Melania Trump teases potential return to the campaign trail

By Kate Sullivan, CNN

(CNN) — Former first lady Melania Trump made a rare public appearance Tuesday alongside her husband, Donald Trump, to cast her ballot in the Florida presidential primary and teased a potential return to the campaign trail.

“Stay tuned,” Melania Trump said with a smile when asked by a reporter if she was going to return to the trail as the former president seeks a return to the White House. The Trumps had just exited a polling location together in Palm Beach.

Melania Trump has been absent from politicking in support of her husband’s third presidential bid since attending his campaign launch event in November 2022. She even opted to skip the former president’s election night watch party earlier this month on Super Tuesday at their Mar-a-Lago resort, where the the couple lives. She has also not appeared alongside her husband at any of his many court appearances as he faces 88 charges across four separate cases against him.

Donald Trump was asked last year whether his wife might join him on the campaign trail in the near future, and he said she would “pretty soon.”

“She’s a private person, a great person, a very confident person, and she loves our country very much,” Trump said on NBC’s Meet the Press in September. “And honestly, I like to keep her away from it. It’s so nasty and so mean.”

Sources familiar with the Trumps’ relationship have previously told CNN that much of Melania Trump’s focus remains on their son, Barron, who is expected to graduate high school in Florida this spring.

The former first lady has largely avoided the public eye since leaving Washington in January 2021, but she has made a few public appearances. She attended a memorial service for former first lady Rosalynn Carter in Georgia in November, joining current first lady Jill Biden and former first ladies Michelle Obama, Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton in paying tribute to Carter.

She also spoke at a naturalization ceremony at the National Archives in Washington in December. In her speech, Melania Trump spoke in uncharacteristically personal terms about her difficult experience becoming a US citizen and the challenges she faced traversing a complicated legal system. She made no mention of her husband, who has pledged a widespread expansion of hard-line policies if elected again that would restrict both legal and illegal immigration.

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