Cnn
–
After an absence of four weeks of Washington, First Lady Melania Trump returned to the White House on Saturday for an annual dinner and a reception with the country’s governors.
“She worked very hard to make sure everything was beautiful. And she is very good in this area, “said President Donald Trump in brief remarks to the governors of the Chandelles Salle Est, his wife sitting nearby at a table filled with vases overwhelming with white hydrangeas and tulips.
While Melania Trump could prepare the White House for visitors – she announced in a statement last week that visits to the historic house reopening to the public – the first lady apparently less interested in spending time there.
Since her husband was sworn in on January 20, she did not spend much time in the White House, according to sources with direct knowledge of her schedule. Melania Trump was an active presence during the first days of the president’s second term, but after joining her husband for a trip on January 24 to North Carolina and California, ravaged by natural disasters, had not returned in Washington until Saturday.
The first lady had to spend a majority of her time between New York, where her son Barron attended the university and Florida, CNN reported During the presidential transition. Familiar sources with her thought insisted at the time that she would always be present for major events, including the Saturday ball, and would have her own platform and priorities as First Lady.
But last month suggests that his time in Washington could be even more limited than expected, signaling a remarkable break, although unsurprisingly, of previous for a first family.
A spokesperson for the first lady’s office refused to comment on her fate.
Even if it was opened to cross the east coast, the first lady previously pointed out that she would be at DC. When asked where she planned to spend her time in an interview on January 13 with Ainsley Earhardt from Fox News, Trump said: “I will be in the White House. And, you know, when I need to be in New York, I will be in New York. When I need to be in Palm Beach, I will be in Palm Beach. »»
She continued: “But my first priority is, you know, being a mom, being a first lady, to be a woman, and once we are on January 20, you serve the country.”
The president has also spent a lot of time in Florida since his entry into office, going to Miami or Palm Beach for his first four weekends in power.
However, Melania Trump was absent because the president welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, King Abdullah II and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House. She lacked countless signatures of decree and major events on female sports, the return of the American Marc Fogel wrongly from Russia, and the signing of her husband’s first legislative victory, the Laken Riley Act, between other key achievements that he praised.
Trump has not yet undertaken from an official solo trip as a first lady, foreign or national. On the other hand, at that time of the first mandate of her husband, she had attended a joint press conference and a meeting of the oval office between her husband and Netanyahu and welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife, Akie Abe, For weekend events in Mar -a Lago.
His preference, said sources familiar with her thought, should not be publicly involved in the daily life of her husband’s second mandate, and there is no internal reaction among the president’s team to this decision. However, sources often quote her as a constant voice in her husband’s ear, giving her advice.
And his first week of the new term offered initial signs of a potential change towards a more public profile for the notoriously private first lady.
Shortly after the November 2024 elections, Amazon has signed a several million dollars license agreement With Trump to film a documentary that will be released later this year. Trump will serve as an executive producer, which means that she has a complete editorial control over its content.
The director of this documentary, Brett Ratner, traveled aboard the Air Force One on January 24 and was seen filming or observing the First Lady and the President while they met families and interviewed the damage of the Hurricane Helene in Asheville and forest fires in the Pacific palisades.
But while the president went from Los Angeles to Las Vegas for an event on his proposal to end the Taxes on the advice, Melania Trump and his collaborators separated, jumping the rest of the four -day trip to go separately in Florida, according to the White House, the press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
After that, her next public appearance was not before Saturday, when she turned into the room is for “I greet you to the chef”, smiling alongside her husband, who dressed in a Smoking, while sporting a tuxedo and a matching crisp and crisp crisp shirt.
Asked by CNN one day after the trip to California what kind of role he expected the scenes – but she has always been a person behind the scenes. »»
He continued: “I think she really wanted – she felt bad about North Carolina. She felt very bad about California. Los Angeles, had many friends. I have a lot of friends in North Carolina and both, and she has a lot of friends in California. So she wanted to be with me.
During her time away from Washington, Melania Trump was not entirely out of the radar.
She published a new official portrait on January 27, taken at the White House on January 21, the day after the inauguration. A trio of his best employees participated in a rare interview on the first lady published on February 3 in the British publication “Hello! Review. “The following week, she announced the resumption of public visits to the White House.
Trump hired a small group of East Wing employees and worked with the staff, according to a White House official, and hinted in the previous interviews that she could continue or extend his platform “be be The best “first mandate focused on children many children being, the impact of the opioid crisis on children and families and online behavior.
Regine Mahaux, a long -standing favorite photographer from the Trump family who captured the official 2017 and 2025 official portraits of the first lady, said hello! That Melania Trump is “freer”.
“She has always been practical, but she is freer these days to make a statement,” said Mahaux. “He is a person different from what he was not eight years ago and has always been faithful to himself. This time, it looks like a different energy with new people whose president has surrounded himself. »»