The ex-president’s wife was absent from his court appearance — as was his daughter Ivanka
Conspicuously absent from Donald Trump’s reception committee as he arrived home from his court appearance was the one person who might ordinarily have been expected to be by his side: his wife, Melania.
Amid the allegations that Trump paid hush money to cover up a sexual encounter with a porn star, his wife’s decision to stay away from both his arraignment in New York and his homecoming might suggest that, in the court of spousal opinion, the verdict is already in.
“I have a great family and they’ve done a fantastic job and we appreciate it very much. They’ve gone through a lot,” Trump acknowledged in his address to friends and fans on Tuesday evening at Mar-a-Lago, his seasonal residence in Palm Beach, Florida. He failed to mention his wife, who is said to be angry at him, chilly to his insistence that there was no affair, and unsympathetic to his legal plight.
From left, in Florida: Eric Trump and his wife, Lara; Viktor Knavs, Melania’s father; Donald Trump Jr and his fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle; and Tiffany Trump and her husband, Michael Boulos
People in the Trumps’ circle say that the two live in separate quarters at Mar-a-Lago and describe their marriage now as distant and “transactional”.
Melania, 52, was last seen dining with him last Thursday after his indictment by a grand jury in New York was announced, arriving in a red evening dress with her husband as guests rose to their feet and applauded.
“Our REAL First Couple enveloped in the love of their friends and most loyal!” the Trump adviser Gina Loudon stated on social media that evening, sharing images of the pair. Trump looked sombre; his wife was smiling. They dined with her parents and a conservative radio host, Mark Levin, who described the couple as “tight”.
But she spends the bulk of her time out of her husband’s company with her parents and Barron, 17, the son she gave birth to in 2006 less than four months before her husband allegedly slept with Stormy Daniels.
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump with their children Arabella and Joseph in September 2020
Whereas some of Trump’s other children got glowing plaudits from their father during his speech on Tuesday, Barron’s seemed a little lukewarm.
“I have a son here who has done a great job,” Trump said, gesturing at his eldest, Don Jr, 45. “Another son here who has done a great job,” he said, indicating towards Eric, 39. “And Tiffany and Ivanka,” he noted, referring fleetingly to his two daughters. “And Barron will be great some day. He is tall and he is smart.”
Tiffany, 29, Trump’s daughter by his second wife Marla Maples, was in attendance. Ivanka, 41, has put distance between herself and her father in public since the insurrection at the Capitol and their departure from the White House in 2021, but is said to have visited him at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday before heading to Wyoming to celebrate Passover with family.
Melania is also partial to the spa at Mar-a-Lago, often visiting a couple of times a day for treatments, according to insiders. She is fiercely protective of Barron, who attends a $35,000-a-year private school in Palm Beach.
She enjoys the environment at Mar-a-Lago, a private members’ club that remains a stronghold of Trump support, where she is surrounded by people who still treat the couple with reverence and adoration. Trump will move to his summer home in Bedminster, New Jersey, after Easter, but his wife and youngest son will remain in Florida, where the school year does not end until June.
Stormy Daniels in 2018
Melania refers to Daniels as “the porn hooker” — as recorded on a secret tape of a telephone conversation with her former friend and adviser Stephanie Wolkoff in 2018. Though generally a master at keeping up appearances, she has at times let the facade slip.
After leaving the White House at the end of Trump’s tenure in January 2021, with the world reeling from the insurrection two weeks earlier, she showed irritation with her husband as they disembarked from Air Force One in Palm Beach, flicking away his hand and striding off as he attempted to take hers.
Donald, Melania and Barron Trump at the funeral of Trump’s first wife, Ivana, in July last year
Stephanie Grisham, her former press secretary and chief of staff, said in a memoir in 2021 that Melania viewed hand-holding on such occasions as violating protocol, and that Trump would do it to annoy her. On at least six other occasions, including a photo call alongside President Macron of France in 2018, she swatted away his attempts to take her hand. “He often tried to hold her hand or messed with her hands on purpose in front of the camera to irritate her,” Grisham wrote.
Ivana and Donald Trump in April 1990
Trump’s marriage ended after tabloid coverage of his affair with the actress Marla Maples
The dynamic between them was also called into question by a moment captured on video at Trump’s inauguration in 2016, when the new first lady was shown switching on a broad smile as he turned to speak to her, then switching it off, scowling and looking upset the minute he turned away. On other occasions, he has been seen to instruct her to smile for the cameras — sometimes unsuccessfully.
As the insurrection unfolded at the Capitol she pushed ahead with a photo session for a picture book she was working on about White House furniture and refused to use her platform to either de-escalate or decry what was happening, Grisham revealed in her book.
Source: The Times
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