How Afraid of Melania Will Donald Trump Be This Week?

When former President Donald Trump skulks into a New York court on Monday to begin the hush money trial he couldn’t get out of, despite his lawyers’ best efforts, is there any chance his wife, Melania, will be at his side? While it’s always possible that the ever-mysterious former first lady will defy expectations, the safe bet is: Don’t count on it.

We haven’t seen much of Melania lately, period. While the former model has always been less visible than other political spouses, her absence has felt especially pronounced since her husband ramped up his efforts to recapture the presidency in the 2024 election. “Where’s Melania?,” the Washington Post asked in November. Months later, Melania sightings have remained scarce. In late March, CNN reported that Melania’s role in Trump’s campaign was still “up in the air.” According to CNN, aside from attending the campaign kickoff and accompanying Trump to vote in the Florida presidential primary, Melania has been MIA for many of campaign’s major moments, including Trump’s Super Tuesday victory party at Mar-a-Lago. Why would Melania schlep to a trial in New York when she didn’t even bother to be seen at a celebration that took place in her own home?

But we all know what’s really keeping her far away from the courtroom. Consider what the trial is actually about: Prosecutors have accused the former president of falsifying financial records “as part of a scheme to cover up an alleged affair with adult film performer [Stormy] Daniels in order to unlawfully influence the upcoming 2016 election,” as my colleagues Jeremy Stahl and Mark Joseph Stern recently put it. The whole trial stems from an instance of Trump allegedly cheating on Melania in 2006—at the time, the two had been married for about a year and a half, and their son, Barron, was just a few months old. You can understand why it wouldn’t be Melania’s favorite topic, and in fact, there have been many reports over the years that suggest it might be the single most explosive issue in their marriage.

Soon after news of the alleged hush money broke in 2018, the New York Times reported that “Mrs. Trump and the president have had a tumultuous relationship at times over the years, but few episodes have roiled the peace as much as the news surrounding Ms. Daniels.” A recent book by the New York Times’ Katie Rogers filled in more about the first lady’s reaction, reporting that Melania’s anger at being blindsided led her to back out of a planned overseas trip and retreat to Mar-a-Lago. “I think she was pissed at Trump and wanted him to be a little humiliated that she took off,” Melania’s former press secretary told Rogers.

While Melania didn’t blast Trump publicly then or in the years since, it seems notable that she hasn’t spent much energy defending him, either. When she was asked directly about Trump’s alleged infidelity in a 2018 interview, Melania claimed to have more important things to think about. But behind closed doors, there have been plenty of signs that she might still be pissed. In 2020, per the Guardian, a former friend of Melania’s who wrote a tell-all book about their relationship revealed a recording she claimed captured the then–first lady derisively referring to Daniels as “the porn hooker.” Last year, around the time of Trump’s indictment, People reported, via anonymous sources, that Melania was angry, didn’t want to hear about the hush money, and didn’t sympathize with what her husband was going through. A few months later, New York magazine’s Intelligencer noticed a suspicious disconnect between the way Melania seemed to be distancing herself from her husband publicly and tabloid accounts that insisted she was actually extremely supportive of him privately: Trump was at his New Jersey golf club when his second indictment came down last June, for example, and the New York Post assured readers that even though Melania didn’t leave Manhattan to provide reassurance and comfort in person, they totally talked on the phone.

The pattern has continued into this year, as Melania has rather impressively upended the long-established expectation that in order to run for president, you need a spouse to parade around with you. This seems to be the compromise Donald Trump and Melania have settled on: She does her own thing and expends zero effort toward his campaign, he tolerates it, someone from their camp offers the press the occasional tepid rebuttal when the state of their marriage is raised, no one really believes any of it, and none of it really matters to anyone, least of all his supporters.

All of that said, this month, there have been signs that activity is picking up at least a little. Earlier this month, Melania surfaced at hedge funder John Paulson’s fundraiser for her husband in a pink Valentino jumpsuit, and an anonymous source conveniently told the New York Post that her performance was proof she was “ready to be first lady again.” Moreover, Politico reported that this coming weekend, she’s set to host a fundraiser for the Log Cabin Republicans—the right-wing gays—at Mar-a-Lago. This is certainly interesting timing, coming the same week as the beginning of the trial. While it’s her first major contribution to her husband’s campaign this cycle, it’s also a private event, and depending on your sources, maybe not as big of a deal as some initial reports implied. Is she “back on the campaign trail” or is this more smoke and mirrors to prove all is well in the house of Trump? Whatever the case, one thing’s for sure: Stormy Daniels will not on be on the invite list.