Trump campaign team to deploy ‘secret weapon’ Melania
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Melania Trump will be the star attraction at a fundraiser this month as part of Republican efforts to turn her into their “secret weapon” to win back the White House.
The former first lady, 53, has made only fleeting appearances on the campaign trail ahead of the 2024 presidential election, but strategists working for Donald Trump expect that workload to increase in the coming months.
“The Trump campaign recognises that Melania is their secret weapon,” a source close to the campaign told the New York Post.
“Her appeal is critical to win battleground states and undecided voters, especially now that they’ve won the primary and are hyper-focused on the general.”
After attending a big fundraiser in Palm Beach, Florida on Saturday, at which Republicans claimed to have raised $50 million, Mrs Trump will be hosting a reception at the couple’s Mar-a-Lago home for a group focused on reaching LGBTQ+ Republicans.
The Log Cabin Republicans, which describes itself as “the nation’s largest Republican organisation dedicated to representing LGBT conservatives and allies”, has a longstanding relationship with Mrs Trump.
In 2021, the former model was the special guest at a dinner hosted by the group at Mar-a-Lago, where she was given an award.
The April 20 event will launch the group’s “Road to Victory” programme, which plans to target voters in swing states.
It is in those seven key battleground states where strategists believe Mrs Trump’s “softer, more moderate voice” can be influential in winning over undecided voters, particularly those with more liberal views than the Trump base.
“This is just the beginning of using softer faces and voices as surrogates,” Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic strategist, told the New York Post. “They’re coming up with a more diverse picture – they’re trying to make voters feel more comfortable.”
Campaign insiders have suggested that Mrs Trump offers a feminine counterpoint to the brash style of the former president.
Money raised by the Log Cabin Republicans will be primarily used to help Mr Trump and other Republican candidates this year.
The host committee for the April event includes Richard Grenell, who was Mr Trump’s ambassador to Germany and former acting national intelligence director; Elizabeth Ailes, the widow of Roger Ailes, the former Fox News chief; and Bill White, the former president of New York City’s Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, and his husband, Bryan Eure.
They are joined by the Republican donors Saul Fox and Amanda Schumacher, as well as Deborah Magowan, the widow of Peter Magowan, former owner of the San Francisco Giants baseball team.
Mr Grenell, 57, who became the first openly gay member of a presidential cabinet during the Trump administration, is a key backer of the campaign who could win over socially liberal voters.
Mrs Trump’s expected role as a “friendly face” in the campaign follows a prolonged absence from her husband’s side at political events. She was said to have been mourning the death of her mother, who died in early January, and focused on her son, Barron, 18.
Last month, Mrs Trump said “stay tuned” when asked by a reporter when she would return to the campaign trail. Since then she has been photographed with Mr Trump at a golf event at Mar-a-Largo and at a dinner with Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary.
