Tensions inside the Trump administration are heating up, and the president’s appointees are at each other’s throats.
Deputy Secretary of State Chirstopher Landau and State Department special envoy Paolo Zampolli have been trading insults and allegations for nearly a year, according to messages obtained by Politico. Zampolli, a former modeling agent who incidentally introduced Donald Trump to his wife Melania, has had some trouble “staying in his lane,” according to Landau.
“I am hereby ordering you—once again—to immediately stop all work on ANY issues not directly tied to cultural diplomacy, including every one of the issues you mentioned in your recent emails,” Landau wrote to Zampolli in November 2025. “You have no authority to engage in ANY issues of foreign policy outside of cultural diplomacy, including all the issues you have named.”
Landau continued the email chain the following day, copying an additional 15 administration colleagues on the message. Landau wrote that Zampolli had “no intention of staying in the cultural diplomacy lane that you were assigned and accepted, and that you fully intend to continue undertaking unauthorized and possibly unlawful ventures in commercial and economic matters.”
In response, Zampolli spoke to Politico: “Definitely, he has a problem with me,” the special envoy said of Landau in an exchange reminiscent of a reality TV confessional. “It’s out of control what he’s doing, and I serve at the pleasure of the president of the United States of America. The only person that can give me this job and can terminate me is the president of America.”
Since Zampolli introduced Trump to Melania at a party in the 1990s, he has remained on the coattails of the president’s political rise. Trump named Zampolli to the board of the embattled Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2020, and now, in Trump’s second administration, Zampolli is the U.S. special representative for global partnerships, a position whose primary objective is to “represent the United States at global cultural events and to form global cultural partnerships.”
A scroll through Zampolli’s Instagram will show that he has taken a liberal approach to his assignment, meeting with the energy minister of Romania, attending meetings for the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund, meeting the United Arab Emirates’ director of foreign direct investment, and engaging in discussions to send Argentine astronauts to space.
Zampolli has also accused Landau of leaking a story to The New York Times that he said “caused irreparable harm to the First Lady and to my family,” likely referring to reporting in March that he had asked Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain and deport his ex-girlfriend in an effort to win a custody battle over their son.
“Your threats and accusations are getting more and more bizarre, defamatory, and inappropriate for broad dissemination on email,” Landau replied in a message. “I have no idea what you are talking about and categorically deny being the source of anything.”
One official familiar with the email exchanges called the back-and-forth “cartoonish and embarrassing.” It’s a fair review of the chaos in the backrooms, or in this case, the inboxes, of Trump’s State Department.