The tradition-bucking Melania Trump likely won’t call the White House home these next four years.
Discussions about how—and where—the 52-year-old will spend her days in Donald Trump’s second term remains “ongoing,” CNN reported Wednesday, but sources said she’s “unlikely to move to Washington full time in her second go-round as first lady.”
Melania won’t be entirely absent in Washington, the network reported. She’s still expected to turn up to major events like state dinners and have her own “platform and priorities as first lady.”
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Rumors about Melania’s living situation have swirled for months. A handful of insiders told Axios in June that she’d live elsewhere in a second Trump term—perhaps at Mar-a-Lago, where the president-elect is expected to spend large swaths of time, or in Manhattan, where her 18-year-old son Barron is a student at New York University.
The soon-to-be first lady told Fox News in September that she doesn’t consider herself to be an empty nester, adding that Barron is living in Trump Tower—a place CNN’s sources expect she’ll spend a “significant amount of time” at.
If reports are true, Melania will soon become quite the first lady outlier. All of her predecessors—aside from Anna Symmes Harrison, whose husband died a month into his term, and Bess Truman, who lived across the street during renovations—have lived predominantly in the White House since it was built in 1800.
Trump doesn’t have any qualms with his wife’s absence, a source told CNN, and there “is no internal backlash among the president-elect’s team.” While Melania was largely absent on the campaign trail—save for an appearance at the RNC and his infamous Madison Square Garden rally—she has been “a constant voice in her husband’s ear” to give advice and even the occasional pep talk.
Melania’s disdain for some mundane first lady tasks was well-documented. Among the most memorable was when an ex-adviser to Melania released a recording of her complaining about Christmas decorations.
“I’m working … my a-- off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a f--k about the Christmas stuff and decorations?” Melania said in 2018. “But I need to do it, right?”
The latest indication Melania will scrap FLOTUS tradition came on Wednesday, when it emerged that she’d turned down an invite to meet with the outgoing first lady Jill Biden.
Her office later confirmed that she would not be attending, adding, “Her husband’s return to the Oval Office to commence the transition process is encouraging, and she wishes him great success.”
A post-election meeting between first ladies has long been a traditional part of the transition of power. A Wednesday sit-down would have allowed Melania to fly in and out of Washington with her husband, who has a meeting of his own with Joe Biden in the White House.
Still, it’s obvious that Melania isn’t totally punting on her duties as first lady. A report from Semafor on Monday revealed that she’d tapped Goldman Sachs’ John Rogers to help her staff-up her East Wing team ahead of Jan. 20’s inauguration.
Prior to Election Day, she told Fox News that she had no anxiety about a second stint as first lady because she’d learned so much from the first time around.
“I’m not anxious because this time is different,” she said. “I have much more experience and much more knowledge. I was in the White House before. When you go in, you know exactly what to expect.”
