Melania Trump spent almost no time on the 2024 campaign trail, attending just a smattering of events in the effort to get her husband reelected. But she’s willing to show up for a dinner with the president-elect and his supporters before the 2025 inauguration—if attendees donate $1 million for the honor.
The New York Times reports that a flier titled “Trump Vance Inaugural Committee Benefits” lists an “elegant and intimate dinner with President Donald J. Trump and Mrs. Melania Trump” on January 19 as the “the pinnacle [inauguration] event,” available to those who either personally cut a check for $1 million or raise $2 million. Those people will also receive six tickets apiece to attend the actual swearing-in ceremony on January 20. Other perks available to deep-pocketed benefactors reportedly include a reception with Trump’s Cabinet nominees and a separate dinner with JD Vance and his wife. Donors giving between $50,000 and $1 million will also receive tickets to a “Starlight Ball” the night of the inauguration, according to Axios.
Trump’s second inaugural committee is being headed up by billionaire Steven Witkoff—who was recently named special envoy to the Middle East—and former GOP senator Kelly Loeffler. As the Times notes, “Trump’s first inaugural committee, which was investigated by federal prosecutors for illegal foreign donations and resulted in a 12-year prison sentence for one donor, raised $107 million in 2016 and 2017.”
For her part, Melania’s apparent willingness to attend the inauguration-eve dinner does not appear to be a sign that she’ll be doing regular first lady duties over the next four years. Last month, CNN reported that she is “unlikely to move to Washington full-time in her second go-around as first lady,” and instead is “expected to spend a majority of her time over the next four years not at the White House, but between New York City and Palm Beach, Florida.”
