Melania's Silence Over Donald Trump's Announcement Is Speaking Volumes
While Donald Trump's announcement to run for the president of the United States a third time has amassed a mixed reaction from the public, one figure has been noticeably quiet. Melania Trump, the former first lady and Donald Trump's wife, has not posted about his bid on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.
Earlier this year, the social media platform Parler, which has become a hub for conservatives who believe other social networks have stifled their freedom of speech, announced that Melania Trump would have an exclusive deal with the platform for her social media needs. According to MIT Technology Review, Parler was taken offline on January 10, 2021, after Amazon stopped hosting the site, citing a violation of terms of service in the wake of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Parler then returned online a month later with a new website host, Epik.
But Melania Trump has not posted about the announcement on her Parler profile, either, which has more than 42,000 followers. Additionally, she has yet to publish an official statement on her website. The last official statement Melania Trump published on her website was on July 21, 2022, seemingly made in response to the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, where she both "condemns violence," and criticizes her former chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham, for "abandoning her post" in Washington, DC. Grisham quit that day after Melania Trump refused to condemn the violence that was unfolding (via Katie Couric Media).
Melania Trump has laid low
When Donald Trump was banned from Twitter on January 8, 2021, he created his own social platform, Truth Social, where Melania Trump has more than 1 million followers. But, as New York Magazine pointed out, Truth Social does not see much action from the Trump family. The former first lady has also not posted any "truths," as the posts are called, about Trump's presidential announcement on her account. New York Magazine noted that Melania Trump "barely uses the site" after Donald Trump issued a mock apology to her on the platform earlier last week for having to deal with "fictional stories" propagated in her name.
After leaving the White House, Melania Trump has laid low, per Insider. She resides at Mar-a-Lago, where the FBI seized hundreds of classified documents Trump allegedly took from the White House, and sold a collection of NFTs meant to fund programs for children in foster care. It can be difficult to tell how Melania Trump really felt about being the first lady, especially as she has been said to dislike the public eye, at least according to one unnamed source (via People). And though her confidantes once revealed how she felt about a second shot at the gig, it remains unclear how she really feels about Trump's third run. Per Business Insider, Melania Trump was present during Trump's announcement earlier this week, and the pair were photographed together smiling side by side.