Gavin Newsom recounts a November 2018 Air Force One tour in his memoir, saying President Trump showed him a bedroom with two separate beds and joked that Melania preferred one. The anecdote revived long-standing public speculation about the Trumps’ private arrangements. Previous reports and a biographer’s comments have noted separate bedrooms, and the White House has not commented on Newsom’s account.
Newsom Says Trump Showed Him Two Beds on Air Force One — 'Melania Wanted One Bed,' He Said
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
In his memoir Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery, California Governor Gavin Newsom recounts a November 2018 tour of Air Force One in which President Donald Trump showed him the jet’s bedroom and made a remark about the sleeping arrangements.
Gavin Newsom recounted his November 2018 tour of Air Force One in his memoir. / Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images/Oversight committee.
Newsom says the visit occurred after Trump’s stop in Northern California following the devastating Paradise wildfires. The president invited Newsom aboard to fly to Southern California, where the Woolsey Fire was affecting Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
The first couple has been married since 2005. / raig Hudson/Variety via Getty Images
Describing the tour, Newsom wrote that Trump “turned into a giddy child” as he showed off the multimillion-dollar aircraft, adding that “every bell and whistle seemed to give him great personal satisfaction.” As Newsom began to return to the main cabin, he says Trump called him back to see the bedroom.
Trump exiting Air Force One in Jan. 2026. / Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
“This was the chamber where he and Melania, on trips to distant places, retired. A room with two beds, I could see, separated by more than a few feet,” Newsom writes. He quotes Trump as saying, “Melania wanted one bed. But two beds, you know, two beds next to each other.” Newsom observed that Trump “seemed to be winking.”
Context and Reactions
The anecdote echoes long-standing public curiosity about President Trump and first lady Melania Trump’s sleeping arrangements. In 2018, The Washington Post reported the couple maintained separate bedrooms in the White House. On a May 2025 episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, longtime Trump biographer Michael Wolff said the pair “live separate lives” and do not “inhabit a marriage as we define marriage.”
Reports also surfaced that the couple slept in separate rooms during a visit to the United Kingdom the previous September; a Daily Mail column humorously noted palace staff joked Melania’s separate suite meant she could “effortlessly drift apart from Donald” if she’d requested a waterbed.
The couple married in 2005 and have one son, Barron. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Newsom’s account.
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