Melania Trump will not attend President Donald Trump’s midterms convention in Dallas next week, a major snub as her husband attempts to drum up momentum ahead of November’s elections. A White House official told The Independent the first lady will not be making an appearance at the two-day Republican gathering, confirming a development first reported by The Washington Examiner, but declined to comment further on the no-show. At least 45 GOP lawmakers have meanwhile told Politico they will not be present either, offering a variety of explanations, from “prior obligations” such as attending weddings, touring colleges with their teenage daughters and going dove hunting to arguing that their time would be better spent campaigning in their districts.
Some frankly balked at the $25,000 entrance fee they are expected to stump up to get a seat. One unnamed Republican called the unorthodox convention “a waste of time” and told the outlet: “You shouldn’t be having to rally your base at this point. You should be trying to convince independents.” Others have expressed a reluctance to be closely associated with the president at a time when his approval rating is languishing in the low 30s amid the ongoing Iran war and affordability crisis, fearing it could compromise their own prospects at the polls.
Tom Barrett said, explaining why he was staying away. For his part, House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted he had been “promoting this everywhere,” saying of his congressional colleagues: “They’ve got to all make their own individual decision… but the people that do come are going to have a great time.” Trump himself will be front and center at the convention, which is being held at the city’s American Airlines Center. He is set to speak on both September 9 and 10 and offering photo opportunities and roundtable appearances for a reported $88,600 and $250,000, respectively (Vice President JD Vance will also be available for much less).
Despite upbeat messaging from the organizing Republican National Committee, the televised event has the potential to be a disaster, not least because it clashes with the NFL season opener and comes a day before the U.S. observes the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The first lady’s absence continues her long streak of remaining in the shadows and missing key engagements, the scarcity of her public appearances stretching back to the 2024 campaign. Her only significant appearance during that period was her attendance at the final night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, when she arrived to support Trump at his first appearance after being struck in the right ear by a sniper’s bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania.
She was last spotted at the Freedom 250 Grand Prix in Washington on August 23, prior to which she spoke at a foster care event in the White House Rose Garden at which she joked to the assembled press corps: “Good afternoon, I heard you missed me. Here I am.” According to a Daily Beast analysis, Melania has been seen publicly on just 40 days so far this calendar year and has skipped such high-profile recent events as the restaged White House Correspondents’ Dinner and the funeral of South Carolina Sen. The first lady has made a number of telling contributions to her husband’s second term, however, notably starring in a $40 million fly-on-the-wall Amazon documentary, delivering a surprise press conference denying any past association with the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and attacking late-night host Jimmy Kimmel when he joked about Trump’s assassination.
More positively, she opened back channel negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin to secure the return of captured Ukrainian children and championed the bipartisan Take It Down Act, targeting the spread of revenge porn and explicit deepfakes online. Neither of which was enough to save her adviser Marc Beckman from ridicule when he suggested earlier this summer that she was the most “consequential” first lady in American history. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
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