Trump says Melania will join him on the campaign trail ‘pretty soon’

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As former President Donald Trump is basking in the attention from the media, supporters, his legal team and courtrooms across the country, there’s one person who seems to have not been giving him attention recently: his wife, Melania Trump.

The question of “Where’s Melania?” has become so pervasive that a banner asking exactly that flew across Iowa last week while Mr Trump was watching a football game. Mocked-up “missing” posters of the former first lady were also posted.

After “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker asked the 2024 hopeful if “we’ll see (Melania) on the trail soon,” Mr Trump gave a less than firm date.

“Yeah. Pretty soon,” he replied in an interview airing Sunday, according to the New York Daily News. “When it’s appropriate, but pretty soon.”

Mr Trump told Welker that the former first lady has been busy taking care of their 17-year-old son Barron.

He added that he wants to prevent her from being exposed to the “nasty and mean” politics scene.

“She’s a private person, a great person, a very confident person,” he said of his wife, a former model. “And she loves our country very much.”

Melania’s absence on the campaign trail comes in sharp contrast to Florida Gov Ron DeSantis — the GOP candidate who has been most closely trailing Mr Trump in the polls — who is often seen photographed with his wife Casey DeSantis.

Her absence alongside her husband isn’t new. She has reportedly previously rejected multiple requests to accompany him at some of his court appearances in the criminal cases against him in New York and Florida.

In April, it was reported that Melania had skipped Mr Trump’s indictment trip from Florida to New York, and was not named among the group of people who travelled onboard his private plane.

Last month, former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told CNN that Melania “knows” what’s “going on” with her husband’s indictment, but will turn up “when she wants to”.

“I don’t make anything of [her silence], she is saying in her mind, that this is his issue, he doesn’t need me here to prop him up and I’m too busy to go with him,” Grisham said. “And that’s who she is. She will turn up by [Trump’s] side when she wants to [and] when she’s perfectly ready.”