Body language expert says Melania and Donald show a ‘desire to get even closer’

A top body language expert revealed that Donald and Melania Trump showed a “desire to get even closer” as they sat side by side at Mar-a-Lago Sunday enjoying Easter brunch.

Sunday’s joint meal was the first time the former first lady had been seen with her husband in 10 days, after last week she noticeably skipped the trip to New York where he was charged and his subsequent speech Tuesday night in Mar- a-Lago.

It was rumored that Melania’s absence indicated that the former first couple was having marital problems – as the former president was indicted on charges related to the 2016 hush money scheme involving porn star Stormy Daniels.

Daniels claimed a tryst while the Trumps were married.

But body language expert Judi James told DailyMail.com that “this seating choice suggests closeness and even a desire to touch as they talk and eat.”

“It makes them look like a double act and a couple, engaged in intense and animated conversation in a way we rarely saw when they were in the White House,” she noted.

James acknowledged that the clip of the Trumps during brunch was “blurry and fast,” she said it still provided “several key clues and clues about the state of the relationship between the Trumps.”

She pointed to how the Trumps sat next to each other.

“Instead of sitting at a cold or impersonal distance or even casually face-to-face, they chose to sit next to each other at the otherwise empty table,” she said.

James also saw little gestures made by Donald and Melania.

“There are also signs of a desire to get even closer,” she said. “Trump’s right hand is outstretched toward Melania as he speaks, while Melania leans a long way forward and toward her husband to listen.”

“She also seems to open her mouth in surprise or shock at something he says, suggesting she’s using the kind of active listening and empathetic cues that might flatter him,” James continued.

But that expression, James said, did not indicate a fight.

“If this was an animated argument between them, you would expect the distance between them to widen instead of shrink,” she noted.

Donald and Melania walked into Mar-a-Lago’s ornate ballroom and received a standing ovation from the crowd, videos posted online revealed.

The couple’s table was trimmed with velvet ties, separating them from the rest of the holidaymakers.

Easter brunch at Mar-a-Lago is a tradition for the couple.

Even during the Trump presidency, they spent the holidays together at the Southern White House.

Mar-a-Lago organizes an elaborate Easter brunch for its members with a huge buffet of oysters, shrimp and champagne.

There is also an Easter egg hunt on the club grounds for the kids with figures dressed as the Easter Bunny and other children’s characters.

The former first lady had previously broken her radio silence online with a simple “Happy Easter!” to tweet. message.

For Easter holidays, she wore a white dress with what appeared to be a floral pattern on the shoulders and down the middle. The former president wore a pink tie with his dark suit.

On their table were pink and orange tulips. Mar-a-Lago was decorated for the holiday with paper mache bunnies and pink roses.

Donald Trump seemed to have worked the ballroom. Several social media users posted selfies with the former president.

But the sighting of Melania, 52, was notable after she made sure to stay out during the most public parts of the Donald Trump indictment.

James pointed out that these moments took place in the semi-private.

While guests could watch the Trumps interact, reporters weren’t in the room.

She said: “This unofficial glimpse seems to suggest that behind the scenes the ex POTUS AND FLOTUS may still be a very solid double act.”

Yet Melania was not with the former president in New York last week when he turned himself in to authorities and pleaded not guilty to 34 felonies.

Nor was she at his rally in Mar-a-Lago in the aftermath when the former president gave a speech in which he specially shouted out all his children — but did not mention his wife.

Her father Viktor Knavs was on hand for the speech, sandwiched between the former president’s two eldest sons, while the former first lady was mysteriously absent. He sat in a prominent position in the front row putting him right in the eye of the cameras.

Instead, she’s been captured by social media users, who post and tag when they see the Trumps at Mar-a-Lago, which doubles as a private club next to the couple’s Florida residence.

On the evening the indictment was announced, Melania sided with Donald Trump in a very public show of strength that was captured by social media users.

The pair dined with friends at their usual high-visibility table at Mar-a-Lago.

The former first lady wore a bright red dress, which made her easy to spot by his side.

It remains unclear why she skipped his speech, but sources previously told DailyMail.com that she is hurt and angry about allegations that Trump had an affair with Daniels.

The former first lady will have a year and a half to publicly hang her dirty laundry while the New York criminal case continues.

Those who know her well now say she chooses to stay out of the limelight to protect herself from the news of her husband’s infidelity.

Before the charges were announced last week, a source told PEOPLE that Melania is “living her own life” and “still feels happy” in Mar-a-Lago, but remains “angry and doesn’t want to hear” about the alleged $130,000 in hush money to Daniels.

Lauren Wright, a political scientist at Princeton University, also told DailyMail.com that she “wasn’t surprised that Melania was nowhere to be found at her husband’s post-indictment speech.

During the Trump presidency, when the Stormy Daniels issue came up, Melania would somehow assert her independence, avoiding the subject or, most famously, contradicting those who claimed her feelings about knowing about the alleged extramarital altercation,” she noted. .

And Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former assistant and friend, said she believes Melania’s recent silence and disappearance from the scene was intentional.

“It’s her weapon of choice and her protective armor,” she says.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been on the road. He was greeted to huge cheers in Miami on Saturday night when he took a front row seat at UFC 287 next to organization president Dana White.

He joined other celebrities, including Kid Rock and Mike Tyson, to watch not only the main event between Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira, but also the fight between MAGA supporter Jorge Masvidal and Gilbert Burns. Melania Trump was not present at that event.

Melania previously went missing in January 2018, days after Trump’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels was exposed by the Wall Street Journal.

Daniels was paid just before the 2016 election to keep quiet about an affair she’d had with Donald Trump a decade earlier — when the Trumps were newly married and shortly after Melania gave birth to their son Barron, the report said.

Then-President Trump promptly denied everything.

At the time, Melania Trump, then the first lady, canceled her plans to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos with Trump.

She was scheduled to go.

Instead, she visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC with her mother, then flew to Mar-a-Lago, where she took time to pamper herself at the on-site spa.