Former first lady Melania Trump will not be joining her husband for a White House meeting with President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden.
Sources familiar with the matter told CNN that the reason for the snub was a scheduling conflict related to her new memoir. One source said the decision not to attend the lunch hadn’t been finalized.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the White House for comment.
Joe Biden extended the customary invitation to Donald Trump shortly after the latter was pronounced Tuesday’s winner. Jill Biden followed shortly after, as is custom. Former first lady Michelle Obama extended a similar invitation to Melania Trump in 2016.
The one exception to this tradition was in 2020 when Donald Trump didn’t extend the invitation to the Bidens due to his refusal to concede the election.
Goldman Sachs’s John F.W. Rogers joined Melania Trump’s transition team on Monday to help with the unorthodox first lady’s move to the White House.
“Four successive Goldman CEO’s have relied heavily on John’s judgment and execution capability,” former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein said in a statement to Semafor. “He will be highly valuable in any role he performs for the new administration.”
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Melania Trump, a model from Slovenia, was less engaged as a first lady compared to other recent presidential wives and she has not appeared to be keen to return to the role. In June, it was reported that she said she would not live in the White House if her husband won the election.
Instead, the returning first lady plans to split her time between Palm Beach, Florida, and New York.