Melania Trump was nowhere to be seen as Donald Trump kicked off his 2024 White House bid with stops Saturday in New Hampshire and South Carolina. The former First Lady has often accompanied her husband on the campaign trail but Trump was kept his two events in the early-voting states to an intimate few. It was his first campaign appearance since announcing his latest run more than two months ago.
“Together we will complete the unfinished business of making America great again,” Trump said at an evening event in Columbia to introduce his South Carolina leadership team.
Trump and his allies hope the events in states with enormous power in selecting the nominee will offer a show of force behind the former president after a sluggish start to his campaign that left many questioning his commitment to running again.
“They said, ‘He’s not doing rallies, he’s not campaigning. Maybe he’s lost that step,’” Trump said at the New Hampshire GOP’s annual meeting in Salem, his first event.
But, he told the audience of party leaders, “I’m more angry now and I’m more committed now than I ever was.” In South Carolina, he further dismissed the speculation by saying that ”we have huge rallies planned, bigger than ever before.”
READ MORE: Trump more ‘angry and committed’ than ever as ex-POTUS kickstarts bid
It comes amid refreshed claimed Melania and Trump’s daughter Ivanka “competed” while at the White House.
New York Times journalist Michael Schmidt claimed former White House chief of staff John Kelly often found himself mediating conflicts between Melania and Ivanka due to the First Daughter wanting to be the First Lady in a “ceremonial” sense.
In his book Donald Trump v. The United States, Schmidt wrote: “John Kelly is probably as serious a national security figure as you can find, a four-star Marine general.
“He comes into the White House, he thinks that he needs to put in structure and better staffing for Trump and all of a sudden, he’s confronting far more frivolous issues like fights between the first lady and Ivanka Trump, and Ivanka Trump trying to maneuver, what Kelly was told, to become the first lady in this ceremonial ways.”
While Trump has spent the months since he announced largely ensconced in his Florida club and at his nearby golf course, his aides insist they have been busy behind the scenes. His campaign opened a headquarters in Palm Beach, Florida, and has been hiring staff. And in recent weeks, backers have been reaching out to political operatives and elected officials to secure support for Trump at a critical point when other Republicans are preparing their own expected challenges.
In New Hampshire, Trump promoted his campaign agenda, including immigration and crime, and said his policies would be the opposite of President Joe Biden’s. He cited the Democrats’ move to change the election calendar, costing New Hampshire its leadoff primary spot, and accused Biden, a fifth-place finisher in New Hampshire in 2020, of “disgracefully trashing this beloved political tradition.”
“I hope you’re going to remember that during the general election,” Trump told party members. Trump himself twice won the primary, but lost the state each time to Democrats.
Later in South Carolina, Trump said he planned to keep the state’s presidential primary as the “first in the South” and called it “a very important state.”
