First Lady Melania Trump, 56, said family time in the Trump household is shrinking, and she suggested that her son Barron Trump, 20, does not mind the distance. She spoke on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026.
The exchange came during an appearance on Fox Business’ “The Big Money Show.”
Co-host Taylor Riggs asked the question. Riggs praised the first lady as an inspiration to young mothers juggling businesses, charities, state dinners and a family, and she asked whether the Trumps still gather for Sunday night dinners and what advice she would give mothers feeling stretched thin.
Melania Trump’s answer started with logistics. “It’s good to schedule, right?” she said. She added that everybody is busy these days.
“It’s less and less the family time. It’s suffering because of it,” she said.
“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 said.
Dinner Plans and Late Nights
She said her husband sometimes works in the Oval Office until 9:30 at night. Dinner does not wait for him, she said, because his schedule is full and hers is too.
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.
Her comments contrast with what she said in January 2026, when she told former Fox host Maria Bartiromo: “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.
The Washington, D.C., academic center of New York University (NYU) is where the president’s youngest son chose to take classes last year, a decision that also sent him back to live with his parents instead of remaining on the school’s Manhattan campus. The move put Barron Trump inside the very household his mother now portrays as pulled in competing directions by work. He has begun his junior year at NYU.
Scrutiny Around the Family
Barron Trump has faced criticism this year over how close he appears to be to figures in the controversial “manosphere,” among them Andrew Tate, 39, a suspected rapist and sex trafficker. Earlier reporting said Barron Trump “admired” Tate and spoke with him by phone while being fitted for a suit. A conversation with Barron Trump followed the assassination attempt against his father in Butler, Pa., in July 2024, Tate said in 2024.
Melania Trump has spent less time in Washington than usual this year, and she went a full month without a public appearance over the summer. Alongside that absence, her husband’s close relationship with Natalie Harp, a 35-year-old aide to the president, has drawn growing scrutiny.
Inside the “Melania” Documentary
The first lady co-produced the documentary “Melania” with director Brett Ratner, and Amazon MGM Studios distributed it. The film opened in U.S. theaters Friday, Jan. 30. Ratner has not directed a project since accusations of sexual misconduct were made against him in 2017; he has denied the allegations.
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 host much of the film, which traces the days before the January 2025 inauguration.
The death of her mother, Amalija Knavs, in January 2024 anchors the film’s most personal stretch. Cameras follow the first lady to former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral in Washington on Jan. 9, 2025 — the anniversary of that death. She goes on to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, lighting a candle there in her mother’s honor.
She reveals during a car ride that Michael Jackson is her favorite musician, and the film uses “Billie Jean” on two separate occasions. Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, joins her on a video call in which the two trade concerns about youth anxiety and social media use.