Melania Trump ‘just wants to go home’ as president continues to dispute election result

US first lady wraps up White House life and prepares for a move to Florida, as her husband continues to contest the election result.

US First Lady Melania Trump Melania has already asked what taxpayer funds she gets when she returns to civilian life. Picture: AFP

Melania Trump is preparing for life after the White House as her husband insists he can overturn Joe Biden’s victory.

Mrs Trump, 50, is arranging to move to Florida and has asked aides to establish her privileges as a former first lady. “She just wants to go home,” a source close to her told CNN’s Kate Bennett, Mrs Trump’s biographer.

Mrs Trump is said to have asked whether first ladies receive taxpayer funds after returning to civilian life. She was told that she is due only a $27,000 annual pension if Mr Trump dies.

Undeterred, she is preparing to move to the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida next month. She has arranged for Barron, the couple’s 14-year-old son, to finish the school year there, rather than at the school in Maryland that he has attended since 2017.

Reports say she has begun moving personal items to Florida from Washington and Trump Tower in New York, where the family lived before Mr Trump became president.

Melania is preparing to move to the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Picture: AFP

Mrs Trump is not expected to write a memoir. Sources in the publishing industry told CNN, however, that she was considering producing a coffee-table book about the history of White House hospitality.

Mar-a-Lago will represent something of a downgrade in accommodation. The private residence section of the club covers about 3,000 sq ft, compared with the much larger White House.

It is also smaller than the Trump Tower penthouse. New Yorkers’ alleged frostiness to Mr Trump is said to have played a large part in the decision to leave the city.

“It will feel like staying full-time at a nice hotel,” Laurence Leamer, who wrote a book about Mar-a-Lago, said.

“It’s fine for a bit, sure, but can you imagine Donald Trump just sitting around there for six months of the year? It will start to feel confining very quickly.”

The Times