Melania Trump Absent From Super Tuesday Victory Celebrations

Melania Trump’s apparent absence as her husband, Donald Trump, celebrated his Super Tuesday wins at his Florida property has been highlighted on social media amid continued speculation over her lack of public appearances.

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump and rival Nikki Haley faced off in 15 states’ and one U.S. territory’s primary contests to mark Super Tuesday on March 5, where the former president won nearly every race.

After the states and territory voted in GOP primaries, Trump increased his number of delegates to 797, according to the Associated Press. As a candidate needs 1,215 delegates to secure the nomination, his results reaffirmed what was expected—that Trump is all but confirmed the Republican nominee for November’s presidential elections.

He is expected to face incumbent Joe Biden, who also enjoyed a near-sweep on the Democrats’ side during Super Tuesday.

Following his sweeping win on Tuesday, Donald Trump took the stage at his watch party inside Mar-a-Lago to make a speech before his supporters.

The former star of The Apprentice took aim at the current border crisis and the economy in his speech. He also thanked his children.

“This is a day that we’ve been waiting for,” the former president said to cheers. “I want to thank my family for being here. It’s a great family. I have a great family.”

“They’ve had it very easy since I decided to run for politics,” he quipped. “They say, ‘Thanks a lot dad, we appreciate it.’ But they’re strong and they’re very capable people. And they love their country, they really do.”

Sharing the clip on X, formerly Twitter, political journalist and author Aaron Rupar added the caption: “Trump shouts out his kids but Melania is again conspicuous by her absence.”

Newsweek has contacted a representative of Donald Trump via email for comment.

Melania Trump has been largely absent from her husband’s presidential campaign events, declining to make public appearances or comments about the election. Her presence has been scaled back, in contrast to the 2016 presidential campaign, when she took an active role.

Her absence has been the subject of much speculation, as critics question why she has appeared to remove herself from public life. The talk was exacerbated when the former model was notably absent from a Trump family Christmas card, which featured her husband, all of his children, and her father.

Donald Trump had revealed his wife’s reasons for being absent from his New Year’s Eve party, when he explained in a speech at Mar-a-Lago that her mother, Amalija Knavs, had been “very ill.” He added that his wife was with her mother in a hospital in Miami at the time, describing the situation as “a very tough one.” Knavs died in January at the age of 78.

During his town hall last month in South Carolina, Donald Trump was asked if his wife would be active on the campaign trail, much like current first lady Jill Biden has been for her husband.

“It’s a question I’m asked a lot, that Jill Biden is everywhere,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham said. “She’s campaigning everywhere for Joe Biden and she did in 2020.

“Will we see more of your secret weapon, for those of us who know your wife Melania? Will we see more of her this time around, given her ability to speak so many languages… [she’s] so wonderful with children and everyone? I think a lot of people here want to see more of her.”

“They love her, I’ll tell you,” Trump responded amid applause from the audience. “And you know her. She’s a very brilliant person. She speaks many languages, the whole thing.”

The onetime real estate mogul went on to explain that much of his wife’s attention is devoted to their 17-year-old son, Barron Trump.

“Her life revolves around that boy, [he’s] so important to her,” the former star of The Apprentice said. “At the same time, it also revolves around our country and the success of our country. She’s raised a lot of money for charity.”

“She’s a private person,” he continued. “It’s funny, she was a very successful model, very, very successful, and yet she was a private person. She’s going to be out a lot, not because she likes doing it, but she likes the result. She wants to see this country really succeed.

“[The people] love the fact that she’s not out there so much. You know, a lot of first ladies will go out. They want to be everywhere. They get angry at their husband because he’s not introducing them. If I didn’t introduce Melania she’d be very happy about it. She’s just a different kind of a person. And she loves the country.

“She’s gonna be out quite a bit and she loves his country and she wants a great and she says hello.”

Donald Trump’s comments come weeks after he provided an update on his wife’s possible involvement in his 2024 presidential campaign.

“She’s gonna play, and she always did play a big role,” he said during an interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade in January. “She was somebody that you could rely on. She’s very smart, a very compassionate person…she wants to make America great again, too.”

“And I would rely on her for advice,” he said. “I think she’s going to be very active in the sense of being active, at the same time, I don’t want my family to be too active because they did such a great job last time.”