After Donald Trump was elected president the first time, Melania Trump delayed her move to the White House until June 2017, either to wait until her son finished the school year or improve the terms of her prenup, depending on whom you ask. This time? She may not be moving at all.
CNN reports that Melania is “unlikely to move to Washington full-time in her second go-around as first lady,” according to multiple sources. Instead, she is “expected to spend a majority of her time over the next four years not at the White House, but between New York City and Palm Beach, Florida.” Despite apparently wanting to spend as little time as possible at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, sources told the outlet that Melania will show up for major events and have an official platform and priorities.
While not moving to the White House full-time would be a major break with tradition, that Melania would potentially make such a move should come as little surprise. When her husband campaigned for president a third time, she was effectively absent on the campaign trail, attending only his initial announcement that he was running, the Madison Square Garden rally the weekend before Election Day, and his election night party. When he was president the first time, she made it pretty clear she did not enjoy the first lady gig, as evidenced by the infamous “who gives a f–k about Christmas” tape; the reports that she was “miserable” and “very, very unhappy with her life”; and the huge grin on her face when she disembarked in Palm Beach on January 20, 2021. As a source told People later that year, “She was relieved when her husband’s term ended.” Said another, of a then prospective 2024 run by Trump, “If he runs, I doubt she will be involved at all. If he should win, that would be the worst-case scenario for her.”
Melania has already skipped out on one major first lady tradition: meeting with outgoing first lady Jill Biden while her husband sits down with the current president. According to CNN, “after Jill Biden extended the invitation, there was discussion about the incoming first lady’s attendance, with members of Donald Trump’s team making clear that it was important for her to go.” Sources told the outlet there was a scheduling conflict related to Melania’s book; on Wednesday, her office confirmed she would not be making the visit, cryptically adding that “several unnamed sources in the media” had “provide[d] false, misleading, and inaccurate information,” without saying what that false, misleading, and inaccurate information was.
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In a recent interview with Fox News, Melania said she is “not anxious” about her second run as first lady “because this time is different. I have much more experience and much more knowledge. I was in the White House before. When you go in, you know exactly what to expect.”
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From the party that’s “against political prosecutions” comes…
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Trump “jokes” about running for a third term
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RFK Jr. takes dim view of Trump’s fast-food habit
This sort of talk will not go over well at Mar-a-Lago!
Mr. Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic whose ideas about remaking the nation’s public health system include getting processed food off grocery store shelves, spared no niceties in passing judgment on Mr. Trump’s food choices during a recent interview with Joe Polish, a marketing industry podcaster. His remarks were first reported by The Daily Beast.
“The stuff that he eats is really, like, bad,” Mr. Kennedy said, recounting the offerings on Mr. Trump’s plane. “Campaign food is always bad, but the food that goes onto that airplane is, like, just poison. You have a choice between—you don’t have the choice, you’re either given KFC or Big Macs. That’s, like, when you’re lucky, and then the rest of the stuff I consider kind of inedible.”
According to the Times, Kennedy also revealed that a CEO recently told him that he would sit on hour-long flights with Trump and never saw Trump “drink a glass of water.” In related news, Trump has not yet said if he will reinstall his Diet Coke button in the Oval Office, though the odds are high he does.
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The post Melania Trump Expected to Be in a Long-Distance Relationship With the White House as Second-Time First Lady: Report appeared first on Vanity Fair.
