Melania absent from debate, as Jill Biden takes central campaign role

Former First Lady Melania Trump is not attending the presidential debate against President Joe Biden, further signaling the distance between her and her husband’s campaign, as she opts to stay out of the public eye.

Melania — who was absent for the entirety of her husband’s criminal trial — has made scant public appearances, and even fewer alongside her husband, since he won a primary race to become the Republican nominee for president.

In a pattern of keeping answers on his wife’s absence short, Donald Trump told Fox and Friends earlier in June that “she’s fine.”

“I think it’s very tough on her, but she’s fine,” he said, referring to his criminal conviction days earlier.

Melania was reportedly not very fond of her time as First Lady, during which she half-heartedly promoted anti-bullying initiatives and begrudgingly kept up White House traditions, like putting up its Christmas decorations.

Donald Trump, who has apparently lost the public support of his wife and daughter Ivanka since his last term, is struggling to make inroads with women voters, who supported Biden over Trump by more than an 11-point margin in 2020.

His appointment of Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, and his support of restrictive national and local abortion bans, have been especially salient attack angles from the Biden campaign.

First Lady Jill Biden, present in Atlanta, has played a central role in her husband's campaign.

“I know Joe is ready to go,” the First Lady told a group of the president’s supporters in Virginia earlier in the day, starkly contrasting Melania’s absence in the Trump campaign.