First Lady Melania Trump, 56, said family time in the Trump household is shrinking, and she suggested her 20-year-old son, Barron Trump, does not mind the distance.
“It’s less and less the family time. It’s suffering because of it,” she said Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026, on Fox Business’ “The Big Money Show.” “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.”
The first lady’s Fox Business appearance was booked to promote a new Melania Trump initiative called Imperia, a forum to connect and empower women business leaders, CEOs, founders and investors. In the segment, which aired Sept. 23, she said women are at the center of the economy and must build ownership together.
“The Big Money Show” co-host Taylor Riggs praised her as an inspiration to young mothers juggling businesses, charities, state dinners and a family, then asked whether the Trumps still gather for Sunday night dinners and what advice she would give mothers who feel stretched thin. Melania Trump answered first on logistics. “It’s good to schedule, right?” she said, adding that everybody is busy these days.
Separate Homes, Crowded Calendars
Her husband, she said, sometimes stays at work in the Oval Office until 9:30 at night. Dinner does not wait for him, she added, because he is busy and so is she. Most of the first lady’s time is believed to be spent in New York City; President Donald Trump, meanwhile, lives separately at the White House. Nothing in the Fox Business interview walked back the picture of a schedule leaving less and less room for the dinner table.
Washington has seen less of her than usual this year, including one summer stretch of a full month with no public appearance. The quieter schedule came amid growing scrutiny of her husband’s close relationship with Natalie Harp, a 35-year-old aide to the president. The couple were recently seen together at the UN General Assembly in New York, where the president gave the first lady a shout-out during his speech. She also allowed CNN to cover her at the assembly despite a media ban her husband imposed.
Her latest remarks sit oddly beside what she told former Fox host Maria Bartiromo in January 2026: “You need to be there for a child nonstop, especially when they need you, especially at that age that Barron is.” Barron Trump was 19 at the time.
Scrutiny Around Barron Trump
Barron Trump has begun his junior year at New York University (NYU). Rather than remain on the school’s Manhattan campus, he chose last year to return to his parents’ home and enroll in classes at the university’s academic center in Washington, D.C., a move that placed him inside the household his mother now describes as pulled in different directions by work.
Critics have taken aim this year at the youngest Trump son over the closeness he appears to have with figures in the controversial “manosphere.” Among them is Andrew Tate, 39, a suspected rapist and sex trafficker. Earlier reporting said Barron Trump “admired” Tate and had a phone conversation with him during a suit fitting. Tate, for his part, said in 2024 that he had spoken with Barron Trump following the assassination attempt against his father in Butler, Pa., in July 2024.
What Her Documentary Showed
A film was supposed to have settled the question of how the first lady spends her time. Melania Trump co-produced “Melania: 20 Days to History” with director Brett Ratner, and Amazon MGM Studios distributed the film, which opened in U.S. theaters on Friday, Jan. 30. “Everyone wants to know, so here it is,” she says in the opening voiceover. She states her intent early on: “I want to show the American people my journey from private citizen to first lady.”
Ratner had not directed a project since sexual misconduct accusations were leveled against him in 2017, allegations he has denied. Watchdog groups and critics of the administration went after the financing behind the film, calling its release insensitive at a moment when mass protests were swelling in Minneapolis over two fatal shootings by federal agents.
Trump Tower in New York and Mar-a-Lago in Florida serve as the settings for much of the documentary, which traces the days before the January 2025 inauguration. Her mother, Amalija Knavs, died in January 2024, and that loss anchors the film’s most personal stretch. Cameras follow her on Jan. 9, 2025 — the anniversary of the death — to former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral in Washington, and afterward to Manhattan’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where a candle is lit in her mother’s honor.
During a car ride she reveals that Michael Jackson is her favorite musician, and “Billie Jean” plays twice over the course of the film. On a video call with Brigitte Macron, wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, the two trade concerns about youth anxiety and social media use.