White House marriages invariably take on meanings larger than themselves. They project a set of values, both moral and political. They provide a feeling of stability.
We assume that they work the same way as ours, with good days and bad: a shared internal experience that we like to have in common with our leaders.
At least most of the time.
Because, for all its glaring anomalies and strangeness, a media that does not usually shy away from curiosity has largely refrained from asking questions about Donald and Melania Trump’s marriage.
In 2021, while writing my latest book about the Trump presidency, ‘Landslide,’ I attended a Mar-a-Lago rooftop dinner hosted by the former president and first lady.
They behaved as if they were brides and grooms at a wedding, each greeting an endless stream of well-wishers who approached our table throughout the night, but without much obvious conversation or even familiarity between them.
On Sunday, at Madison Square Garden, just nine days before the election, Melania made her first and last appearance on her husband’s election campaign.
On Sunday, at Madison Square Garden, just nine days before the election, Melania Trump made her first and last appearance on her husband’s campaign trail.
After she welcomed him to the stage in New York, he air-kissed her on both cheeks with stiff arms. Apparently she couldn’t keep his face far enough away.
“It could have been a negotiated appearance,” a member of Trump’s inner circle observed to me this week. “It’s doubtful until the last moment.”
Melania, moreover, in almost two years of active campaigning, has not shown support for her husband in any significant way in the electoral campaign: an onerous duty, no doubt, but a basic prerequisite of a political wife.
She has only hosted two private Republican fundraising events. His appearance at this summer’s Republican National Convention was minimal, to say the least. She arrived on the last night and only sat in the VIP box after her husband abandoned her.
After her speech, she appeared on stage with the rest of the Trump clan, greeting him with another awkward kiss.
it is equally of rigor that any politician brought before a court has his wife by his side. Donald Trump has appeared in more courts, as a criminal and civil defendant, since he began his 2024 campaign than any politician in American history. But his wife has never been by his side.
It’s entirely possible that, rather than this being a blatant public rebuke, there could be a gentler interpretation here: Melania doing her thing, busy with her own work and interests.
But it’s hard to believe that explanation when so much of the evidence Trump has faced has had to do with his sex life.
The allegations include sexual abuse, of course, and an affair with a porn star that is said to have taken place shortly after Melania gave birth to her son Barron. Therefore, it is perhaps easier to assume that his refusal to attend these trials had more to do with maintaining a sense of dignity.
And yet, his obvious distancing and clear lack of support, once again, were barely questioned by the media. In this, it seems, the Trumps are granted special dispensation.
Perhaps such superficial treatment has always been true of the rich.
After all, we don’t expect their home lives to be like ours. The marriages of the rich, the jet set and the famous are different. On a basic level, they have more real estate and therefore can naturally (sometimes conveniently) stay away from each other.
If there is any First Lady whom Melania seems to model after, it is Jacqueline Kennedy, another beautiful and elusive woman whose marriage – at least while JFK was alive – was not easily discussed.
Since the beginning of the Trump presidency, the question of where Melania spends most of her time has never been fully answered.
In 2017, it took him almost six months to move from his New York apartment to the White House, a striking exception in the history of presidential internal arrangements.
It was explained at the time that this was for the benefit of Barron, who was still in school in New York City, although the Trumps would hardly have been the first presidential couple to change their son’s school mid-year. Washington schools are especially happy to host the children of a president.
Melania has otherwise not shown up for her husband in any meaningful way on the 2024 campaign trail. Her appearance at this summer’s Republican National Convention (pictured) was minimal, to say the least.
In 2017, it took him almost six months to move from his New York apartment to the White House. At the time it was explained that this was for Barron’s benefit.
Even after Melania arrived in Washington, it was never exactly clear how much time she and Barron spent in the White House, or outside it with her parents, who had moved nearby.
Similarly, in the years since Trump’s presidency, Melania’s presence at Mar-a-Lago has often seemed more like an “event” than commonplace.
A Trump insider who is often with the former president at Mar-a-Lago recently told me that Melania appears to be treated more like a guest there.
And now, as the prospect of a second run in the White House looms for Donald, Melania is once again said to be expressing reservations about life in Washington. It has been stated that she feels it will be important for her to be close to her son, who is now college-aged and attending New York University.
Quietly, Trump’s team is said to be testing a new nomenclature: “part-time first lady.”
Does it matter? Should it matter? Do we have the right to know?
As far as his followers are concerned, the image of the Trump couple – that he is charismatic and virile enough to have a beautiful model, a quarter of a century younger, on his arm – is another part of the Trump mythology that they would prefer. leave. imperturbable.