Trump family friend claims ‘Dozy Don’ is leaning ever more on Melania, as new video shows the First Lady giving her husband very blunt instructions

A reporter addressed the question to President Trump loudly and clearly from about 10ft away in the White House State Dining Room, ‘Do you plan to speak with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin in the near future?’

The president, his neck craning forward, looked momentarily at a loss. He cocked his left ear toward the journalist.

‘What… he… what…,’ Trump mumbled.

Seeking assistance, the president turned to the adviser he trusts perhaps most of all, seated to his left, a steely-eyed eminence grise dressed all in black, who leaned in close and calmly whispered: ‘If you will speak with President Putin in the near future…’

The president was quickly back on track.

‘I will be, yeah,’ Trump harrumphed. ‘I will be, we’re having very good dialogue.’

The moment, which took place at a banquet for Silicon Valley titans in September, was emblematic of the growing sway of the confidant.

It was not JD Vance, and not Marco Rubio. Nor, was it Mark Zuckerberg, who was seated to Trump’s right. Instead, as he increasingly does, Trump had turned for guidance to his wife.

In his second term, Melania, in her characteristically unobtrusive way, has quietly become Trump’s whisperer-in-chief.

The president, it appears, relies on her more for emotional support these days – particularly with his daughter Ivanka absent from the White House – and they appear closer than ever, publicly calling each other ‘baby’ and ‘darling’.

He also turns to her as a sounding board for political advice. It leaves Melania in the formidable position of being able to influence geopolitical dynamics.

Indeed, it seems she may have altered the course of two wars, with private interventions on Ukraine and Gaza. In European capitals, and in the Kremlin, those who read the White House runes are undoubtedly taking note.

According to one source familiar with Trump’s inner circle at Mar-a-Lago, the growing role of the first lady is partly a consequence of Trump’s own advancing years.

‘He’s 79, so none of this is a surprise. And, of course, he’s tired. Who wouldn’t be? He nods off. He needs Melania now more than ever,’ the source close to the Trump family said.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, published on New Year’s Day, President Trump vigorously defended his energy and health as ‘perfect.’

He revealed he takes more aspirin – 325 milligrams daily – than his doctors recommend because he has done so for 25 years and is ‘a little superstitious.’

He added: ‘They say aspirin is good for thinning out the blood, and I don’t want thick blood pouring through my heart. I want nice, thin blood pouring through my heart. Does that make sense?’

The president also confirmed he had a CT scan during an October examination, but wished he hadn’t because it raised unnecessary public questions about his health.

In a statement his doctor, Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella, said he asked the president to undergo the ‘routine’ CT scan ‘to definitively rule out any cardiovascular issues’ and the results were ‘perfectly normal and revealed absolutely no abnormalities.’

He said Trump is in ‘exceptional health and perfectly suited to execute his duties as Commander in Chief.’

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt added in a statement that bruising on Trump’s hand is from ‘frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin.’

Trump denied that he has fallen asleep during White House meetings when cameras have caught him with his eyes closed, insisting he was resting his eyes or blinking.

‘I’ll just close. It’s very relaxing to me,’ he said. ‘Sometimes they’ll take a picture of me blinking, blinking, and they’ll catch me with the blink.’

He also dismissed questions about his hearing, saying he only struggled to hear ‘when there’s a lot of people talking,’ and Barbabella, his doctor, said his hearing is ‘normal.’  

Meanwhile, White House officials contend that he is more energetic and dialed in than ever. 

In November, Leavitt read off a summary of the President’s recent medical examination. ‘Everything evaluated is functioning within normal limits with no acute or chronic concerns. This level of detailed assessment is standard for an executive physical at President Trump’s age and confirms that he remains in excellent overall health.’

Melania, though, is clearly stepping up, not just as a supportive spouse, but in a substantive political role which includes a determination to craft her husband’s legacy.

Another suggestion of Trump’s reliance on her emerged in a trailer for the First Lady’s upcoming $40 million Amazon movie, which chronicles the days leading up to the inauguration.

In the trailer, released on December 17, Melania, can be seen wearing a black cape and sitting studiously behind nervous-looking advisers as Trump practices a speech.

‘My proudest legacy will be that of peacemaker…’ Trump begins, only for his wife to interrupt and correct him.

‘Peacemaker and unifier,’ she says firmly, with the rare authority to speak over the president.

Another example of her influence came as Trump revealed she privately urges him to be more ‘presidential.’

In a speech to Republican lawmakers this week he said his wife was not a fan of his on-stage dancing, nor his habit of pretending to lift weights to impersonate a transgender athlete.

‘My wife hates when I do this,’ Trump said. ‘She’s a very classy person, right? She said, ‘It’s so unpresidential.’

Trump added: ‘But she says, ‘Darling, please, the weight lifting is terrible.’ Now, I have to say this, the dancing, they really like. She said, ‘They don’t like it, they’re just being nice to you.”

On January 3, when Trump reunited with Elon Musk for a ‘lovely dinner’ at Mar-a-Lago, it was noticeable that the only other person at the table with them was the first lady.

Trump’s first year has undoubtedly been a whirlwind of action on both the domestic and foreign fronts, particularly when compared to his somnolent predecessor Joe Biden.

However, Democrats have reversed the playbook and Trump is now facing the same kind of scrutiny over his age that Biden did. Every walk up the stairs of Air Force One, every marathon press conference, is scrutinized, and every potentially age-related slip is amplified by left-wing social media accounts.

In early December he appeared to briefly nod off during a long, televised Cabinet meeting. It was manna for the Democrats – ‘Dozy Don!’ they cried.

Recently, political enemies also pounced on a slow motion video, ironically posted by Melania herself, showing her gripping Trump’s arm firmly and guiding him down a staircase at the White House Congressional Ball.

Another video clip that went viral captured Melania clinging on to Trump in the evening gloom and appearing to steer him in the right direction across the White House South Lawn to his Marine One helicopter.

Video footage, of course, is not always reliable. Trump may have, in fact, been supporting his wife as her stilettos plugged in the grass. But it was used as more ammunition in the Democrats’ emerging strategy to attempt to portray Trump as a dotard.

In September, the couple were also filmed having what critics claimed to be an intense, finger-wagging conversation inside the presidential helicopter as it landed on the White House South Lawn.

At one point Mr Trump was seen waving a finger at his wife and Melania was shaking her head.

However, expert lipreaders told the Daily Mail the Trumps were simply discussing with astonishment how an escalator had stopped when they got on it at the United Nations General Assembly.

Lipreader, Nicola Hickling, said the president was being protective of his wife, telling Melania at one point: ‘I can’t forgive them, they tried to hurt you.’

Whatever the truth, Melania is also rapidly assembling a policy legacy of her own. 

Vanishing from public view for weeks at a time means that, while her husband’s personality is on 24-hour show, she maintains a mystique akin to that of Jackie Kennedy.

Her targeted interventions therefore have maximum impact, including on the global stage.

When President Trump met Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August, he carried with him a personal letter from Melania, the subject of which was displaced Ukrainian children.

Two months later, Melania appeared at a lectern bearing a US seal in the White House. Wearing a dark business suit, she stood alone between two large U.S. flags looking, it must be said, rather presidential.

The first lady then revealed that she, rather than her husband, had been communicating with Putin

‘President Putin and I have had an open channel on the welfare of these children,’ she said. ‘Eight children have been reunited with their families in the past 24 hours.’

The news was verified by outside groups.

In the toughest foreign policy challenge of all – dealing with Putin – Melania succeeded where the best of the world’s politicians have, for decades, failed.

It was notable too that Melania, who grew up in Cold War Yugoslavia in the shadow of the totalitarian Soviet empire, perhaps appeared to have a better understanding of Putin’s playbook than her husband.

Trump himself gave a nod to that in July.

‘My conversations with him (Putin) are always very pleasant,’ Trump said. ‘I say, isn’t that very lovely conversation? And then the missiles go off that night, I go home, I tell the First Lady… I spoke with Vladimir today, we had a wonderful conversation. She says ‘Oh, really, another city was just hit…”’

Melania’s skepticism had a potentially world-changing impact, as her husband subsequently took a tougher line with Putin.

On Ukrainian social media she was celebrated as ‘Agent Melania Trumpenko.’

Officials in European capitals have also taken note and are reassessing their view of Melania’s influence. Foreign diplomats in Washington are paying closer attention to any remarks she chooses to make.

Her influence has also been seen in Trump’s approach to Gaza, particularly in July when he split with Benjamin Netanyahu on whether Palestinian children were starving.

‘Melania thinks it’s terrible,’ Trump told the world. ‘They got to get them food and we’re going to get them food.’

Queen Rania of Jordan, a vocal critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is a friend of Melania and visited with her in Palm Beach in January. The Jordanian queen also makes an appearance in the trailer for the first lady’s documentary.

On the domestic front, she has already achieved two historic constitutional firsts for a first lady.

In May, she became the first presidential spouse to put her signature on a new law, one that she had championed and gone to Capitol Hill to personally lobby members of Congress on. Her in-person appearance had the desired effect.

At a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden her husband insisted she join him in signing the Take It Down Act, which imposes penalties for online sexual exploitation.

‘She deserves to sign it,’ he said, before holding the document aloft. Melania’s signature was symbolic, but it was also a sign of her growing political power.

In her speech she called it a ‘national victory’ and warned: ‘AI and social media are the digital candy for the next generation, sweet, addictive and engineered to have an impact on the cognitive development of our children.’

Republicans and Democrats alike would, no doubt, agree.

In another unprecedented move in November, the first lady put her signature alongside her husband’s on an executive order. The order was aimed at helping disadvantaged teenagers transitioning out of foster care.

Trump himself has described his wife as ‘very smart’ and ‘very neutral.’

He is able to go to her for an opinion that does not carry the entrenched political viewpoints of his White House advisers. And Melania, perhaps uniquely in the administration, has no need to ingratiate herself with the president, nor fear of bluntly disagreeing with him.

She is no ‘yes woman’ and has, perhaps more than any previous first lady, charted her own path on the issues, acting independently of the White House and her husband’s political machine, disregarding any potentially bad political optics.

That included taking the unusual step for a politician’s spouse of being paid to speak at a campaign fundraising event. Her appearance at the Log Cabin Republicans event in April 2024 netted her $237,500.

‘Maybe some people, they see me as just a wife of the president, but I’m standing on my own two feet, independent,’ she said in a rare TV interview earlier this year.

‘I have my own thoughts. I have my own ‘yes’ and ‘no’. I don’t always agree what my husband is saying or doing, and that’s OK. I give him my advice, and sometimes he listens, sometimes he doesn’t, and that’s OK.’

One of the most notable differences between them has been over abortion, and the timing proved awkward as her husband courted votes in the socially-conservative Deep South.

In her book ‘Melania’ – published just weeks before the 2024 election – she subverted Republican orthodoxy on the issue.

‘Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body.’ Melania wrote.

‘Without a doubt there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth. Individual freedom.’

In retrospect, it is clearer now why Melania complained about having to focus on White House Christmas decorations during the first administration.

During an explosive, secretly recorded conversation with an aide in 2018, she said: ‘Who gives a f*** about the Christmas stuff and decorations? But I need to do it, right?’

Her ire appears to have been caused by a desire to have an impact on more serious issues. In the second term, that may be happening.

At the White House dinner for Silicon Valley bosses in September, Melania gave an enigmatic smile as her husband spoke about the ‘souls’ being lost in the Russia-Ukraine war, and his determination to stop it. His words perhaps reflected what she had told him in private.

In the Kremlin, one can only imagine Putin’s watching advisers spluttering into their vodka, having been bested once again by Trump’s whisperer-in-chief.