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Melania Trump will likely not call the White House her home for the next four years while her husband Donald Trump serves as the US President. Discussions are still ongoing about how and where the incoming first lady will spend her time in her unelected but high-profile role on the world stage, CNN reported, quoting multiple sources.
In her first move toward bucking the traditions, 52-year-old Melania Trump has skipped the traditional and symbolic meeting with outgoing First Lady Jill Biden at the White House as President Joe Biden hosts the president-elect in the Oval Office on Wednesday (November 13).
Sources attributed Ms Trump's absence to a prior scheduling conflict related to her eponymous memoir, and her office also confirmed on X that she would not attend the meeting.
The move indicates that Ms Trump, who had already spent four years in the White House, will have even more autonomy the second around.
“I'm not anxious because this time is different. I have much more experience and much more knowledge. I was in the White House before. When you go in, you know exactly what to expect,” Ms Trump recently told Fox News during a friendly interview while promoting her book.
FLOTUS TO SPEND TIME IN NYC, FLORIDA
In her second go-round as first lady, she is reportedly planning to spend the majority of her time between New York City and Palm Beach, Florida. However, despite her absence from the White House, Ms Trump would still likely be present at major events and would have her own platform and priorities as first lady.
"Melania Trump has developed a life and circle of friends in Florida over the past four years and is likely to continue to spend a lot of her time there," CNN report quoted sources as saying.
The incoming first lady is also likely to spend a significant amount of time at Trump Tower in New York, where her son Barron Trump, 18, is attending New York University.
Her Husband also doesn't have any qualms with her absence and there “is no internal backlash among the president-elect's team," a source told CNN.
Speculation about Melania Trump's living situation have swirled for months. In June, Axios reported that if the Republican leader returned to the White House, his wife would live elsewhere—perhaps at Mar-a-Lago, where the president-elect is expected to spend a large amount of time, or in Manhattan, where her son is studying.
If reports are true, Melania will become a trend breaker, as all of her predecessors—aside from Anna Symmes Harrison, whose husband died a month into his term, and Bess Truman, who lived across the street during renovations—have lived predominantly in the White House since it was built in 1800.