This is what happened on Wednesday.

Melania Trump disappears from sight for weeks on end, hunted in Trump Tower in Manhattan or in Florida, where she can lie low in Mar-A-Lago. Administration officials say that she is more often in the White House than the public knows, but when exactly, and how long, these officials will not (or may not) say.

It’s like having Greta Garbo as First Lady.

Mrs Trump is expected to appear in the capital on Thursday to reveal a stamp in honor of Barbara Bush, the former First Lady, and to attend a ceremony for military mothers. But two people with knowledge of Mrs Trump’s schedule said she had spent less than 14 days in the White House since her husband was inaugurated 108 days ago. Others say that even that is a generous estimate. Officials in the East Wing and West Wing refused several requests for comments for this article.

The fact that the residence of the First Lady is one of the most sensitive subjects in this white house only contributes to the intrigues.

“We have not seen such a low-profile first Lady since Bess Truman, and that goes far back in the living human memory, almost 80 years ago,” said Katherine Jellison, a historian at the University of Ohio whose research focused on first ladies. She said, just like Mrs. Trump, Mrs. Truman spent a lot of her time walking back to “her home base when she got the chance.” (In the case of Mrs. Truman, that was Independence, Mo.)

“She just loved her own private world,” said Mrs. Jellison.

The same applies to this First Lady. She has hired staff to work for her in the eastern wing, but she rarely enters the office. Even foundation guests in Mar-A-Lago say that they don’t often see Mrs. Trump around the site.

Every marriage has its highlights and lows, but like so many other things, the Trumps are in their own competition. In a few months last year, the couple passed a public lawsuit about his Philandering, two murder attempts and a presidential campaign.

The process, which related to Hush -money Donald J. Trump paid to a porn star, provided a particularly challenging moment for the couple, two people with knowledge of their dynamics said. Mrs Trump remained far away from the courthouse in Lower Manhattan and the campaign that kicked in high gear in the following weeks.

The attempted murder of her husband in the summer – and a subsequent incident in which a shooter came close to Mr. Trump on one of his golf courses – a woman who was already worried about the safety of her family and had been around for years, according to two people who were familiar with her thinking. The first time President Trump was inaugurated in 2017, she was worried about stepping out of the car to walk into the parade.

In the White House, this time, Mr. Trump was performed a number of tasks that would usually fall for a First Lady. She is not the person who carefully selects lighting fixtures for the Witte Huis home, re -design the Roseluin, Tour groups in the East Wing greeting or receptions host for the history of the women. He is.

It is ten years since men and woman who drove Golden Escalator together in national political life. Now he came at a time in which he flushed with strength and self -confidence like never before. And yet, while he is spreading, she shrinks.

However, Mr and Mrs Trump share a common approach to public office. They both know how to earn money with exposure. In January, Mrs. Trump launched her own cryptocurrency -token. “You can now buy $ Melania,” she wrote on social media the day before her husband’s second inauguration.

And then there is the deal she hit with Amazon” Allegedly around $ 40 millionFor a documentary that offers a “behind the scenes‘Look at her life as a First Lady.

What could that show? It’s hard to say exactly.

‘You serve the country’

Mrs Trump waited for months to move to the White House last time. But that was because her son was only 10 and his mother took the time she needed to arrange his education and the transition to a new city. At the time, Mrs. Trump’s parents were omnipresent in the White House when she learned by navigating the role. Mrs Trump’s mother, Amalija KnavsDie in January 2024. Today, Mrs. Trump spends a lot of time with her father, Viktor.

Barron Trump is now 19. He ends his first year at New York University and is becoming increasingly independent. Yet there is a part of Mrs. Trump that remains attached to the protective mother role she has in his life, people around her say.

“You know, I feel that as children we have them until they are 18, 19 years old,” said Mrs. Trump Fox News in a rare interview that she gave for inauguration in January. “We teach them. We lead them. And then we give them the wings to fly.”

She was asked where she was planning to spend this period most of her time.

“I will be in the White House,” she replied. “And, you know, if I have to be in New York, I will be in New York. If I have to be in Palm Beach, I will be in Palm Beach. But my first priority is, you know, to be a mother, to be a first lady to be a woman. And as soon as we are on January 20, you should be the country.”

Because Mrs. Trump is rarely seen or heard, the times that she seems to see a glimpse see how she sees her role. Some of her choices are in line with traditional First Lady tasks – to a certain extent.

She stood with her husband to present the Easter -like Easter -like role role last month, but even that brought ethical and legal concerns after it was revealed that business sponsors were allowed to contribute. (All the collected money was to go to the White House Historical Association, a private non -profit educational organization founded by Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961.)

On April 1, she spoke at the State Department for the International Women of Courage Awards, the first time she had been seen in public in Washington for weeks.

In the White House, the First Lady hired its own staff in the east wing. But what to do if the boss doesn’t get to the office? “We were honored to welcome these curious, young gardeners in the White House last week!” Reads the caption of a recent video posted on the Instagram page “Flotus”.

But Flotus itself does not appear in the video. It is not clear whether she was even there.

Film crews have been seen around Mrs. Trump lately. But for the most part the Amazon documentary about her life, just like the subject, is dressed in mystery. Documentary Filmmakers and Hollywood -Executives say that the $ 40 million that Amazon reportedly paid for the documentary, which Mrs Trump is executed, is tens of millions of dollars more than what such projects would usually collect. Amazon refused several requests for comments for this article, just like the director of the film, Brett Ratner.

Just as the presence of Mrs. Trump can cause an interesting face, her absence can also be done.

When the first Tour group was led by De East Wing, it was Mr. Trump that popped up to surprise them. “The First Lady worked very hard to make it perfect,” he told the group. But she wasn’t there.

During the first Trump, Mrs. Trump repeated and recovered the rose garden. This period is planning to pave the president over it to turn it into a patio so that he can already entertain Fresco. Mrs Trump initially suffered from her husband’s plan, according to two people who were informed about this. Since then she has been convinced that the rose bushes themselves will be left alone.

She also came up with the idea of ​​the ballroom that he was determined to build in the White House – as soon as she was told that the construction would not take place too close to the house.

A person who has known Mrs Trump for a long time is Paolo Zampolli, a former model agent from Italy who first saw her in Milan in the nineties. The Trumps say it was the Lord Zampolli that she introduced for the first time, in 1998, in the Kit Kat Club in Manhattan. He refers to Mrs. Trump respectfully as ‘the lady’. All persnickety questions about the absence of the lady in Washington, he said, were unfounded. “She loves the White House,” he was full, “and she likes the role of serving as our First Lady.”

When the president makes his big swing through the middle next week, to Saudi Aarabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, the First Lady is not expected to go with him.

But she accompanied him to Vatican City for the funeral of Pope Francis.

When they landed back in Newark on a Saturday afternoon, it was Mrs. Trump’s 55th birthday. The president gave her a kiss on the cheek. She got into a car, he climbed in Marine One and they went their own way.