The First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump, will not be joining President Donald Trump’s campaign trail any time soon. The wife of the president cites her recovery from the coronavirus disease as to why she was staying back.
She was set to join President Trump in a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, but she said she changed her mind because her symptoms were yet to be over, and she was cautious. The first lady made the statement through her chief of staff, Stephanie Graham.
“Mrs. Trump continues to feel better every day following her recovery from COVID-19, but with a lingering cough, and out of an abundance of caution, she will not be traveling,” the chief of staff said.
Melania Trump’s appearance at Tuesday’s rally would have been the first time in over a year that she would have attended a campaign event in-person. Her last appearance was in Florida in June 2019 when she joined her husband to kickoff re-election rallies officially.
Last week, the First Lady detailed her struggles with COVID-19 on the White House website. She explained that she had body aches, a cough, headaches, and was feeling very tired. She noted that these symptoms seemed to come at her all at once.
An inside source, privy to the First Lady’s itinerary, said that there were no plans to fix the First Lady into upcoming campaign rallies. The source said that the First Lady’s health concerns are genuine and not just props to avoid campaign rallies.
Mrs. Trump had not been expected to give a speech at Tuesday’s rally had she made it to the venue, but concerns about her health and travel restrictions made sure her plans of putting up a face was canceled. Despite her absence, every other member of President Trump’s family has hit the campaign trail.
The First Lady is not a regular sight at campaign venues. While other family members had been seen making their presence felt at rallies, she had often shied away from making campaign appearances long before she became the wife of the president. En route to the White House in 2016, she only made a couple of short speeches at campaign grounds.
However, while the first lady may have been hesitant in campaigning for the president in the 2016 election, and also toeing the same line in 2020, Trump’s older children have not followed in her steps. Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and his wife, Lara Trump, are some of the president’s children making their impact felt. Together they will be making campaign stops in the coming days in places like Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, and Pennsylvania.
Source: cnn.com
