Melania Trump did not accompany the president-elect, Donald Trump, when he attended this Wednesday to meet at the White House with the current president, Joe Biden. The future first lady did meet with Michelle Obama eight years ago, when her husband was elected president for the first time, and as is tradition. Melania Trump seems willing to break with some of those traditions and, as various sources have told CNN, it is unlikely that she will move to Washington full time in her second stage as first lady.
According to this information, Melania Trump will probably divide her time between the White House, the Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach (Florida) and the Trump Tower home in New York. The next first lady has built a life and circle of friends in Florida over the past four years and will likely continue to spend a lot of time there, according to CNN. Donald and Melania Trump’s son, Barron, has started studying at university in New York this year, which would allow him to be close to his son.
Although Melania Trump is expected to spend most of her time over the next four years between New York and Palm Beach, sources cited by CNN insisted that she would be present for important events and would have her own performance platform and mark her priorities as first lady.
Trump’s wife already showed an unusually low profile during the recent election campaign. She declined to speak at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July, where she was only seen on the closing night with her husband and other relatives of the then Republican candidate. He did not campaign alone, unlike Kamala Harris’s husband, and he did not accompany Donald Trump at his rallies, with the exception of the one he gave at Madison Square Garden in New York, where he spoke a few brief words. She reappeared at her husband’s victory celebration party at the West Palm Beach Convention Center, Florida, on November 5.
She also made a statement through social media after the attempted murder of her husband in Butler, Pennsylvania, in which she called the attacker a “monster.” “Let us not forget that divergent opinions, politics and political games are inferior to love. Our personal, structural and vital commitment—until death—is at serious risk. “Political concepts are simple when compared to us, human beings,” he said in a statement published on X.
Later, she made headlines for defending the right to abortion in her memoir, causing a certain stir about it. It is an issue that Trump has avoided during the campaign, pointing out that it is the States who must regulate it.
This Wednesday, Joe Biden received Donald Trump at the White House with the first lady, Jill Biden. The three were photographed together smiling. Jill Biden gave the president-elect a handwritten letter of congratulations to his wife, in which she also expressed her team’s willingness to help in the transition and made herself available for whatever he needed.
Melania Trump, however, already knows the White House after the first four years of her husband’s presidency. The 54-year-old American of Slovenian origin will be the second woman in the history of the United States to serve as first lady for two non-consecutive terms.
“I’m not anxious because this time it’s different. I have much more experience and much more knowledge. I was in the White House before. When you walk in, you know exactly what to expect,” he said in a recent interview with Fox News.
Before her, the only precedent is that of Frances Cleveland, who married President Grover Cleveland in June 1886, the only presidential wedding celebrated in the White House. Grover Cleveland knew Frances, the daughter of a co-worker, almost since she was a newborn. He bought her a baby stroller and other gifts. Then, when her father died in a carriage accident in 1875, when she was 11, he became her guardian. When she was 21 and he was 49, they married. Cleveland lost the 1886 election, but won the 1892 election, making him president again and her first lady.
