WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – After Melania Trump overlooked key occasions in her husband’s presidential bid previous this yr — from the kickoff of the 2024 election in Iowa to Donald Trump’s Super Tuesday victory birthday party — journalists requested the former first lady whether or not she deliberate to hit the marketing campaign path. Her reaction: “Stay tuned.”
But since making that remark in March, after she and Donald Trump voted in Florida’s number one, Melania Trump has in large part avoided public appearances. The few exceptions have integrated a pair of fundraisers in April and their son’s highschool commencement.
The former first lady noticeably didn’t accompany the presumptive Republican presidential nominee on any of the days of his greater than monthlong hush cash trial in New York. She used to be no longer there closing month for the guilty verdict or the following day for his remarks at Trump Tower. She additionally didn’t seem June 14 at a 78th birthday party arranged for Trump via his fan membership, or at any of the marketing campaign rallies he has held in contemporary months.
Her absence all the way through the trial and for different vital moments is ordinary, stated Katherine Jellison, a professor of historical past at Ohio University who research first girls. But Jellison stated perhaps it will have to no longer come as a marvel as Melania Trump turns out reluctant to observe the conventional public function of a political candidate’s spouse. As first lady, she additionally saved a low profile and she or he used to be no longer an ordinary presence on her husband’s dropping 2020 presidential marketing campaign.
“But everything the Trumps do seems to be against the standard playbook of how candidates and spouses behave,” Jellison said.
Melania Trump’s behavior deviates from how other politicians have relied on their spouses. Sometimes male politicians turn to their wives to try to reach out to female voters. Candidates also may be joined by their spouses as a way of giving voters more of a sense of what the candidate is like outside the political arena.
During this year’s GOP primary, for example, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ wife, Casey DeSantis, traveled with him, granted interviews and formed a coalition named Mamas for DeSantis before he suspended his bid for the nomination. Vivek Ramaswamy’s wife, Dr. Apoorva Ramaswamy, also was on the campaign trail, often appearing along with their two young children to talk about the importance of family.
The Associated Press reached out to 15 people who have been in major fundraisers or in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate recently. None said they had encountered Melania Trump on the Florida property.
Her office has not responded to several requests for comment. Her only public statement of late came two days after the Florida Republican Party announced with fanfare that son Barron Trump, 18, was chosen as a state delegate for the Republican National Convention and her office said he could not make it, citing prior commitments.
Reporters at the New York courthouse during Trump’s felony trial repeatedly asked him, “Where’s Melania?” however he by no means responded. Trump allies cited their son’s faculty calendar as the major explanation why for her absence with out denying it used to be a mild time for the circle of relatives.
Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, was asked whether there were talks about her accompanying him to court.
“That wasn’t a discussion that I wanted to have,” Blanche responded, speaking to Miami trial attorney David Oscar Markus for his “For The Defense” podcast. “This used to be a difficult case as a result of of the nature of the fees, the proof that got here in, the historical past, how lengthy it were.”
Some of the testimony aired how Trump allegedly had intercourse with porn actor Stormy Daniels in July 2006, about 4 months after Melania Trump had given delivery to Barron; Trump has denied Daniels’ declare. Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen testified that Trump didn’t seem to care about how the tale of an come across he used to be having a look to bury would harm his marriage as a lot as he cared about it destructive his 2016 presidential aspirations.
But Hope Hicks, Trump’s 2016 marketing campaign communications leader, testified that Trump used to be involved in 2016 about how a tale associated with Playboy style Karen MacDougal can be considered via his spouse and sought after her to verify newspapers weren’t dropped at their place of abode.
Melania Trump didn’t post the rest on her social media accounts after her husband used to be convicted on 34 prison counts. That’s by contrast to Trump’s elder sons, who briefly condemned the verdict. Daughter Ivanka Trump posted on Instagram a photograph of her as a child with a more youthful Trump and the message “I love you dad.” Tiffany Trump, his more youthful daughter, accompanied him to the courthouse closing month for the trial’s last arguments.
“I think it’s very hard for her,” Trump said about his wife, in an interview with Fox News after the verdict. “I mean, she’s fine. But, you know, she has to read all this crap.”
Despite her absence on the marketing campaign path, Trump continuously mentions her and stocks conversations between the two, appearing supporters that she remains to be concerned in the back of the scenes via providing comments to the former president.
Larry Snowden, president of the “Club 47” fan team, stated he closing noticed the former first lady at a February gala hosted via the “Trumpettes,” a bunch of feminine supporters. He stated he hasn’t ever had a one-on-one interplay together with her, however that once he noticed her there, she used to be “so charming.”
“She was so happy, and she was smiling and accommodating anyone that wanted to come up and shake her hand or anything,” Snowden said.
Snowden said he does expect Melania Trump to show face throughout the campaign and to make key speeches, but that he also thinks that the former president would “continue to be very protective of her.”
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Gomez Licon reported from Miami. Associated Press creator Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this file.
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