Melania Trump, who is hardly seen campaigning, will accompany Donald Trump when he officially receives the Republican nomination on Thursday.
This will be her first significant public appearance with Trump since he started his 2024 campaign nearly two years ago, and it will be in Milwaukee. On a more personal note, it arrives only days after her husband narrowly escaped an attempted assassination at a Pennsylvania rally.
According to Trump family members, Melania Trump was severely shaken by the massacre. She is a quiet person going through personal changes in her life apart from the tragedy and her husband’s campaign.
During a Monday Bloomberg event, former ambassador Ric Grenell stated, “I think she’s shaken.” As a parent, it can be challenging to watch your child transition from living at home all day to going off to college, as her son Barron, who is 18 years old, will be starting his freshman year of high school this summer.
After which she witnessed her husband’s near-assassination? His opinion was that it had a profound effect on her.
Melania Trump, in contrast to her husband, has spent most of her life out of the spotlight as he has dealt with his political and legal issues. While her husband is off campaigning or in court, she stays busy with her business and spends time with her son. Private time is very important to her.
Melania Trump was omitted off the roster of speakers for Thursday morning’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
The ex-first lady is still involved in politics. Last spring, she was the featured speaker at two fundraisers hosted by the Log Cabin Republicans, a Republican group that advocates for LGBTQ+ rights. The press was barred from both events, which took place at Trump properties Mar-a-Lago and Trump Tower. Aside from attending a few of private fundraisers and casting her ballot in Florida’s primary, she has not participated in any public or independent campaign activities, nor has she followed Trump on his trail. During a naturalization ceremony in December of last year at the National Archives in Washington, she made one solitary public appearance.
Trump refuted allegations that he had an affair with a porn star or received bribes to remain silent, but Melania Trump chose not to join her husband to his criminal trial in Manhattan. According to testimony given by Hope Hicks, a longtime advisor to Trump, Trump once worried about his wife’s reaction to the incident.
Despite her husband’s brusque attitude, Melania Trump has been an essential calming influence during the many scandals that have rocked the Trump family. She asserted in 2016, during the Access Hollywood tape controversy, that he had been “egged on” to utter “dirty and bad stuff” in 2005. As a “gentleman,” she further justified her husband’s actions. He’s amiable. And I can tell that he values women.
Although she has been Trump’s supporter, she has shown little enthusiasm for politics. According to a Trump aide from 2021, the former first lady would support her husband in another presidential run, but she would not have her own rallies. “Has she ever?”
On the campaign trail, Melania Trump hardly made an appearance. She hardly accompanied her husband to rallies and events, even in 2016. Her unwillingness to be the center of attention stands in contrast to other first ladies and candidate spouses who have recently been in the spotlight, such as Dr. Jill Biden, who is inseparable from her husband and maintains an active campaign schedule, occasionally taking on the role of campaign spokesperson when he is in Washington.
When it comes to this, Melania Trump is totally unique. Every first lady in the television era—Jill Biden included, but not limited to, Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, Barbara Bush, and Hillary Clinton—has been conspicuously absent during a convention. As for her attendance, author Kate Andersen Brower of First Women and The Residence mentioned that conferences typically feature speeches from prominent figures.
Some Republicans have voiced their displeasure with the media for treating Melania Trump differently than other Democratic first ladies, such as Jill Biden and Michelle Obama. They bring up the fact that Melania Trump, a former model, was never asked to be on the cover of Vogue and that she was very vocal about how “unfair” and “vicious” the media’s portrayal of her when she was in the White House.
At the 2024 convention, additional members of the Trump family took the role of political wives who usually relate personal experiences about their partner.
On Tuesday, Lara Trump—Trump’s daughter-in-law—took the stage. Eric Trump is scheduled to appear on Thursday night, following Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr., and his daughter Kai Trump’s addresses on Wednesday night.
On Thursday night, Michael Boulos, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and Tiffany Trump are slated to attend, but they will not be speaking. As for Trump’s son Barron, who is 18 years old, a campaign official has confirmed that he will not be present on the convention’s last night in Milwaukee.
Everyone should never presume that someone is less supportive of Donald Trump just because they aren’t as vocal as the rest of our family members; we are all in this together. Lara Trump assured the press at a Bloomberg event on Tuesday that the entire Trump family is fully behind her husband.
