Marine Corps Air Station New River, North Carolina
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Melania Trump joined second lady Usha Vance on Wednesday for a pre-Thanksgiving visit with North Carolina military families, offering the latest signal that the first lady is more actively engaging in her role after a quiet start to her second term.
The two met with service members and their families at Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station New River during a trip marking their first joint public appearance without their husbands, 10 months into the Trump-Vance administration.
The visit offered a rare opportunity to see their relationship on display – and highlighted the key issues each woman chose to prioritize.
The First Lady highlighted children’s well-being and the responsible use of technologies like artificial intelligence during a classroom visit with Lejeune High School students participating in the Presidential AI Challenge. In a presentation to their guests, the students explained how they use technology for class projects – and the rules governing that use.
Children’s literacy was at the forefront for the second lady as Trump and Vance played games and completed arts and crafts projects with younger children at nearby DeLalio Elementary School. Trump donned a headband with an index card as she played a reading game with the children.
Vance praised his counterpart during his remarks to the military at the end of their trip.
“I am honored to introduce our first lady, who shares my deep gratitude for your sacrifices to ensure the security and well-being of our country,” she said.
Trump, Vance added, “is committed to improving our nation by ensuring that every child feels loved, supported and prepared for the future.”
It’s unclear how much the two women actually engaged behind the scenes, although the Vances hosted the Trumps at the Naval Observatory for dinner last month, spending about an hour and a half at the vice presidential residence. The first lady’s office declined to respond to CNN’s inquiries about their relationship.
But in a sign of warm relations, Usha Vance joined Melania Trump in her cabin on the flight to North Carolina, according to a source close to the matter. That invitation was not extended to one of her predecessors, former second lady Karen Pence, who sat with her staff on a trip with the first lady during the first Trump administration.
Trump and Vance appeared friendly in their engagements throughout the day, sharing a handshake on stage in the hangar and telling reporters they had a “very nice visit” as they left.
Vance, a former high-profile lawyer, navigates the tricky dynamics of being a figurehead in a new administration alongside the first lady, who has taken her own approach to the role of wife.
The second lady has joined her husband, who appears to have higher political ambitions, on key trips across the country and abroad, while transitioning three young children to a life under the microscope and becoming a public figure with a quiet platform in children’s literacy and early childhood development.
Trump, meanwhile, has taken a more hands-off approach to her role, spending most of her time in the first months of her second term away from the White House in New York or Palm Beach, Florida, often disappearing for weeks between her public appearances.
It has a much reduced workforce compared to its first mandate. Although she was an active steward of the preservation of the White House during her husband’s first term, this time around she left most of those decisions to the president, culminating dramatically last month with the demolition of the East Wing, which has served as headquarters for presidential spouses since the Carter administration.
But recently, the first lady returned to the public eye with a series of engagements on a range of subjects.
Trump has held events in support of children’s well-being and the safety of artificial intelligence, launching a global coalition on the issue called “Shaping the Future Together.” She joined the president as he signed an executive order last week on an (unrelated) “Fostering the Future” initiative for children in foster care. And she appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to secure the release of allegedly kidnapped Ukrainian children, with mixed results.
On Wednesday, Trump honored the 250th anniversary of the Marine Corps as she contemplated the new challenges the U.S. military would face.
“Technology is changing the art of war. As expected, AI will change warfare more profoundly than any technology since nuclear weapons,” she said during her speech in the hangar.
She continued: “Artificial intelligence will take center stage in the theater of war – it already plays an important role on the battlefield. But of course, it is the Navy that will always play the most critical role in mission success.”
It’s unclear why the first lady is choosing to reappear now, and her office declined to answer questions about whether it might portend a more active role. Trump recently indicated that the multimillion-dollar deal she signed with Amazon for an eponymous documentary highlighting her return to the White House had captured much of her attention this year.
“The big screen and I have been having a deep conversation lately. You may have heard the news: I produced a new movie with Amazon MGM called ‘Melania,'” Trump said earlier this month in his remarks while accepting Fox Nation’s “Patriot of the Year” award.
The documentary “Melania,” which will be released in January, is directed by Brett Ratner and is the filmmaker’s first major project since 2017, when he was accused of sexual misconduct by numerous women. Ratner has denied the allegations.
This headline and story have been updated with additional reporting on Trump and Vance’s visit.
