By james art 
Cnn
–
After a four -week absence from Washington, first lady Melania Trump returned to the White House on Saturday for an annual dinner and admission with the nation’s governors.
“She works very hard, making sure everything is beautiful. And she’s very good at that, “said President Donald Trump in brief remarks to governors in the eastern candle room, his wife was sitting near a table full of white hydrangea vases and tulips.
While Melania Trump can prepare the White House for the visitors – she announced in a statement last week that the tours of the historic home are opening up to the public again – the first lady has obviously had a less interest in spending time there.
As her husband took the oath on January 20, she did not spend significant time in the White House, according to sources with direct knowledge of her schedule. Melania Trump was an active presence in the first days of the president’s second term, but after joining her husband to travel on January 24th to natural disasters destroyed in North Carolina and California, he did not return to Washington until Saturday.
The first lady was expected to spend the bigger part of her time between New York, where son Barron visits college, and Florida, CNN reported during the presidential transition. Sources familiar with her thinking insisted on a time that she would still be present for major events, including the Saturday Ball, and would have her own platform and priorities as a first lady.
But last month suggests that her time in Washington may be even more limited than expected, signaling a remarkable, if surprising, a precedent breakthrough for the first family.
A spokesman for the first lady’s service refused to comment on her whereabouts.
Even when it is open to passing the east coast, the first lady has previously stressed that she will be in DC. Asked where she was planning to spend her time in an interview on January 13 with Ainsley Earhardt from Fox News, Trump said: “I’ll be in the White House. And, you know when I have to be in New York, I’ll be in New York. When I have to be in Palm Beach, I will be in Palm Beach. ”
She continued: “But my first priority is, you know, to be a mother, to be a first lady, to be a wife, and after being on January 20, you serve the country.”
The president has also spent considerable time in Florida since he took office, traveling to Miami or Palm Beach for his first four weekends of service.
Still, Melania Trump is absent as President welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, King of Jordan Abdullah II and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the White House. She has missed countless signatures of executive orders and major events in women’s sports, the return of an unlawfully detained American Mark Fogel of Russia, and the signing of her husband’s first legislative victory, Lake Riley Act, among the other key achievements he has advertised.
Trump has not yet entered an independent official trip as a first lady, foreign or home. In contrast, at that time in her husband’s first term, she attended a joint press conference and a meeting of Obal Lago.
Her preferences, sources familiar with her thinking, have said, not to participate publicly on her husband’s second term every day and has no internal reaction among the president’s team to this decision. However, sources often cite her as a constant voice in her husband’s ear, giving him advice.
And her first week of the new term offered initial signs of a potential transition to a more public profile for the notorious private first lady.
Shortly after the November 2024 election, Amazon made a multimillion-dollar license deal with Trump to make a documentary to go out later this year. Trump will serve as an executive producer, which means that it has complete editorial control over its content.
The director of this documentary, Brett Ratner, traveled aboard the Air Force one January 24th and was seen to shoot or watch the first lady and president when they met, affected families and examined damage from the hurricane Helen in Asheville and the wild fires in the quiet palisadi S
But as the President travels from Los Angeles to Las Vegas for an event on his proposal for termination of advice, Melania Trump and her assistants split, jumping over the rest of the four -day trip to travel separately to Florida, according to the White House Press Carolin Leviticus.
Then her next public appearance on Saturday, when she reworks into the east room to “welcome the boss”, smiling with her husband, who dressed in tuxedo while sports, business tuxedo and crunchy white shirt your.
Asked by CNN one day after a trip to California, what role his wife expected to have during his second term, Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force: “She was always very engaged, but you didn’t see it – more – more Behind her, the scenes-but she has always been a man in front of the stage. ”
He continued: “I think she really wanted – she felt bad for North Carolina. She felt very bad for California. Los Angeles, I have many friends. I have many friends in North Carolina both, and she has many friends in California. So she wanted to be with me. ”
Over her time from Washington, Melania Trump is not entirely from the radar.
She released a new official portrait on January 27, taken to the White House on January 21, a day after taking office. A trio of her best assistants participates in a rare interview for the first lady, published on February 3 in the British publication Hello! Magazine. “The next week, she announced the resumption of the White House public tours.
Trump has hired a small group of employees in the east wing and worked with staff, according to a White House employee, and hinted in previous interviews that she can continue or expand her “Be the Best” platform focused on children’s impact on the opioid influence A crisis on children and families and online behavior.
Regine Mahaux, a longtime beloved photographer of Trump’s family, who also captured the first lady’s official portraits for 2017 and 2025, told Hello! that Melania Trump is “liberal”.
“She has always been with her hands, but nowadays she is more free to make a statement,” Maho said. “She has been a different person from eight years ago and has always been true to herself. This time he feels like different energy with new people with whom the president has surrounded himself. ”