Former President Donald Trump made no public acknowledgement of his wife’s birthday as the former first lady had a smaller celebration with friends at Mar-a-Lago for her 53rd birthday.
People magazine reported that people with knowledge of the situation said Mr Trump would attend the party if he happened to be at home at the time, but they didn’t say whether the former president was actually there.
Mr Trump posted 15 times on Truth Social on the day of his wife’s birthday, 26 April, including attacks on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and posts about the civil rape trial in New York prompted by the claim made by writer E Jean Carroll that Mr Trump raped her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s.
He said that the case “is a made up SCAM” and that “her lawyer is a political operative,” which prompted criticism from Judge Lewis Kaplan, who implored the Trump legal team to get their client to stop posting about the case.
On his wife’s last birthday during their time in the White House in 2020, Mr Trump took to Twitter to praise “our great First Lady!”
In a piece published Wednesday, a source told People that “Melania likes a low-key celebration with family and that I believe is her plan for this year’s birthday”.
“If Donald is here, he will be joining the family to celebrate his wife’s birthday. Despite what you hear, the Trumps are a close family,” the person said.
“Don’t be fooled by the former president’s outspoken manner and dominant influence on those around him. He respects and admires his wife,” another individual told the magazine.
“He wants to make Melania happy,” they said, and added that, “They have a more than suitable partners arrangement”.
The celebration comes amid a litany of legal problems for Mr Trump as he continues his 2024 campaign to regain the White House.
Earlier this month, he was indicted on 34 charges of business fraud in connection to a hush money payment made to adult actor Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election for her to remain silent about her allegation that they had an affair about a decade previously.
Mr Trump is also being investigated at the federal level for the January 6 insurrection and his handling of classified documents after leaving office.
On the state level, a Georgia prosecutor is reviewing his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state after President Joe Biden became the first Democrat to win there since Bill Clinton in 1992.
