A favorite pastime for some in the media during President Donald Trump's first term was wild speculation over the status of his marriage to first lady Melania Trump, and many of those same rumormongers are back at it again.

Unauthorized Trump biographer and serial fabulist Michael Wolff recently speculated that Donald and Melania were "separated" following a report that she is rarely seen at the White House, according to The Independent.

What Wolff and others promoting his claims seem to have forgotten or ignored is that Melania openly stated even before the inauguration that she didn't intend to reside at the White House full time, but would instead split her time between there, Trump Tower in New York City, and Mar-a-Lago in South Florida.

Author claims Trumps are "separated"

Wolff, who has previously published multiple highly critical books full of fantastical and unproven claims about President Trump, offered up his latest guess about the Trumps' marital status during an appearance last week on The Daily Beast's podcast.

"They clearly do not in any way inhabit a marriage as we define marriage," the author said of the president and first lady.

"And I think maybe we can more specifically say they live separate lives," he continued. "They are separated. The president of the United States and the first lady are separated."

Melania hasn't been at the White House much ... as she'd predicted ahead of time

Wolff's speculation appeared to be based in part on a recent New York Times report that claimed first lady Trump has only been at the White House for about two weeks of the more than three months that have elapsed since President Trump retook office in January.

Citing unnamed sources, The Times asserted that Melania has stayed at the White House around 14 days since the inauguration, and some say even that is a "generous estimate."

To be sure, the first lady has been present for most of the ceremonies and functions that one would expect to see a first lady attend, but she has certainly not been at the White House or her East Wing office on a daily basis.

Instead, she has spent the bulk of her time at Trump Tower in New York City, where her son Baron, 19, is attending New York University as a freshman student.

That said, Melania was up front with the public about her plans to split time between multiple residences, as she revealed in a "Fox & Friends" interview in January that she would "be in the White House" when necessary, and "when I need to be in New York, I will be in New York. When I need to be in Palm Beach, I will be in Palm Beach. But my first priority is, you know, to be a mom, to be a first lady, to be a wife. And once we are in on Jan. 20, you serve the country."

Wolff is a "blithering idiot" and untrustworthy "imbecile"

According to The Independent, Wolff's latest speculative theory was not well received by a White House that is already wary of the author and his prior baseless rumors about President Trump.

White House Communications Director Stephen Cheung dismissed Wolff as "a blithering idiot" with a track record of being "widely discredited due to his blatant lies and fabrications" about the president and his administration.

"He is an imbecile of the highest order and his Trump Derangement Syndrome-addled brain has caused him to lead a miserable existence devoid of reality," he added.