In January 2018, when she first saw the reports that her husband had paid a porn star, Melania Trump was furious. She flew to Palm Beach, leaving the president to languish in Washington. She eventually returned, only to take a separate car to Donald J. Trump’s first State of the Union address.
Like a criminal trial against Mr. Trump open Monday, accused of falsifying records to cover up the sex scandal involving Stormy Daniels, Mrs. Trump did not appear. She has long privately referred to the case involving Ms. Daniels as “her problem” and not hers.
But Mrs. Trump, the former first lady, shares his point of view that the trial itself is unfair, according to several people familiar with his thinking.
Privately, she called the proceedings a “disgrace” amounting to election interference, according to a person with direct knowledge of her comments who was unable to speak publicly for fear of jeopardizing her personal relationships with the Trump.
She may support her husband, but Mrs. Trump, whose daily habit of skimming headlines to cover herself, is bound to see headlines involving Mr. Trump and Ms. Daniels that could reopen old wounds. On Monday, Judge Juan M. Merchan, the judge presiding over the case, also said Ms. Trump could be among the potential witnesses as the trial gets underway.
All of this could put Mr. Trump in a fragile position vis-à-vis his wife, who defended him in some critical moments – notably when he bragged on tape about grabbing women by the genitals – and refused her public support in others, such as when she did not. appear alongside him as he racks up victories on Super Tuesday.
“Ultimately, she can make or break her candidacy,” said Stephanie Grisham, Mrs. Trump’s former press secretary who resigned on Jan. 6, 2021, and later wrote her memoir. “And in the end, she could probably make or break it.”
Some of the most damaging details of Mr. Trump’s behavior may not come up in court. On Monday, Judge Merchan barred some testimony related to the timing of a reported affair between Mr. Trump and a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal. The National Enquirer, which has long ties to Mr. Trump, bought the rights to Ms. McDougal’s story for $150,000 and then never published it — a practice known as “catch and kill”.
Jurors can hear about the relationship between Mr. Trump and Ms. McDougal, Judge Merchan ruled — but not accounts that the affair continued while Ms. Trump was pregnant with their son, Barron. (If the legal proceedings bring up Barron, whose privacy her mother fiercely protects, Ms. Grisham said, Ms. Trump will likely be “unhappy again” with her husband.)
Still, it is almost certain that the trial will examine a timeline that Mrs. Trump would prefer not to revisit. Mr. Trump and Ms. Daniels met at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006, a time when the Trumps had been married for a year and Ms. Trump had recently given birth to Barron.
Mr. Trump has denied having a sexual relationship with Ms. Daniels. But prosecutors say that when Ms. Daniels sought to sell her story a decade later, Mr. Trump ordered Michael D. Cohen, then her lawyer and fixer, to pay Ms. Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet . Reports of a reward blindsided Ms. Trump, who responded to the initial reports by leaving town.
She canceled a trip to Davos, Switzerland, with Mr. Trump, made an impromptu visit to the Holocaust Memorial Museum, then flew to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s seaside fortress in Palm Beach, Florida, where she spent part of her trip relaxing at the spa. She eventually reappeared, only to take a separate car to Mr. Trump’s State of the Union address and appear on the arm of a male military aide.
Now, Trump allies say, Mrs. Trump has lumped the lawsuit in with all the other legal issues her husband faces, and she is more assertive than before.
Last month, she appeared alongside Mr Trump to welcome Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, during a visit to Mar-a-Lago. A few weeks later, she voted alongside Mr. Trump in Florida, where she responded to the question of whether she would campaign more often with a cryptic message. “stay tuned.”
Supporters welcomed his scheduled appearance at a fundraising event for the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of LGBT conservatives, as proof that Mrs. Trump is ready to become more engaged in the election campaign.
The event, scheduled for Saturday, will attract attendees who paid at least $10,000 for a chance to interact with Mrs. Trump, according to a person familiar with the planning who was not authorized to provide details.
The event will be held as a cocktail party, and Mrs. Trump is expected to deliver a speech about her tenure as first lady and reiterate her support for her husband.
But there’s one problem: The event won’t take place on a battlefield or anywhere in a traditional election campaign. It will take place in a reception hall at Mar-a-Lago, just steps from Mrs. Trump’s suite.
Log Cabin Republicans have already been a source of income for Mrs. Trump. According to a financial disclosure last year, Mrs. Trump received a $250,000 payment from the group in December 2022. Charles Moran, a representative for the group, said in an email that Mrs. Trump did not take fees from the Log Cabin Republicans for his appearance.
A spokeswoman for Mrs. Trump did not respond to a request for comment for this article, nor did a representative for the Trump campaign.
Mrs. Trump’s allies say she will likely reappear as the campaign continues — a sign, they say, that she realizes there is a real chance she could become first lady again — but that she will probably be selective in her schedule.
For now, she’s focused on graduating from Barron’s high school later this spring and preparing for college. Mr. Trump complained Many times on social networks Monday that he might miss his son’s graduation because of the lawsuit. Barron attends a private school near Mar-a-Lago and is expected to graduate in May.
Ms. Trump’s allies say other personal issues could keep her off the campaign trail. She would always mourn the death of her mother, Amalija Knavs, who died in January and she was one of the small number of people in Mrs. Trump’s world who had her absolute trust. Her sister, Ines Knauss, is another confidante, but Ms. Knauss lives in New York.
Another person Ms. Trump trusts is Kellyanne Conway, who served as an adviser to Mr. Trump at the White House; Ms. Trump is pushing for Ms. Conway to return to Mr. Trump’s orbit in an official capacity, a development first reported by news site Puck. Ms. Conway, who was Mr. and Mrs. Trump’s confidante when they were in the White House, said Mr. Trump cares deeply about his wife’s opinion — and, in some cases, might even fear her .
“He listens to a lot of us.” she told a congressional committee in 2022, “but he reserves the fear for one person, Melania Trump.”
