Reports: Melania Trump not moving into White House in January
When Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States in Washington on Friday, Jan. 20, his family, including his wife, Melania Trump, and their young son, Barron, will undoubtedly be by his side. But come that Monday, it appears they won’t be staying with him in the White House.
The New York Post and TMZ.com report that the 46-year-old future first lady and the couple’s 10-year-old son will not make the move to the nation’s capital and will instead remain at Trump Tower in New York City to allow Barron to continue attending private school on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
According to the Post, Melania “will travel to the White House as needed” and “her primary focus is on Barron.” The two may make the move to Washington after the end of the school year, the paper added, but currently “no plans are in place.”
A spokeswoman for the president-elect did not return a request seeking comment.
Jason Miller, communications director for the Trump transition team, told reporters that while the team had no formal statement on the matter, “there’s obviously a sensitivity” around the issue of pulling Barron out of school in the middle of the academic year.
Asked about the Post’s report outside his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., Trump said both Melania and Barron would be joining him in the White House “very soon — after he’s finished with school.”
But Trump himself may not spend all of his time in the White House, either.
Last week, the New York Times reported that the real estate mogul had been “talking with his advisers about how many nights a week he will spend in the White House,” reportedly telling them he would like to spend as much time in New York City as he can.
“Mr. Trump, who was shocked when he won the election, might spend most of the week in Washington, much like members of Congress, and return to Trump Tower or his golf course in Bedminster, N.J., or his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach on weekends,” the Times reported.
President Trump’s whereabouts on the weekends are important, and not just for the press pool.
Security around Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan has been heightened since the election, with lane closures and barriers snarling traffic on a busy stretch of Fifth Avenue.
And even if Trump doesn’t make Trump Tower his weekend White House, security will likely remain heightened throughout his presidency and beyond.
As the New York Post noted, Melania and Barron “will each have an unknown number of Secret Service agents assigned to them in addition to a driver and armored vehicle to take Barron to school.” And “an advance team of agents will swoop down on the school each morning to make sure it’s safe.”
“It is an unprecedented challenge,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference Friday. “In the modern world, with the security dynamics we face today, we have never had a president of the United States who would be here on such a regular basis.”
