Melania to step out of shadows to support Trump’s campaign

The former first lady is due to speak at a political fundraising event in Mar-a-Lago on Saturday.

Donald and Melania Trump after voting in Florida's primary last month. Picture: AFP

Over the past year, as her husband has travelled the US getting arrested and charged with crimes in four cities while campaigning for the presidency, ­Melania Trump has kept largely out of sight, her few public ­appearances causing headlines because of their rarity.

All that may be about to change: she is due to speak at a political fundraising event on Saturday night, in a sign that she is ready to re-enter the turbulent waters of a third Trump presidential campaign. Or at least stick a toe in.

The event at Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s Florida estate, is for the Log Cabin Republicans, a group that promotes both ­conservative values and LGBTI rights. It comes as Mr Trump’s first criminal trial, for allegedly concealing payments to a porn star, gets under way.

When it was first reported that Mr Trump, via his lawyer Michael Cohen, had paid Stormy Daniels $US130,000 to stop her from speaking publicly before the 2016 election about an affair she claims to have had with him, his wife “was furious”, according to Mary Jordan, the author of a biography of the former first lady called The Art of Her Deal. “I think now she sees it as his enemies using this unfairly,” she said. “That his enemies are trying to embarrass not only Trump but herself.”

It is true that Mrs Trump has stayed away from campaign events and court appearances, Ms Jordan said, but “she’s been through a lot this year. Her mother, the person closest to her in the whole world, has been sick and has passed away. Barron (her son) is graduating from school. She lives and breathes for Barron. Her entire world has been her son, then her mother and father.”

Ms Jordan does not expect to see Mrs Trump striding out to address rallies in Georgia or Michigan. “This first one is in Mar-a-Lago. She can decide who is in the room. She can bar reporters. She is a draw for fundraising.” Carefully controlled events would be what “I think you are going to see her do”.

A fortnight ago she was photographed at another fundraiser held at the Palm Beach home of the billionaire John Paulson. R Couri Hay, a society publicist who got to know Mrs Trump during her years in New York, said he was very struck by the pictures.

“We saw Melania do something she is not really noted for doing in public and that’s smiling,” Mr Hay said. He generally expects to see “that steely glare” and an expressionless, unreadable face, an aspect he believes she developed during her career as a model.

“Melania was beaming and smiling at the party and she was greeting everyone,” he said. “I was not there. But everyone I spoke to who was there remarked on how she was happy and friendly and reaching out to people and being a hostess.”

He took it as a sign that she was preparing to help the Trump campaign as best she can.

“She’s dealt with her mother’s death, which was a terrible blow to her, and she’s also come face to face with the realisation that she could very well become first lady again.”

Barron is “going to go to college”, he added. “She’s ready to go back to the White House.”

As first lady, Mrs Trump was not known for glad-handing, often keeping herself to herself even during social events. Ms Jordan, who as a reporter covered the White House and Mrs Trump’s role in it, spoke to people who had sat next to her during state dinners and tried to make conversation. She had “no experience as a political spouse”, Ms Jordan said, as Mr Trump had not served as a congressman or senator. “And she’s from another country”, he added of the Slovenian-born former model.

But there was something else too, Ms Jordan said. “She’s one of the most solitary people in public life that anyone has ever seen. You can’t exaggerate how solitary this woman is. She doesn’t keep friends from the past. She doesn’t stay in touch with people from her school or models she worked with. You can count on your hand the people that she really talks to. She’s just exactly the opposite of her husband, who loves a crowd, and loves to tell you how big the crowd is.”

Early in Mr Trump’s presidency, his wife was sometimes cast as a prisoner in the White House. This time “she’s increasingly hardened and more in line with her husband’s agenda”, Ms Jordan said.

The Times