The former White House aide and close friend of Melania Trump claims the former first lady did not support the way her son, Barron Trump, was supposed to enter the political spotlight.
Barron, 18, is the youngest son of former President Donald Trump and his only child with his wife, Melania. While the teenager has kept a relatively low profile, mainly appearing silently by his family's side at campaign events, he has yet to strike out on his own.
That changed in May when it was announced that the teen, who graduated from high school that month, would be a Florida delegate at the Republican National Convention in July, along with his half-siblings Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Tiffany Trump. Their father is the party's presumptive 2024 nominee for president.
However, just a day later his mother shot down the prospects of him being a delegate.
"While Barron is honored to have been chosen as a delegate by the Florida Republican Party, he regretfully declines to participate due to prior commitments," a spokeswoman for the former first lady said at the time.
According to Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Melania would likely not endorse any foray into a more official role.
Winston Wolkoff was the former first lady's official appointment after Trump's 2016 presidential win, but things soured between them when Winston Wolkoff was accused of financially benefiting from his 2017 presidential inauguration to the tune of $26 million by working as a contractor.
Winston Wolkoff denied the claims, saying she was instead paid a fee of $1.6 million.
"Barron's involvement in the Trump political arena is one that I know he and Melania stayed away from for many reasons," she said on Sunday during an interview with MeidasTouch host Ben Meisela.
"But he being put on the front line that way, if it was going to be the case Melania would have supported it 100 percent vocally."
She added of the RNC delegate announcement that "I knew she would never allow that, and the fact that it took 24 hours" for her to shut it down "actually was surprising."
Newsweek reached out to Trump's representative via email for comment.
Barron made headlines last week for an alleged independent venture, entering the world of cryptocurrency.
Convicted "pharma bro" Martin Shkreli claimed he was in a cryptocurrency partnership with Barron and they were behind the mysterious DJT crypto token, which launched in April. The token jumped in value last week after rumors it was linked to the former president, whose middle name is John.
"I have over 1000 pieces of evidence [that] I created it with Barron," Shkreli told online crypto investigator ZachXBT, who shared the information on X, formerly Twitter.
Newsweek contacted Trump's team at the time for comment and Shkreli, who posted our request to his X account.
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Shannon Power is a Greek-Australian reporter, but now calls London home. They have worked as across three continents in print, ... Read more
