Since marrying Donald Trump Jr. in May, Bettina Trump has posted photos from three major family gatherings, and Melania hasn’t appeared in any of them. The Fourth of July carousel she shared this week kept that streak fully intact.
Bettina posted the photos on Wednesday, catching up with her followers on the National Mall celebration alongside her husband. The images showed her with sister-in-law Tiffany and stepdaughter Kai, plus a shot of herself and Don Jr. inside the White House.
“250 years of THE GREATEST NATION ON EARTH,” she wrote, calling the evening “America at its best: faith, freedom, strength, gratitude, and the unshakable belief that our country’s greatest days are still ahead.” She mentioned meeting the returning Artemis II crew backstage alongside Apollo 17’s Harrison Schmitt, tying it to the idea that “America does not just remember history…WE MAKE IT.”
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Melania isn’t in any of it, even though separate footage from the same night shows her seated next to Trump for the fireworks.
This wouldn’t be worth mentioning at all if it hadn’t already happened twice before.
Melania and Barron skipped the Bettina and Don Jr. wedding entirely back in May, an absence Trump chalked up at the time to being stuck in Washington finalizing an Iran peace deal that, notably, didn’t actually get signed that weekend.
They were also both absent from the family’s Father’s Day trip to Camp David in June, even as Eric, Lara, Ivanka, Jared Kushner, Tiffany and Michae Boulos all showed up for the group shots Bettina posted from that gathering as well.
Rob Shuter’s Naughty But Nice Substack has floated its own theory for the pattern.
An anonymous source told Shuter that Melania simply didn’t want to spend an entire weekend around her husband’s kids from previous marriages, adding: “That tension has existed for years, even if nobody says it publicly.” That story doesn’t square especially well with Trump’s own explanation for the wedding, and neither version has ever been confirmed by anyone speaking on the record.
Melania’s broader public schedule has thinned out since mid-June too, with her last confirmed appearance alongside the full family coming at the UFC Freedom 250 event on Trump’s 80th birthday. In the stretch since, Trump has been photographed at his Virginia golf club with aide Natalie Harp, a separate pairing that’s generated its own wave of commentary independent of anything involving Melania.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin also turned up in Bettina’s July 4 photos, caught mid-conversation with Trump and Don Jr. while Bettina looked on. The last slide showed her chatting with Tiffany, Kai and designer Herve Pierre.
Featured image via Instagram screengrab
