Melania isn't cut out for this

Mrs. Trump and the president have had a tumultuous relationship at times over the years, but few episodes have roiled the peace as much as the news surrounding [Trump's tryst with porn star Stormy] Daniels. The reports of a payoff blindsided the first lady, who was furious with her husband, according to two people close to the couple. She has kept a low profile since.

On Tuesday, Mrs. Trump is expected to resurface. The White House said that she would attend Mr. Trump’s State of the Union address, typically the most high-profile appearance of the year for first ladies.

  NYT

It would be great if she used the opportunity to announce a divorce.

“That is the plan,” her spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said an email. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said that Mrs. Trump would attend, but that Barron would not.

[...]

The polarizing nature of her husband’s presidency has also isolated Mrs. Trump from her predecessors. She is not part of a small group of first ladies, including Michelle Obama and Laura Bush, who have developed a bond based on knowing what it is like to be constantly scrutinized, with their popularity linked to their husbands’.

She doesn't strike me as the type of woman who develops bonds with anyone, other than - perhaps -her son. She seems aloof and uncertain, a painted lady in a gilded cage. A brooding, if pampered, woman unsuited to anything aside from being viewed in a stage of perfection. (Although that hair of hers needs a makeover. Both of them have no excuse for having those awful hairdos of the lower classes. Sorry, lower classes.)

While Mr. Trump was still at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Mrs. Trump went to Mar-a-Lago, the president’s Florida estate. On Friday, onlookers at the resort were directed by the Secret Service to move their vehicles to ensure a wide berth for Mrs. Trump, who needed a secure path from her residence to the spa.

Attendees at a safari-themed fund-raiser held at the resort on Friday had hoped for an impromptu visit by the first lady, but were told Mrs. Trump had left just before the event began.

She can't socialize. She's only ever been the model on Donald's arm.

In her stead, guests had to be satisfied with a giant portrait of the first lady, which failed to quickly sell at auction.

How humiliating.

A portrait of Mr. Trump sold for $17,500.

I wonder what the buyer will do with it.

“She had to leave just as we were starting,” said Terry Bomar, the event’s organizer. “The Secret Service made everybody stand inside as she was coming out.”

There was no reason to do that other than at her instruction.

[T]he first lady’s short trip aboard a C-32A plane cost taxpayers around $64,600, according to figures kept by the Department of Defense.

Nor does she have to concern herself with such trifling things.

This month, the East Wing has worked to swat down all manner of rumors about Mrs. Trump’s whereabouts and psyche, beginning with “Fire and Fury,” a book by Michael Wolff that described Mrs. Trump as a first-lady-to-be who had not supported Mr. Trump’s candidacy and cried on election night. Mrs. Trump, who is known to instruct her aides to publicly hit back at reports on her behalf, had them emphatically deny Mr. Wolff’s account.

[...]

There was no similar pushback from the East Wing in light of the news about Ms. Daniels.

Melania doesn't get it, in one photo.