Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Melania And Me | Moms Don't Have Time To Read Books

well congratulations on your book thank you so let's discuss melania and me the rise and fall of my friendship with the first lady okay so when did you decide you were gonna write about your experience well when i um was i guess the first thing to say is that my experience with with melania and the white house and the presidential inauguration committee um was fast and furious and um i am a meticulous record keeper i've always been it's just who i am so my intent and and having all of my um uh all the administrative things that that you would do normally under any circumstances as part of your job which mine was very much about budgets and um with my work that i've done um things just didn't seem to add up let's just put it that way and so um as after the presidential inauguration committee um producing the events i then went into the white house with melania because she had no one else i mean no one so maybe i should back up i i like was so interested i just like wanted to have here you answer that question so badly but maybe i should provide more context which is that you and melania were friends you met in part through your kids you would go to lunches you would hang out and she considered you one of her inner circle essentially um beforehand and would always give you birthday gifts and call you and you know if she needed favors and you know recommendations you were her go-to and so that's like the context the orchid was yearly that was the birthday gift the order the organ no no i think it's really important because for me at the time every year i would get that and i would think to myself oh my god she remembered you know your friends remember these things she wasn't the one ordering i mean it was a it was a yearly and those were the things that i had to pick up on and take a step back and go that's not a per that that wasn't yes it was a lovely gesture and it was wonderful to be acknowledged and have your friends right just all you want to do is your friends reach out in a text and say happy birthday but at the time when so much is going on you think wow that was really nice like they i considered it more care than what i think maybe really what it was and you don't think that it was from a place of care at all i no no not at all no no i didn't i definitely was placed from care but that's just who she is she's very um it's part of her um her makeup is to make sure that things are recognized by not be half of others a thank you note a you know she's very cordial she she does things very um formally and that's more how i was thinking of it versus my scattered brain where i'm all over the place and i'm you know last minute writing my friends and calling them and um life you know working kids wait just teasing this out so do you mean like the fact that do you think that she had it like in her calendar and that it's less care not that it's less care but it isn't her calendar and melania does have you know assistants and people that take care of those things that's not to say again she had to want to do it and she but again it's that next step where it's only do you see it on your ical but you take the time to make sure that it gets there and you ask and you talk about it it was just it was it was a it was a very kind gesture so you think it was a kind gesture but it seemed kinder than it actually was because of how it was like i don't want to keep dwelling on this but um anyway let me just let it go so anyway so she that that ended up happening um and then um as you had sort of gotten closer and you recorded a bunch of your emails and all this stuff i didn't record i'm sorry that was the wrong word well you were just saying you're a great record keeper so i think that's why it was in my head that you get ridiculous records and everything and then you have so many of the emails you exchanged in the book so like everybody they save right so absolutely and and that's the thing too is i think the most one of the most important things for me in writing this book was to clear my conscience because it was immediately after i was um fed to the wolves thrown on the bus and accused of you know a financial uh crime and headlined all over the world as this you know melania's friend gets 26 million dollars and then the following week melania's friend gets fired um you know they made it they attached it they made a culpable neither headline was true but she wouldn't you know she and again there's that's why i felt like i had to make sense of how to take a big step back and i started writing because i was writing an op-ed i was trying to put this into an op-ed thinking okay if i write what happened i can tell you know in in 800 words i'm trying to talk you know to fit this in so everyone can understand and that op-ed just kept going and going and going and going because and i couldn't get enough out and it couldn't be now yeah based on all facts i mean there's not a line that's disputable and so when the white house kept coming after me saying i was delusional i made things up i those are the reasons why you hear some of those recordings now because i can yeah wait so for people who don't know what happened you went into the white house just tell like the you went into the white house you were hired to help with the inauguration you had a whole history running the met ball for many many years and we're like complete superstar event producer and a thousand trillion other amazing reputable things in society blah blah blah so you go melania says she wants you to be part of the inauguration you orchestrate that in your way that you are used to doing then what happens so i was working with a lot of people during the inauguration and there were a lot of things going on around me that i again i wasn't accustomed to but i also wasn't familiar with so i would constantly bring up to dollar melania a lot of inconsistencies and inaccuracies of things that didn't happen also didn't make sense um and so after the inauguration um we planned 18 events i was only supposed to go in to do creative ended up doing at a couple events right ended up being the um central figure i became the face of the inauguration for some odd reason um and i do know there was a meeting a couple days you know a week before that stephanie you need to go out front you need to we're going to do the new york times article and we need you out there to show show everyone that you're in support of this because i hadn't done any press and i had no intention of doing price i was just doing it actually out of honor because it is the united states of america i am a producer i felt it's an amazing thing to be asked to do um and melania's my friend and so nobody else would do it and the reality is i even if other people would have done it i it's my own fault didn't unders i didn't take policy into consideration at the time at all neither was i that familiar with it i've had to educate myself because quite honestly i thought i could separate politics and ethics and i you know the way i was able to live my life was to do humanity work on humanitarian contribute in producing events like the inauguration but i didn't i i always blocked out the noise of politics that is not you you cannot live your life like that i i am that is my fault for going into this and saying yes to something that i knew nothing about um this is this was no fairy tale this was no you know new york fashion week this was this was a different world a different beast and i didn't know enough and that's one of the biggest lessons i learned no matter how close you are to someone you are not you know you've got to ask questions and you've got to make sure you understand who the players are before you agree to um jump into you know anything that you do in your life um and so i wanted to believe that good over evil thoughts you know doesn't matter it does it it does not work that way in politics or in this world uh that i was dealing with with these people but i always thought melania had my back and donald so it was really with the support of melania when i came back to new york literally two days later i flew to dc she had no one else i mean no one i was interviewing everyone for her office during the inauguration so as i was playing the inauguration and i was working on all of you know ralph lauren and getting all of her organizing her for the swearing in um every step of the way working with um you know on production and broadcast i was interviewing and hired um and met and hired a few people for the east wing when i went back to uh the white house um it was empty it was just i mean it was an empty dark place and i was alone and i turned on the lights i remember calling her and being like and there i was standing in michelle obama's office and to me i was like oh my god i'm standing in michelle obama's office and she was you know like no big deal like it was like no like i'm facetiming her to remember that moment and i'm like my god look where i am i'm in now i said i'm in your office i'm like this is the white house this is the united states of america and it was sort of like you know she just moved on to you know laughed and like moved on to what's next which is the redecorating and the staffing and but she didn't really want to even talk about that so it was more again i think i held the regard and and um i think i was obviously projecting what i felt onto her that's another thing that i see you know in retrospect um that i think because i was in a position to help her but i was also in a position and the proximity to her the power that she wielded the platform that she had to you know at her fingertips um was obviously it was something that you you know i you know people say oh you wanted the power no no i i there's so much about children and and social emotional learning that's very personal to me because of my children um and the importance of not you know um identifying children based on how they look are they typical are they not um our family's been through a lot and so the journeys that we've had to take to understand how important it is for children to be able to first understand themselves and be able to express themselves they need the tools to know how to do that and that's all about prevention right it's not about intervention so when you go into kindergarten you need to learn that i don't feel well you need to what does that mean you know so express your feelings understand what that means regulate yourself so these are things that my husband and i as my kids um learned over 10 years and so i felt that every child should have this because it's not just for children with learning disabilities and differences it's for every child and the fact that she only wanted to focus on cyberbullying she was open to a bigger umbrella and so for me it was i was working with the l cetera for emotional intelligence um aspen institute uh tim shriver i mean we had an amazing team of people that um truly i think you know ivanka wanted to surf the first lady the west wing did not want her to continue moving on on a platform honestly um and uh i mean it's there's so many there's so much going on at once so i apologize no it's okay but um i i just um i i mean i was i was banging my head against the wall every day about her and about the position i put myself in and also the position that i you know looking forward and tunnel vision to get it done and um you you took an assignment and then didn't totally process because who could know what would come with it and then you found yourself in this new environment and then you didn't have your one ally you feel enough and it's like well i had her until i had her i did i had her until they needed to place blame um they heard there was an investigation opening up into the presidential inauguration committee and as soon as that happened she turned her back on me when i needed her most and all i needed her to do was speak the truth and just say and she says it's me personally and that's why um you know people say oh you can't believe you recorded a friend no no they had already they had already accused me of of of um getting 26 million dollars they accused me of being fired and all the other accusations that came with it i was already had hired a lawyer when i was in the white house still in january um and she knew about it because there was this setup to taking me down and i was aware of it i wasn't aware why did they why did they want to take you down um well they needed they needed to as as again in the book but it it's it was the importance of mitigating the negative um uh um the negative response to any type of uh headline for the first lady in reference to me working for her because of because of the accusations of the pick now i'm the one who raised all the red flags you know people say i didn't have any signing powers i didn't have budget powers i had the ability i was like like i said it was a piece of chewing gum between everyone and i was being pulled and pushed in every direction but i never even had access to a bank account i never had a check look i was kicked out of financial meetings so i can run over their apartment at trump tower and show them things and say oh my god i'm gonna end up in the bottom potomac because i'm pointing this out to you and they would pick up the phone and do some firework gates and this the things that went on around me but at the end of the day i had no financial responsibility which made it even worse so um so the fact that this worked do you know what i'm saying so internally um there were these 62 questions that went around the white house for a year the inauguration is over okay in january february 2000 uh okay january 2017 in february 2018 they released the 990. it's a form 990 that's going to the federal election committee when they did that it's they list the top five companies you don't list individuals ever but as wiz was created for full transparency is literally four people from tiny horse and myself again we were only supposed to be overseeing 1.62 million dollars um how it got to where it got was a whole other story and that's i'm working with the united states attorney general for the district of columbia um i i know i'm going all over this and i apologize but i'm involved in three different you know investigations i mean i was subpoenaed by the grand jury of the southern district of new york um the intelligence committee as well as working with um dc now and you know it's been it took over my life and so i pressed record after i was in the white house after i had already hired a lawyer because they wanted me to create a narrative not go along i wouldn't go along with theirs which was this was the most peaceful transitional of power and everything was done by the book and you know i i wouldn't do it and this is what i'm sitting in the first lady's office creating her initiatives so i was a problem i was a problem for everyone and i actually expressed that to the lawyers i was very vocal about the fact that what was what had happened during the inauguration um and i wouldn't keep my mouth shut and so um not only did they not want the initiative to move forward they didn't they needed me to to stop talking about the the the mr you know the improprieties so i get everything and i you know i did read your book and i followed you on the news i'm sorry i'm sorry no no i just want you to know i do have some background and part of this is like teasing at what happened because what i'm really curious about and i am sorry for what's happened to you and i can sense your your fear really i mean there's a lot going on it's a lot of is like out of your control and all you've done is work hard and yet all this stuff is happening to you and i can tell how unfair you feel that is and justifiably over my life yeah so when i just socially emotionally fizzy it was in the hospital for over a month my man was died and i i did and i gave up all my businesses i mean i literally gave up all my partnerships to go do this for her so that's why that betrayal was so hard and it still affects me um because it wasn't like your friend just turned you know didn't call you back i mean i gave up 25 years of my life's work my career my livelihood my three children had to watch this and i think she had the the free will almost enough to do like do you like my from just how it looks on the outside well i shouldn't say that do you think that she was an independent actor enough to have if she wanted to have had your back do you think she could have well that's when i have the recordings right so that's where she couldn't have and she told me the lawyers have spoken these are words it's almost like is it really her fault yes i mean like not and not to say that there's not a huge amount of wrong doing here but it seems like with the book at least the point of view of the book is sort of like you know the friend who does you wrong which i'm not saying she didn't i'm just wondering like is is all the rage and the frustration and justifiable sentiment you feel is it really is it really because of her or is it because of this whole situation well it had not been for her i wouldn't put myself in that situation had it not been for her um the first story that said i got 26 million dollars which to begin with wasn't true whatever like it was the second story where all she had to do was say i wasn't fired right that made me culpable to the money and made it look as if it i was on a contract that was terminated due to uh jared and rob porter's security clearances had nothing to do with the pick so she asked me to keep it quiet about my contract because there was on one other person who had the same contract and had i actually said that and told the world that then they could have made me comfortable to the first article so and she again the persuasiveness to keep my mouth quiet talk to a lawyer but keep your mouth quiet and i had the nda so i was gagged i couldn't say a word um when your friend tells you to get over it and don't be so dramatic after that that happens to you that's not a friend that you know there was no empathy there was no understanding this came to that because of politics and you know those were her words and so um again i didn't need for her to do anything with the presidential inauguration committee miss deeds right she wants to say that i just needed her to say i wasn't fired because i wasn't do you think do you think she feels remorse do you think she feels anything like i in the book you paint her as somebody who is doesn't have that many emotions like you know sometimes we're like well how can she stand by her like how can this not bother her right like that's the common thing like she seems so like you know you describe it as calm but it's also can she feel the feelings and does is she capable of remorse and what do you think like because that's sort of different that's like a kid at school who like you know doesn't have the ability necessarily and i'm not saying you know we're all like very up-to-date child mind you know different socio-emotional stuff like is it that she lacks the ability or is it that it was intentional so milan there are many different um angles to melania and there are many different melanias um what's consistent is that i i say that she's unapolo unapologetically skinny if she cannot control how you think about her she will not even consider how you're feeling or what you're thinking and that's a fact so um she must be able to control the narrative and the and she says it over and over i don't care right politic somebody hurts her somebody does something mean or terrible to her you know they expose her nudies on the cover of a magazine politics they you know the rnc speech politics liberal media she literally says about those type of things it'll pass in a week and we have a lot of conversations she and i where i said i wish i could live my life somewhat like that because i can't right i i i wear my heart on my sleeve she does and did express how she is able to move on and people need to just stand up hold your head up high and move on and get on with it because you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow the next week the next month i mean these are her words but she did say you know i love you and i'm sorry um that's not enough that's not enough i have the letter in here where she's apologetic ish and you know say you know love melania and all the stuff to the end um like did you ever think you were gonna like did you ever did you ever think of yourself as like a person who would sort of write a book about a friendship gone wrong type of thing or like what type of like or are you like what you know your other friendships and all the rest never like that like in my lifetime i never con like i lived in my husband one night i was like i'm an author like i never ever ever ever this was me to be able to understand what happened to me and the world around me because i couldn't make sense of who is melania then how is it possible that she could be so callous yet at the same time i was drawn to her because she had such great common advice because she was so strong and independent um but what that is is there's a there's she there's a barrier that she doesn't it's not that she she feels it but she's not gonna let it she's not gonna internalize it ever i totally get that you need to figure her out and process it and you must have just like a trillion feelings about this whole thing but that's like one bucket another bucket is like taking it and sharing it with the entire world no and and the entire world needs to know she supports him she's his biggest cheerleader she thinks that he should again be very strong and and assertive about everything that he's doing she is not at all concerned about what you think nor does she want to tell you what's really going on in the incident with you know the meme free melania apparent absolutely as you know baron accidentally kicked her in the foot but by revealing she will never reveal to anyone the source of what's happening because she doesn't want you to know her emotions and she doesn't want the reader to know who she is she doesn't want anyone in the world to have any inkling but the truth is she does not care she really doesn't if it's good for melania it's good for melania and that's forget about me i'm talking about everyone else from anyone else's you know situation to the way i watched her deal with certain people that were very close and help you know that really friends she will ask oh how's that person doing or what she really does do you think that anyone doesn't believe that she supports her husband do you know what i mean like like i still think that people and that's one of the reasons why i did release the tape in addition to the fact that they were calling me a paranoid liar is that people need to hear it from her so they understand that melania um if she in order for her to do something she needs to be recognized for doing and that's where she and donald are very similar right he'll but he'll cry about it if if someone's you know beating him up he wants to get where she doesn't care right you can say anything you want about her that's the difference between the two of them they both want the attention they both internalize it but melania that's where it ends do you feel like you had any based on your friendship before do you feel like you had any loyalty to her to to like not share her inner stuff oh i still to this day feel like honestly the whole thing that happened with with the recording yesterday i in my mind never even went there my i didn't even to think that that's what it would turn into a battle between twitter i was like oh my i honestly was sick to my stomach um not my intent none of honestly i wanted to write the book and move on i really thought i'm gonna write this i'm going to make sure that you know i'm the world knows what really happened i'm involved in these investigations so i was leaving some breadcrumbs as well um because of my nda i am still gagged so i worked with first amendment lawyers to be able to write as much as i could um there is a lot of bad going on in our administration i mean a lot and the people that are leading it are um connected in so many different ways that people have don't even realize so the intricacies of what's going on and how it's affecting us and how it will affect our children our children's children i didn't feel like i felt like i'm i'm still protecting them if i don't release the tape as well i i think it was like after the presidential debate the way he acted with with to to joe biden and then when she went on stage and admiringly like looked at him and smiled regardless of how they held each other because that's a whole difference that's not what they do anyway but my all of a sudden i felt my blood boil i felt like it just wasn't right you you i mean if i was my husband i would have gotten on stage regardless on cameras and i looked like what the what was that like whoa you know i understand he's the president respect but you don't treat people that way sorry i'm sorry you oh no but you don't it it's not okay so um the disrespect you know just the lack of of character and integrity um she stands behind that because that is who she is too um it there is no free melania there is no oh poor melania don't want us to feel sorry for her at all neither does she right he doesn't want anyone to feel sorry for she knows exactly what she's doing and she says consequences or no consequences i do what i do because i want to she is she doesn't feel it the way you that everyone thinks she feels it she just doesn't at all and again we're a month away from this debate you know this election and having spent the time these couple of years learning about politics and learning about the fact that you've got to educate yourself and you'd have to know the differences not only between right and wrong you know because for me it was never left versus right it was always right versus wrong but you have to know the differences because you're as i said earlier your ethica your ethics your your values are have to be in in in line with your politics and so i have a responsibility to myself my children my family i mean they watched me suffer and give up and do in the hot i mean i had a responsibility to learn what i didn't know and now i i'm vocalizing it and verbalizing it so people understand that they need to know more they need is this helping you because i feel like you're still really upset no no can i tell you no i well there's something that happened so if things got a little i again i wanted to write the book and go like this but the the fact is is that i have so much information that people are still using because of the investigations again i'm witnessing all of them the the weight on me and not being able to talk about the things i know and the expectations from all of these uh prosecutors and people again i've spent millions of dollars why for what so i can give the government the information that i kept calling out and i mean over and over and over and what's happening right these people are still walking around power so it's not even i'm for me the the emotion is not so much even just it's not melania and it's not the betrayal because i i really got it like i understand the fact that again it's inhumane it is and yet we have a humanitarian crisis in our backyard and that's all anyone should be talking about all she should be doing and yet she's you know what she does the rose garden is just i mean every nothing you know i tie those things together and i say to myself that's what makes me angry is that she's in a position to make a difference and she doesn't but what's what what up still upsets me is that i am a voice that knows her and knows this family in a very different way i know melania to her core i've sat with that family at dinner tables i've spent now do i know donald and the boys and ivanka not anywhere near how i know melania at all i know melania and so i can say to everyone do not worry about her and do not think that she has any remotely any like sad feelings or she's locked up or but i do have to vocalize and i have to keep saying i mean i must verbalize the fact that i can't say it enough people really need to understand the politics of us all and how it's going to affect our next generation just we're not going to be here to protect them wow well this is intense sorry no i mean like oh don't be sorry i am i you have a lot going on this is a lot to carry for any one um and i think it sounds like you know you're you're using the book to sort out your feelings you're trying hard not to succumb to the things that have happened you're trying to look for why they happened and you're angry and frustrated and here's the thing the truth is that what happened to me is happening to everyone else right right yes and that again when you when writing the book and expressing those 69 days and you know i was able to tell it through my friendship with melania because of the nda again so through my freshman i didn't have an nda i wasn't being paid for my work for melania so everything i did was was on my own time no i get it i get it it's a journey it's a journey um like we're out of time already and i didn't even ask you about the writing of the book and you want to go i mean no i ca i try to keep it like i mean i'll take this little part out while we're talking about this but um uh let me just ask you one or two more questions and i'll i'm so sorry that i went off oh i just feel like there's so much to unpack in your experience and um i um i feel like i i am i'm like watching someone who is really struggling and that is really hard and maybe i'm not i'm not blind saying that it just seems like i tell you emotionally again i almost when i say almost died like i live i've had to my two pulmonary embolisms i had two spinal fusions i wear a neck brace around my house like i can't do the things i used to do i i mean i i am not the same person i have to get my daughter oh my god oh my gosh i'm like oh let's just ask a few more questions um you know she's like you're not wrong let me just say that but you're not wrong okay you're not wrong i i hope that this book plays into your being able to find some sort of inner inner peace and sense and make sense of sort of what's happened and um and move on because ultimately you can't save the world you have to save like focus maybe on you and 100 and that's why again writing the book and closing the door would have been perfect it didn't allow me to because of everything else that's going on wow i'm happy to continue this in another forum but uh thank you so much and again i'm so sorry that i over spoke about other things no it's um it's it's very interesting and um i'm it's you know it's very well if you want to speak some more even off you know i guess i'm happy and i do apologize but no no thank you so much okay thanks for coming thanks for being here okay okay [Music] okay

Channel: Zibby Owens

Views: 4,620

Rating: 4.3913045 out of 5

Keywords: writing, books, podcast, arts, moms, reading, Melania trump, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Trump, Opinion

Id: 9lxSczD61kQ

Length: 33min 40sec (2020 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 02 2020