Future First Lady Melania Trump and son Barron will not be moving to the White House after Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, The Post has learned.
The president-elect’s 46-year-old wife and their 10-year-old son are staying put at the family’s glitzy Trump Tower penthouse so that Barron can continue attending his Upper West Side private school, sources told The Post.
“Melania is extremely close to Barron, and they have become closer during the campaign,†said a source close to Trump’s transition team. “The campaign has been difficult for Barron, and she is really hoping to keep disruption to a minimum.â€
Another source said Melania Trump will travel to the White House as needed, but that her primary focus is on Barron.
“Melania is very supportive of her husband and is fully on board of doing everything that’s needed as first lady,†said the second source familiar with the Trump transition.
That source said also that there is a possibility that Melania and Barron may move to the White House at the end of the school year, but no plans are in place.
“She is really devoted to Barron,†said a source close to the family, adding that Melania has not relied on nannies to raise the child and is frequently seen picking the fourth-grader up from his prep school, where tuition is north of $40,000.
The decision to remain in their Midtown home will increase the security presence around Trump Tower — an effort that will involve both Secret Service and the NYPD, an expert familiar with high-level security told The Post.
“That building is going to become the White House of New York,†said Jim Reese, a former Delta Force commander and president of TigerSwan, a global security company based in North Carolina.
“The Secret Service is going to have to keep that whole area cordoned off so that some wacko can’t get close and detonate a car bomb.â€
Strict security measures around Trump Tower will remain in place, with two of the five lanes on Fifth Avenue between West 56th and 57th streets closed because of barriers, said officials at a joint NYPD, Secret Service and City Hall news conference Friday.
Following the presidential election, the area around Trump Tower has turned into a traffic nightmare, with West 56th Street closed to traffic between Fifth and Madison avenues, and shoppers having to go through a security cordon and subject to bag checks.
Barron and Melania will each have an unknown number of Secret Service agents assigned to them in addition to a driver and armored vehicle to take Barron to school, Reese said. An advance team of agents will swoop down on the school each morning to make sure it’s safe, he added.