{"id":295198,"date":"2025-11-20T09:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T09:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/295198\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T09:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T09:58:08","slug":"melania-trump-and-usha-vance-make-early-holiday-visit-with-marines-and-their-relatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/295198\/","title":{"rendered":"Melania Trump and Usha Vance make early holiday visit with Marines and their relatives"},"content":{"rendered":"

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Melania Trump<\/a> and Usha Vance<\/a> on Wednesday marked the Thanksgiving season by visiting with Marine Corps members in North Carolina and saluting the sacrifices of military families, who make up \u201cthe quiet strength of our nation,\u201d the first lady said.<\/p>\n

The wives of President Donald Trump<\/a> and Vice President JD Vance<\/a> used their first trip together outside of Washington to visit with students attending school at Camp Lejeune, the largest Marine Corps base on the East Coast, and deliver upbeat remarks to some 1,600 uniformed, cheering Marines and their families at Marine Corps Air Station New River. <\/p>\n

\u201cPlease know that our nation is thinking of you, praying for you and deeply grateful for your service,\u201d Trump said of all service members stationed far from home during the holidays, speaking from a stage flanked by parked tanks and helicopters. <\/p>\n

Trump also stressed the growing importance of artificial intelligence to the military, noting that \u201ctechnology is changing the art of war.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cPredictably, AI will alter war more profoundly than any technology since nuclear weapons,\u201d she said, also noting that \u201cwe are moving from human operators to human overseers fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump and Vance both recognized the just-passed 250th anniversary of the Marines, and the second lady said \u201cmilitary families are truly a model for our country and for my own family.\u201d The vice president is a former Marine. <\/p>\n

Brigadier General Ralph J. Rizzo Jr. said visits by dignitaries like the first and second lady \u201cmatter because they show our families their service and sacrifices are seen and appreciated.\u201d <\/p>\n

Trump and Vance\u2019s speeches followed school visits where they discussed AI with high schoolers and helped younger children with crafts, including making turkeys from cardstock and Elmer\u2019s glue.<\/p>\n

They listened to a presentation by students in an advanced placement research class from the Lejeune High School \u201cDevilpups,\u201d recalling the Marine Corps\u2019 \u201cDevil Dog\u201d nickname, and had discussions about technological development. <\/p>\n

Four female students demonstrated how they used AI to generate videos for their research into how electronic media affects sleep and adolescent wellbeing, as well as a study on social media addiction and how it affects young people\u2019s esteem and body image. <\/p>\n

Trump and Vance later walked to the gymnasium, where students had assembled 2,000 care packages of goodies, including jerky sticks, for service members away from home. The first lady told the crowd that she and the president always think of U.S. service members but \u201cespecially during the holidays.\u201d <\/p>\n

They also spent time with kindergarteners and first-grade students at DeLalio Elementary School, entering classrooms where each table had been laid with folders from Be Best, Trump\u2019s child-focused initiative. The folders held a puzzle, pen and sticker for each student, along with a bookmark from the second lady. <\/p>\n

Trump told one girl in pigtails that she was \u201cbeautiful.\u201d The patriotic ribbon pinned to the girl\u2019s light blue top meant one of her parents is on active deployment. Several of her classmates also sported the ribbon, as did many in the larger group of students making cardstock turkeys.<\/p>\n

Trump also engaged in a lengthy conversation with a first-grade girl before offering: \u201cVery nice. I love your story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump and Vance have appeared together at other public events, though not on the road. Most notably, they were together at the inauguration of their husbands at the U.S. Capitol in January. <\/p>\n

Other joint appearances came at a White House event celebrating military mothers and a luncheon for Senate spouses, both in May; the opening night of \u201cLes Mis\u00e9rables\u201d<\/a> at the Kennedy Center in June; and the president\u2019s signing last week of an executive order to help foster children<\/a>, which also came as part of Be Best. <\/p>\n

Melania Trump has centered her work around children, launching Be Best<\/a> during her husband\u2019s first term to focus on their welfare, online safety and opioid abuse. <\/p>\n

Last month, she announced that eight children displaced by the Russia-Ukraine war<\/a> had been reunited with their families<\/a> following talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the first lady lobbied Congress to pass legislation imposing federal penalties for online sexual exploitation<\/a>, often targeting young girls. The president signed the bill into law in May. <\/p>\n

Usha Vance, a former lawyer, launched a \u201cSummer Reading Challenge\u201d to encourage students in kindergarten through eighth grade to read 12 books during the school break. Certificates and prizes were promised to those who completed the challenge. <\/p>\n

The second lady often accompanies the vice president on his trips and sometimes brings along their three young children. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Melania Trump and Usha Vance on Wednesday marked the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[276,49,48,361,8930,13425,1376,75,2841,19239,129031,64776,133080,22864,22865,714,133079,22373,130653,133078,2845,133077,19309,8615],"class_list":["post-295198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-domestic-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-general-news","tag-jd-vance","tag-local-news-for-apple","tag-melania-trump","tag-melania-trump-usha-vance","tag-nc-state-wire","tag-north-carolina","tag-politics","tag-ralph-j-rizzo-jr","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-thanksgiving","tag-u-s-marine-corps","tag-u-s-news","tag-usha-vance","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-washington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}