First Lady Melania Trump has traveled with President Donald Trump to Arlington, Virginia, for a memorial at the Pentagon for those killed there in the September 11 attacks.
Melania, 56, held hands with Trump, 80, as they descended the stairs to their place on stage.
Melania then sat next to her husband for the service, during which Trump’s eyes appeared to grow heavy and shut at times.
Melania’s Friday appearance comes after she skipped Trump’s MAGA Fyre Festival in Dallas, Texas, which was plagued by empty seats and no cable news ratings bump as it competed with the opening two games of the NFL season on Wednesday and Thursday nights.
Melania has been increasingly absent in MAGA 2.0, making zero public appearances between the World Cup Final on July 19 and a Rose Garden event on August 20—a whole month later.
Including Friday, Melania has been photographed with the president on just six occasions since June 1.
The president’s close personal aide, Natalie Harp, 35, has been seen much more frequently with and around the president, including as they boarded Marine One en route to Texas for his midterm convention this week.
Harp was also photographed at the Pentagon on Friday—albeit not in frame with the president, who was sitting on stage.
The first lady did make another appearance in Washington this week. She gushed over the beauty of the White House in a Wednesday speech that came across as tone deaf in the wake of her husband demolishing the entire East Wing, including her office, without warning.
That demolition adds to dramatic remodels he has carried out elsewhere in the building, like paving over the Rose Garden and installing a blinding amount of gold gilding in the Oval Office. Making Melania’s remarks all the more baffling, she delivered them as part of the White House Historical Association’s Presidential Sites Summit.
