“I think she’s shaken,” said former Ambassador Ric Grenell at a Bloomberg event on Monday. Her 18-year-old son “Barron goes to school this summer, so it’s a difficult time for parents to go from having your child around all the time to leaving the nest.”
And then watching her husband almost be assassinated? “I think it really shook her,” he said.
While the former president has been focused on his political and legal fate, Melania Trump has kept much of her life out of the public eye. She’s spending time with her son and has remained involved in her business ventures while her husband travels around the country campaigning or sits in court. And she treasures her privacy.
On Thursday morning, a list of speakers for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee did not include Melania Trump.
The former first lady hasn’t remained completely out of politics. She headlined two fundraisers for the Log Cabin Republicans, a pro-LGBTQ+ rights Republican organization last spring. Both were held at Trump properties — Mar-a-Lago and Trump Tower — and were closed to the press. But she has not held any independent public campaign events or accompanied Trump at events out on the trail beyond a few private fundraisers and voting in Florida’s primary. In December of last year, she did one solo public event at a naturalization ceremony at the National Archives in Washington.
Melania Trump avoided accompanying her husband to his Manhattan criminal trial that centered around an alleged affair with a porn star and payments for her silence, which Trump denied. Hope Hicks, a longtime aide to Trump, testified at his trial that Trump at one time was concerned about what his wife might think of the scandal.
Throughout the scandals over the years Melania Trump has provided some critical softening to her husband’s rough exterior. In 2016 after the Access Hollywood tape scandal, she claimed he was “egged on” to say “dirty and bad stuff” back in 2005. And she defended her husband as a “gentleman. He’s kind. And I know he respects women.”
But while she has been supportive of Trump, she has remained largely disinterested in politicking. Back in 2021, a Trump adviser said she would stand by her husband if he chose to run again for president but said, “she’s not going to have her own rallies. Did she ever?”
Melania Trump was never a major presence on the campaign trail. Even in 2016, she rarely joined her husband at rallies or events. Her reluctance to be in the spotlight, however, is a departure from other recent first ladies and candidate spouses, in particular Dr. Jill Biden, who is constantly at her husband’s side and keeps a robust campaign schedule, sometimes acting as the public face of the campaign while her husband is in Washington.
“Melania Trump is completely an outlier on this. Not only Jill Biden, but Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, there isn’t an example of a first lady in the television era, who is this MIA during a convention. I know she’s going to come, but usually at the conventions, they give a speech,” said Kate Andersen Brower, the author of The Residence and First Women.
Republicans have complained that Melania Trump has been held to a different standard than her Democrat counterparts like Jill Biden or Michelle Obama. They point to the fact that Melania Trump, a former model, was never invited to appear on the cover of Vogue magazine, and she repeatedly said that coverage of her in the White House was “unfair” and “vicious.”
While political spouses typically share personal anecdotes about their partner, other members of the Trump family have filled that role during the 2024 convention.
Trump’s daughter in law Lara Trump spoke on Tuesday. On Wednesday night, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr. and his daughter Kai Trump addressed the arena and Eric Trump is expected to speak on Thursday night.
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner and Tiffany Trump and Michael Boulos are expected to attend on Thursday night but will not be speaking. Meanwhile Trump’s 18-year-old son Barron Trump will not be attending the convention’s final night in Milwaukee, according to a campaign official.
“We are all family who supports Donald Trump 100%, and anyone who is not fully out front, no one should ever assume that that means that they are any less supportive. We are 100% behind him as an entire family,” Lara Trump told reporters at a Bloomberg event Tuesday.