Melania Trump will not visit the White House on Wednesday, but wishes husband 'great luck'

Melania Trump will not join President-elect Trump at the White House meeting on Wednesday aimed at marking a peaceful transition of power.

The former first lady, her press office said in a statement posted on social media, “will not be attending” the planned face-to-face between her husband and President Biden.

“Her husband’s return to the Oval Office to begin the transition process is encouraging and she wishes him continued success,” Melania Trump’s office said. The statement also denounced “several unnamed media sources” for providing “false, misleading and inaccurate information.”

“Be distinctive with your news source,” the post said, without specifying what it described as inaccurate reporting. The news that Melania Trump could skip the visit to the White House was first reported by various media on Wednesday.

The mother of one and a former model largely absent from the campaign trail during her husband’s 2024 bid for the White House, and rarely appeared at events.

The meeting between the president-elect and Biden will mark Trump’s first return to the White House since he left on the morning of his successor’s inauguration in January 2021, despite failing to concede defeat in the 2020 election.

While Trump bucked tradition and never invited the Bidens to the White House after the 2020 race, Melania Trump wrote in her recent memoir about accepting an invitation from the Obamas to visit 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for the first time. to visit after her husband’s victory in 2016.

“The four of us went to the Oval Office, and Michelle (Obama) graciously offered me a tour of the residence,” Trump wrote in her book “Melania.”

“We started with tea in the Yellow Oval Room and exchanged thoughts about life in the White House. She answered my questions quickly and was generous with her advice,” Melania Trump, 54, said of the then-first lady.

“Having gone through a similar experience when Barack assumed the presidency when her daughters were young, she understood better than anyone what lay ahead for Barron and me.”

“Despite media expectations of awkwardness or tension,” Trump wrote, “our meeting was cordial and pleasant.”

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