Shortly after 8pm on Election Night in November 2016, Melania Trump started to cry.
Early voting projections were saying her husband might actually become US President. But these weren’t tears of joy.
Melania – according to Trump biographer Michael Wolff – had never wanted Donald to run; the only silver lining when he did was that everyone knew that he could never win.
That night, the Slovenian ex-model, by all accounts a quiet and shy woman who prefers lunches with friends to glitzy parties, suddenly saw her comfortable, under-the-radar existence melt away.
She didn’t give up without a fight – going on to become perhaps the most semi-detached First Lady in US history.
Melania had never wanted Donald to run; the only silver lining when he did was that everyone knew that he could never win.
But, while shedding tears of anguish may not have been quite the reaction her husband had hoped for at his moment of triumph, at least she was by his side in New York that night.
At the rate the 2024 election campaign has been going, Trump will be lucky if he gets so much as a congratulatory text message from his wife if he wins this November.
So far this campaign, Melania has barely appeared and her name barely mentioned – apart, of course, at embarrassing moments, like when Joe Biden landed his only blow on Trump during last week’s miserable TV debate.
Finally managing to rile his opponent, Biden snarled: ‘You had sex with a porn star while your wife was pregnant’ – referring to Donald’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels – ‘you have the morals of an alley cat.’
That latter statement may be true, but Biden – as America well knows – has the memory of a goldfish, and Trump’s alleged infidelity actually took place four months after Melania gave birth to their son Barron.
But surely, the bigger mystery than Trump’s missing moral compass – or Biden’s missing marbles – is what’s happened to Melania.
The master of public-life disappearing acts once had the solid excuse of having to look after her young son, Barron, as her husband – never exactly famous for his paternal qualities – prioritized political ambition.
When he moved into the White House, Melania initially stayed behind in their New York Trump Tower apartments, before finally heading to Washington in the summer of 2017.
Her reasoning: Barron was still in school, and needed her to stay nearby.
At the rate the 2024 election campaign has been going, Trump will be lucky if he gets so much as a congratulatory text message from his wife if he wins this November.
So far this campaign, Melania has barely appeared and her name barely mentioned – apart, of course, at embarrassing moments, like when Joe Biden landed his only blow on Trump during last week’s miserable TV debate.
But he is 18 now and reportedly weighing up potential university options; so using him as political get-out clause appears increasingly unfeasible.
Meanwhile, Jill Biden’s increasingly prominent role in Joe’s desperate bid to cling to the Democratic ticket – particularly as many believe her influence is key to whether or not he steps aside – has only served to accentuate Melania’s absence.
Now, it’s true that Trump insiders have long insisted that, privately, Donald relies on her opinion far more than it might appear.
But it’s also true that elections are all about ‘optics’, about appearances. And in this election – one which pundits warned Trump needed to work on regaining the support of women voters amid the Supreme Court’s recent abortion rulings – the optics are that he is alone. And that his wife has better things to do than help him become president again.
Melania never once went anywhere near the Manhattan court where Trump stood trial in the Stormy Daniels hush-money case.
Supportive spouses tend to be de rigueur at such events, for the benefit of TV cameras and photographers if nothing else.
But Melania – according to her former White House Press Secretary and chief-of-staff, Stephanie Grisham – has never been a ‘stand-by-your-man’ spouse.
‘Melania has said, “I don’t need to stand by Donald like Jill Biden; it is like she’s holding Joe Biden up”,’ Grisham said in March.
The absence of Trump’s wife during his trial was so noticeable that spectators outside court started heckling him with shouts of ‘Where’s Melania?’ – a flashback to past elections when flyers bearing her picture cheekily asked, ‘Have you seen this woman?’.
After the historic hush-money guilty verdict, she didn’t say anything on any of her social media accounts, or release a supportive statement.
‘Oh absolutely I know [her absence from the trial] bothers him,’ Grisham says. ‘That kind of thing would bother him… he would definitely bring it up with her.’
‘Melania has said, “I don’t need to stand by Donald like Jill Biden; it is like she’s holding Joe Biden up”,’ her former White House Press Secretary and chief-of-staff, Stephanie Grisham, said in March.
But Melania has never been a ‘stand-by-your-man’ spouse, Grisham says.
Melania was also missing on Super Tuesday in March, one of the most important nights of Trump’s nomination campaign. Being by his side that night wouldn’t even have necessitated traveling, as Donald held a viewing party at his Mar-a-Lago resort – where Melania lives!
Nor did she join him for last week’s momentous televised debate, her husband cutting a rather lonely figure as he walked alone down the steps off his private jet in Atlanta.
She wasn’t even at a 78th birthday party in Palm Beach organized for Trump by his fan club in June – the sort of event where she would hardly be ambushed by the sort of unfriendly media attention she’s said to detest.
In fact, Melania Trump has made only two formal public appearances for her husband’s re-election bid – the kickoff of his campaign in November 2022 and just last week, when she appeared with him to vote in the Florida presidential primary.
She has made very occasional non-formal appearances at events in Palm Beach and is next month set to host an event with the Log Cabin Republicans, an organization representing LGBT conservatives, at Trump Tower.
But otherwise she has proved so elusive that last month Associated Press reported that of 15 people who’d attended major fundraisers at Mar-a-Lago, none had seen so much as a glance of the lady of the house.
Will she turn up in the New York court for Trump’s Stormy Daniels sentencing – now delayed to September – ready to grip his arm supportively, perhaps even put an arm around him (despite the couple eschewing public displays of physical intimacy like the plague) if the judge hands down a custodial sentence?
One might have thought that would be one gig even she wouldn’t miss but, say Trump watchers, don’t hold your breath.
After all, according to the New York Times, Melania has privately called the Stormy Daniels scandal ‘his problem’.
Melania Trump has made only two formal public appearances for her husband’s re-election bid – the kickoff of his campaign in November 2022 and just last week, when she appeared with him to vote in the Florida presidential primary (pictured).
According to the New York Times, Melania has privately called the Stormy Daniels scandal ‘his problem’.
Like the rest of the Trump Clan, the former first lady cares intently about her public image – with insiders like Stephanie Grisham believing that she avoided the trial largely because she’s ‘thinking of her own optics’.
Indeed, if reports coming from the Trump camp are accurate, Melania is increasingly thinking about what’s good for her rather than for her husband.
Various commentators acquainted with her say she’s not planning on spending much time in Washington if he wins a second term.
First Lady expert Kate Andersen Brower told Axios she believes Melania is ‘distancing herself even more from her husband and from the Washington social political scene’ while Mary Jordan, author of a Melania biography, pointed out how Mr Trump’s absence makes her ‘stand out in history from any other First Lady’.
‘[She] has made a deal with her husband that if he wins the presidency, she will not have to fulfil first lady duties 24/7,’ a source recently told the New York Post.
Given that she was hardly ’24/7′ during Trump’s first term, spending considerable time at the home of her parents – Viktor and the late Amalija – out in the DC suburbs, it sounds like she may not even be around to arrange the state dinner decorations, which was reportedly her most cherished duty at the White House.
Instead, the insider claimed, she wants to keep devoting her time to Barron.
‘She’s a hands-on mother and is already planning to spend part of every month – and potentially every week – in NYC,’ if, they said, Barron chooses to attend New York University.
In the event of a Trump victory, it’s believed that she’d divide her time between New York and Palm Beach, only going to the capital for ceremonial responsibilities like state dinners.
And while college is traditionally the time when the chick spreads its wings and flies the nest – it appears super-protective Melania has other plans.
She is said to be worried that Barron ‘has never been completely on his own before’ (but how many college freshmen have?) and, especially given the ‘added attention’ he’ll get if his father becomes President again, is convinced she needs to be close at hand.
Some might observe that the last thing any 18-year-old wants is his mother hanging around his neck but, to be fair to Melania’s powerful maternal instincts, Barron has certainly not had a conventional childhood and, in being the son of a Republican president in a Democrat city, probably has a huge kick-me target on his back.
She is said to be worried that Barron ‘has never been completely on his own before’ and, especially given the ‘added attention’ he’ll get if his father becomes President again, is convinced she needs to be close at hand.
If he doesn’t follow his father to the University of Pennsylvania or his half-siblings to Georgetown (in Washington DC) and instead heads to NYU, cynics may wonder how much his decision was influenced by his mother.
How convenient, they might say, to justify being able to get back to her favorite stomping ground of Manhattan and not have her husband cramping her style as she clucks over 6’9′ Barron.
Publicly, Trump has attempted to make a virtue of having a missing wife.
‘I think part of the beauty is that mystery,’ he told podcaster Megyn Kelly last year. ‘She’s introspective and she’s confident, she doesn’t need to be interviewed by you to get ripped apart for no reason. She doesn’t need to be out there. She’s got confidence, she has a lot of self-confidence.’
Trump may feel he doesn’t need his wife’s help given Biden’s imploding performance. But that situation could change radically if the Democrats get a new candidate – especially if it’s a woman like the hotly-tipped Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan.
A softening, female force in Team Trump might then suddenly become rather more pressing.
‘At the appropriate time, she’ll be out there,’ Trump assured NBC last September.
Melania said much the same in March when, asked by reporters whether she planned to hit the campaign trail, she replied: ‘Stay tuned.’
Four months later, we’re still waiting.
