's like. Then you have people like us that are like hey, but you can't toe the line because we really need you to actually affect change right now. We don't have time for you to toe the line. So it's really complicated. It's so complicated.
Speaker 2:What, having gone through everything that you've gone through and, in many respects, are still going through, where have you drawn your strength? What are some of the beliefs, the ideas that keep you going?
Speaker 3:I do believe that right is right. I do. I do believe that kindness will win. I want to believe that respect for one another will happen. I have my three kids, like they are my everything. My husband like my family, like I am so lucky to have what I have and I don't enjoy it, because this is what I do all day, right. Yet I know at the end of the day, in the middle of it, like, whatever's going on, my kids keep me going. I mean, they keep me busy, like mom's got to be on hand. So there's that, and I want them to know that the world shouldn't be like this Friendships and anger towards one another and just disagreement. The world shouldn't be this way. Like, and I just can't let. I don't know where it actually comes from. I actually don't even know the answer to that question.
Speaker 2:And again, here's where I what I appreciate about you so much, stephanie. You are so raw and open. You know it's easy to generate a beautiful, inspirational answer to a question like that. It is. But when you don't have an answer, you don't just bullshit and say, oh, it's this. You say you know what? I don't have an answer. I think if there's anything that really jumps out about this episode with you is just how open you are. You put it all out on the table. And looking back in your time with the Trumps, is that something that they seized upon? Your openness? Would you? Would you have operated differently with Melania if you knew what you know now?
Speaker 3:I don't know how to act differently.
Speaker 2:Beautiful.
Speaker 3:That's my problem. So I need to stay away from people like that. Like I, I am a, I am, I am, I wear my. Like I said, my Achilles heel is my, my loyalty, my honesty and honestly, like I, I stay away. I just have to stay away because I don't know how to say no and I don't know how not to do something with tunnel vision. It's just how I'm made up. I can't again, I can't try.
Speaker 3:Like actually, when you were talking a second, I was thinking about the pain, like how much pain there is, and that's what keeps you motivated to continue speaking up. But I don't, I just have to stay away. And you know, would I do things differently? Yeah, the answer is I would never. I would never do it. But that's the only way for me to do it differently was to never become friends with her. I mean again, she is so persuasive and you see, something that you think is so genuinely real that even there are times on TV where I'm like, oh my God, that smile that she's invoking this is like ability to take you in, and people get sucked in by that and it's nothing more sometimes than just a full heart that wants to believe that somebody else is good.
Speaker 2:You said something that I think is your level of self-awareness is really very kick-ass, because you said something about yourself and awareness that you have. That, I think, is true of a lot of people, the difference being they don't have the self-awareness to know that about themselves. And that's when you said I don't know how to be anything different and I can't say no. And would you say that part of the problem in the Trump administration was that you had people who were not aware that they couldn't say no?
Speaker 3:Oh, but here's the difference. I have to interject and I'm sorry. I can say no to something wrong. I can absolutely say no, oh, yes yes.
Speaker 3:When I was looking at budgets and they were like, okay, and I saw indiscretions and indiscrepancies and inconsisten, but but to say no to a friend to help me, or you know, or someone asking you to pass money through something, no, I have no problem saying no to stuff like that. But my friend, like you, want help with something that I know I can do. Of course I'm going to help you. You want me to connect you to someone. You want me to pick up the phone and call that person that I worked 20 years to get to know and I can make that call in five seconds for you. Absolutely, I'll make that call for you. I don't know how not to.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. So I guess let me refine that question. Are there a lot of people who surrounded Donald Trump who are not self-aware at all, that maybe the thing they share with you is the ability to?
Speaker 3:have a decision. No, they're so nasty and mean and just awful. Again, I have phone conversations. I mean my email to Melania the night before I actually resigned, so she kept me there. And again, people don't really understand the timing, but I actually resigned the night before the New York Times was able to write that story, um, and I had this long email to her and it's in my book and I literally say everyone here is just cancerous and poisonous and I can't be in an environment like this.
Speaker 3:Like I have completed the initiative. I I want you to use it, I want you to go with it. Like, here are the experts. But when they threw me under the bus, the experts left with me. But I, like everyone that I dealt with there was just again, their agendas were so different than mine. Like I truly had a. Really I love my agenda. I thought I was going to affect, I thought I was going to be able to create social, emotional learning in every school in the country. I really genuinely believed that. And how naive of me to think that. But people there again, that wasn't. My life's work was to work in the White House. Like the last thing I wanted to do was work in the White House.
Speaker 2:So, no, I think that's so important for people to know about you, so important for people to know about you. I get the sense that before Trump world in the White House, you were not feeling like something's lacking in my life. I need to. You were doing, you had succeeded and were experiencing a level of success that fulfilled you already success that fulfilled you already.
Speaker 3:Oh my God. I was rocking it Like, honestly, I loved my life. I loved producing fashion shows. I loved working with every designer, emerging designers. I loved working at Lincoln Center and IMG Fashion. I had no reason to want to go and work at the White House Like zero. I had to give up everything. I had to close my business. I mean that I worked decades building For what? So the only reason was because my friend asked me no one else would do it and I was serving my country by doing it and I knew I was going to go back to my life. But I was going to use all my resources and all my experience to make it a positive, to make a positive effect in her life and the country's. And so be it. Oh my God.
Speaker 2:Right. You said answering the call to my country, and in another episode that has not aired yet, one of my guests said exactly the same thing. They were part of the Trump administration and when I asked you know why it was hey, how many times in life do you get the call from the White House saying come work for us? It's something that I can do for my country. That was the answer I got and you mirrored that, so it wasn't I need to do this for this reason. It's like, hey, this is cool.
Speaker 3:I mean, it changed everything in my life. It would be never becoming her friend, but also, god, never giving up my life for someone else. Right, and that's something like no more than you got to know what you know. You have to. You have to be intelligent and educate yourself and understand what you're getting yourself into and who the people are you're working with. But never give up your life for someone else, unless that person is your family. That needs you health-wise, you know. But to give, I gave up everything for melania trump, and melania trump is the person who stabbed me so deeply from the back and front at the same time and gut punched me and laughed about it, thinking no big deal, literally, don't be so dramatic. She told me this came to that because of politics. What so? Yeah?
Speaker 2:and and it's things like that that let you know the friendship aspect of it that you thought you had, that was non-existent, that that just was. It was always transactional, it was always surface.
Speaker 3:You may have enjoyed feeling that for a period, but but looking back you don't think it was ever authentic I don't, I, I honestly like I know, I, I I tilt on that right I I think there are those moments that, oh my god, I those, nobody else experienced what I was experiencing. And I still think, oh my God, those were real at the time, like there's no way, it couldn't be. But then, at the same time that's what I'm saying is the outcome, the end result for her was always going to be about Melania, but in the moments there was a friendship. But it was not my definition of a friendship. It was a friendship based on need for her, which resulted in it gave me something at the time.
Speaker 3:I guess there was a calling for me that I related with her. There was a sweetness for me that I related with her. There was a sweetness, there was an energy level. It was just simple. She lived her life. I actually admired her, not caring what anybody thought, not trying to change Donald. Again, I didn't realize at the time what we were trying to change. It was just I am who I am.
Speaker 2:I think the reason, Stephanie, that you speaking out, you writing the book and letting the world know who this woman is is so critically important, because when I read about how much influence she has over Donald Trump, she's an extension of Donald Trump, so we need to know about her every bit as much as we know about Donald. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 3:100%. She's his biggest cheerleader.
Speaker 2:So, as we kind of wind this down, would you do it again? Which part Would you go back to the White House for anyone at this point, even if it was somebody that maybe already is there something about the White House and the pace at which it moves and the backstabbing that happens? Is it something that you just you know I wouldn't, not just with Melania, but I wouldn't go back for anyone.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't go back to the White House. I think that as a private person I can continue to affect more change in lots of the humanitarian work that I do, and if there was someone in the White House that wanted or needed anything from you know the private sector, I'd be more than willing and happy to provide that. I think that I don't think in my lifetime that the White House can be cleaned out and filled with people that I want to see every day. I'm sure there are some wonderful people there, but there are also again. The remains of what took place are there and will be there for many years to come.
Speaker 2:I agree be there for many years to come.
Speaker 2:I agree. Yeah, I think you are 100% on where you said I think I can do more in the position that I'm in now. I feel in a similar way that I don't have restrictions placed upon me by an employer or a sponsor, or I may say something that later I say I might have said it different, but at the time I feel free to say what I want to say, how I say it, and as soon as you step beneath the frame of something else, that's no longer true. It may be kind of true, but there are limitations placed on that and it limits.
Speaker 3:No, and thankfully you're not, because you can speak, you know and you do speak out, and you say it with all of your own conviction, because you're not held by anyone else's standards or protocols. And again, you're saying it from the heart. We all say things sometimes that we wish oh, I would have said that a little differently. Or you listen back on things. You go, oh my god, I can't believe. I said that I sounded like a whatever, but the reality is again. We all make mistakes, we all do things that we shouldn't do like we wish we would do it a little differently or handle something a little more sensitively. But it's your own like. This is our own life and we are doing with it what we feel is right.
Speaker 2:Indeed. What does the future hold for Stephanie Winston Wolkoff? And let's clarify. What does the future hold with a Biden win? What does the future hold, god forbid, with another Trump presidency?
Speaker 3:Well, with a Biden win, we have democracy.
Speaker 2:That's critical.
Speaker 3:That's critical, and we have truth, justice, justice and accountability. So I'll take those and and some peace, a lot of peace right and will you pursue?
Speaker 2:I would assume you. You have kind of a lifelong attachment to the world of fashion. Would that be fair? Not so much, yeah, not at this point. Back to the peace and quiet. At this point it's again. It's about helping those that need, but you are just at a place where you want to do that period. Even if we weren't in this crisis that we are in right now, it's still something you want to do and address whatever urgency is present. That's a pretty good classification.
Speaker 3:That was awesome. Thank you, you said a lot more than I can.
Speaker 2:So I'm so glad you decided to join me today. I love your freedom to just go where it goes and share so much with us. That is going to play an important part, I feel, in what happens in November and maybe sometime down the road. If you were willing, we'll do this again sometime that would be great. Deal with whatever is going on at that moment.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you so much, Jack. I really appreciate it. You know I'm a big fan, and again, warriors for democracy have to stick together. So anytime, anyplace, thank you for everything.
Speaker 2:Thank you, stephanie, and I'll talk to you again soon.
Speaker 3:Thanks a lot, Bye Jack.
Speaker 2:Okay, I think I told you in the introduction to this episode with Stephanie Winston Wolkoff that she maintained that Melania Trump was as much of a danger to democracy as her husband, donald Trump, and I think, having listened to this episode, you now have a sense and an idea of why that is and really, the influence, the incredible amount of influence that Melania Trump has with Donald Trump in a world where he listens to no one else, not even his own attorneys. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff has revealed to us that he does listen to her, he does take a step back and listen to her, and yet the problem, or one of the most pressing problems, as Stephanie described, is that she has much of the same disregard for democracy and for the United States of America as her husband, so clearly she's not going to be providing him with the kind of guidance that is good for this country. Wow, what an episode. Listen, please be sure to check out Stephanie Winston Wolkoff's book Melania and Me. It is a page-turner, and when you read a book like this, when you're arming yourself with knowledge, you're trying to take this all in and there's been so much to try to take in and when you can get the facts from somebody who was there you can form a more complete picture. Please be sure to check out jackhopkinsnowcom.
Speaker 2:That is my newsletter, where I focus on resilience and emotional stability. The whole focus of that newsletter, which comes out in both print form and videos throughout the week. It's all about bolstering ourselves, being able to buoy our emotions or the emotions of others to increase resilience and stability, or the emotions of others to increase resilience and stability, because we've got several months left leading into this 2024 election and we know the right is going to be throwing the very worst that they have to throw at us and we need to maintain our focus, our resilience, and be at our best and not be vulnerable to getting down in the dumps, because that's when people decide. Eh, I was going to vote, but I'm tired. We can't have that this year. We cannot Check out the book. Melania and Me, check out jackhopkinsnowcom. I'd like to thank you for having tuned in and I will see you again soon on the next episode of the Jack Hopkins Show podcast. We'll see you next time.