WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — After Melania Trump missed key events in her husband's presidential bid earlier this year — from the kickoff of the 2024 election in Iowa to Donald Trump’s Super Tuesday victory party — reporters asked the former first lady whether she planned to hit the campaign trail. Her response: “Stay tuned.
” Former first lady Melania Trump leaves after voting in the Florida primary election March 19 in Palm Beach, Fla. But since making that comment in March, after she and Donald Trump voted in Florida's primary, Melania Trump has largely refrained from public appearances. The few exceptions have included a couple of fundraisers in April.
The former first lady noticeably did not accompany the presumptive Republican presidential nominee on any of the days of his more than monthlong hush money trial in New York. She was not there last month for the guilty verdict or the following day for his remarks at Trump Tower. She also did not appear June 14 at a 78th birthday party organized for Trump by his fan club, or at any of the campaign rallies he held in recent months.
Her absence during the trial and for other important moments is unusual, said Katherine Jellison, a professor of history at Ohio University who studies first ladies. But Jellison said maybe it should not come as a surprise as Melania Trump seems reluctant to follow the traditional public role of a politician's wife. “But everything the Trumps do seems to be against the standard playbook of .
