As Donald Trump took to the stage in Milwaukee on Monday evening just 48 hours after an attempt on his life, the words “fight, fight, fight” echoed around the arena.
Joining in the chanting were his family – sons Don Jr and Eric, youngest daughter Tiffany and Eric’s wife Lara — showing their support for the patriarch of their family, who took a bullet to the ear just days earlier.
But notably absent from the chanting and cheering was Melania Trump – former first lady and Trump’s third wife, who is believed to be at home at the couple’s Trump Tower penthouse in New York City, hundreds of miles away from her husband in Milwaukee.
Mrs Trump is expected to attend the event, and previously delivered remarks at the 2016 and 2020 Republican conventions.
But this year she is not on the list of announced headliners and keynote speakers, in a break from a decades-long tradition for the spouses of nominees, prompting speculation of an internal rift between Mr and Mrs Trump.
It follows a string of stark absences this year.
Mrs Trump did not attend her 78-year-old husband’s first presidential debate against Joe Biden last month, nor did she attend any of the court proceedings in the Republican candidate’s hush money trial in New York, in which he was found guilty on 34 charges.
“Melania is a very private and reserved person generally and since the 2020 election has been quite distanced from public events, including the Manhattan trial and campaign events. I think the voting public understand this,” Todd Landman, an American professor of political science at Nottingham University, told i.
Those court appearances had earlier detailed her husband’s alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels in 2006 – which is said to have taken place just months after she gave birth to her son with Mr Trump, Barron.
On Sunday, a day after the attempted assassination, Mrs Trump released a lengthy statement, saying: “I realised my life, and Barron’s life, were on the brink of devastating change.”
She wrote of her spouse’s “laughter, ingenuity, love of music and inspiration,” before adding that the married couple had been through the “worst of times”.
Mrs Trump’s letter mirrored the uncharacteristically softened language used after the shooting by Mr Trump, who said on Sunday that it was important to “stand united” and a “chance to bring the country together”.
She claimed the “fabric of our gentle nation is tattered” by the shooting and called for “courage and common sense” to “bring us back together as one”.
Her actions are thought to provide clues as to how she will treat the role of first lady if she regains the position for a second time.
During Mr Trump’s first term as president, she faced relentless speculation over the state of her marriage, questions over her hospitality, and embarrassing plagiarism claims over her rather puzzling “Be Best” children’s safety campaign, which she later distanced herself from. That followed accusations she had partially plagiarised her 2016 RNC speech from Michelle Obama.
Now, Mrs Trump is setting her own rules. She is not expected to move to the White House full time in the event her husband wins the election.
The New York Post last month reported that the 54-year-old had “made a deal with her husband that if he wins the presidency she will not have to be on first lady duty 24/7”, according to a Trumpworld insider.
Barron, 18, is said to be hoping to attend New York University in the autumn. Mrs Trump, as “a hands-on mother”, plans to spend part of every month and “potentially every week” in New York, the insider told the Post.
Mrs Trump is protective over her only son. After discussion of him serving as a delegate to nominate his father as the official Republican presidential candidate this week, her office released a statement announcing that this would not happen.
But Barron did attend a Miami Trump rally, where he was greeted by cheers as he sat in the front row at the campaign – while his mother was nowhere to be seen.
Mary Jordan, a Washington Post associate editor and author of the unauthorised 2020 biography The Art of Her Deal, has said said: “Melania does what Melania wants”, which makes her “stand out in history from any other first lady”, because she sees the role as “unelected, not paid”.
If Mr Trump is elected president, she will ensure she has a larger, “better” and “more qualified” staff, Ms Jordan told Axios last month. “Now having seen how this works, she would just be wiser and she would be more vocal and more demanding about what the first lady’s office should get.”
Kate Andersen Brower, who has written several books about the White House and first ladies, says Mrs Trump’s absence is more about her hatred of Washington and the “social political scene”. The former model is believed to prefer the hustle and bustle of New York City and – where she has lived since 1996 – and “feels safe” there. She even met her husband at New York fashion week.
Duties of a first lady have historically included public advocacy for issues, hosting and diplomacy. “She had a different approach to being first lady during his first administration, which may provide some idea of how she might perform her role in a second Trump administration,” says Professor Landman.
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former long-time adviser to Mrs Trump and author of memoir Melania and Me, told the Daily Beast in May: “She’s a ruthless survivor and opportunist — willing to do whatever it takes to resort to any means necessary for self-preservation.”
Ms Wolkoff said Mrs Trump “knew exactly who she married, she knew this was a transactional marriage”.
Asked by reporters about his missing wife, Mr Trump has acknowledged her private nature. He told Meet The Press last year: “At the appropriate time, she’ll be out there.”