Where Is Melania? - Updated

Melania Trump hasn't been seen in public since May 10 and apparently she's not accompanying the president to Camp David this week-end. On a couple of recent Friday afternoons she declined to ride with her husband, traveling to Andrews by motorcade while POTUS went by helicopter. This is different. She's not going with him at all.

She sent out a tweet on Wednesday, trying to defuse all the Where Is Melania? speculation, but it was written in language that didn't sound like her, and many observers, including me, think there's a good chance it was written by someone else:

I see the media is working overtime speculating where I am & what I'm doing.  Rest assured, I'm here at the @WhiteHouse w my family, feeling great, & working hard on behalf of children & the American people!

— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) May 30, 2018

So what's really going on with the First Lady? She's healing from a face lift? She's moving back to New York full time? She hates her husband and she's preparing to bolt? Those are some of the rumors I've seen and they're probably not true.

I do think it's possible she's fallen deeply out of love with her husband, if she was ever really in love with him in the first place. (Yes, my bias is showing. I disagree with this president about everything and I don't admire him at all, but it's more than that. As a woman I just can't fathom having any kind of relationship with Donald Trump. The mind reels and the skin crawls, and no, the money wouldn't make it better.) After the campaign, the election and 16 months of his presidency, Melania presumably knows a lot more about who the man she's married to really is, and it's not a pretty picture. Does she ever think about what Michelle Obama said at the 2012 Democratic convention? "Being president reveals who you are." You bet it does.

In a previous post I said that if Melania is surprised to learn that her husband was cheating on her, she's not nearly as smart and savvy as she wants us to think. (Read it here.) That may have been a little unfair. Perhaps she really did think, or allow herself to believe, at the beginning, that Donald Trump would be faithful and treat her with some modicum of respect. Now, in the spotlight of the presidency she's (presumably) had to face the reality that she's married to a serial cheater who treats her like dirt, and the whole world knows it. And yet, at least publicly, she has to stand by his side, most of the time, smiling, letting him hold her hand and pretending that she's happy to be married to Donald Trump. In her shoes, I'd disappear too. Permanently.

As First Lady, of course, Melania really can't do that. For now, and for many reasons, she's stuck, and as such, she could end this story in two minutes by walking across the White House lawn this afternoon and getting into Marine One with her husband. The fact that she's choosing not to suggests that something is going on. I admit I'm curious to know what it is.

Friday afternoon update: Maybe she just didn't want to hang out with the stepkids.

President Trump has arrived at Camp David, where he said he'll be doing "a little relaxation, a lot of work." He's joined by three of his children: Donald Jr., Tiffany, Ivanka (and Jared). The First Lady is not planning to go, as she hits the three-week mark out of public view.

— Jeff Zeleny (@jeffzeleny) June 1, 2018

Saturday afternoon, update #2: Posting this with no comment:

One of America's most famous male journalists of the 1970s did not report on domestic violence in the White House because, he says, he did not understand that the president hitting his wife was a criminal act https://t.co/CppVrZqThN

— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) June 2, 2018

This is the tweet Garance linked to:

Floored by this anecdote about Sy Hersh visiting Nixon’s wife in the hospital after he’d punched her and not reporting on it https://t.co/8Jht8EDQ2G pic.twitter.com/RR8AJiooud

— Rebecca Baird-Remba (@thecitywanderer) June 2, 2018

You can read the New Republic article in full here.

Sunday night, update #3:

. @FLOTUS will not join @realDonaldTrump for the G7 Summit in Quebec next week, @StephGrisham45 tells @CNN. Last year @FLOTUS made a splash in Sicily (remember that $51K @dolcegabbana flower coat?) for the 2017 G7.

— Kate Bennett (@KateBennett_DC) June 3, 2018

Kate Bennett, a CNN reporter whose primary focus is the First Lady, issued this tweet a couple of hours ago. The G7 Summit is June 8 & 9. Will we see Melania before then? I'm guessing no. Whatever it is that's been going on with her, it's still going on. Strange.