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 with her role after a quiet start to her second term.
The pair met with service members and their families at Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station New River in a trip marking their first public joint 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 that each woman has chosen to prioritize.
The first lady shined a light on children’s well-being and the responsible use of technologies like artificial intelligence during a classroom visit with Lejeune High School students who are participating in the presidential AI challenge. In a presentation to their guests, students detailed how they use the technology for class projects – and the rules governing that usage.
Children’s literacy was front and center for the second lady as Trump and Vance played games and did arts and craft 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 offered praise to her counterpart during remarks to service members at the conclusion of their trip.
“I’m honored to introduce our first lady, who shares my deep gratitude for your sacrifices to secure our country’s safety and its well-being,” she said.
Trump, Vance added, is “committed to bettering our nation by ensuring that every child feels loved, supported, and prepared for the future.”
It’s unclear how much the two women have substantively engaged with each other behind the scenes, though 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 familiar with the matter. That invitation was not extended for one of her predecessors, former second lady Karen Pence, who sat instead with her staff when traveling 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” upon their departure.
Vance, a former high-powered lawyer, is navigating the delicate dynamic of being a top figurehead in a new administration alongside the first lady, who has taken her own approach to the spousal role.
The second lady has joined her husband, who appears to have higher political ambitions, on key trips across the country and abroad, all while transitioning three small children to a life under the microscope and becoming a public figure with a quiet platform of children’s literacy and early childhood development.
Trump, meanwhile, took a more hands-off approach to her role, spending most of her time in the first months of the president’s second term away from the White House in New York or Palm Beach, Florida, often disappearing for weeks between public appearances.
She has a much smaller staff compared with her first term. Though she was an active steward of White House preservation during her husband’s first term, she has left many of those decision to the president this time around, 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 has returned to public view with a series of engagements on a range of topics.
Trump has held events advocating for children’s well-being and artificial intelligence safety, launching a global coalition on the issue called “Fostering the Future Together.” She joined the president as he signed an executive order last week on a (unrelated) “Fostering the Future” initiative for children in foster care. And she back-channeled with Russian President Vladimir Putin on releasing allegedly abducted Ukrainian children with mixed results.
On Wednesday, Trump honored the Marine Corps’ 250th anniversary as she looked ahead to new challenges facing the US military.
“Technology is changing the art of war. Predictably, AI will alter war more profoundly than any technology since nuclear weapons,” she said during her remarks in the hangar.
She continued, “Artificial intelligence will take center stage in the theater of war – it already plays a meaningful role on the battlefield. But of course, it is the Marine who will always play the most critical role in realizing mission success.”
It’s unclear why the first lady is choosing to reemerge now, and her office declined to respond to questions on whether this 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 taken up much of her attention this year.
“The silver screen and I have been in deep conversation lately. You may have heard the news — I produced a new film with Amazon MGM named ‘Melania,’” Trump said earlier this month in remarks accepting Fox Nation’s “Patriot of the Year” award.
The “Melania” documentary, which will be released in January, is being directed by Brett Ratner and marks 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 from Trump and Vance’s visit.