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    Melania Trump to hit campaign trail for husband after early absence

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    Her biggest fashion statement as first lady was a green jacket emblazoned with the words “I really don’t care, do u?” More recently, Melania Trump has given the impression that she doesn’t care whether her husband, Donald, returns to the White House. That is about to change.On Saturday Melania, 53, will appear at a fundraiser at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, for the Log Cabin Republicans, the biggest Republican organisation dedicated to representing LGBT conservatives. It will be her first appearance at a political event since Trump, 77, launched his bid to regain the presidency.It comes at the end of a week that saw Melania’s husband become the first former US president in history to stand criminal trial. The case, involving a hush-money payment by Trump to an adult film performer, would be enough to test any marriage. Yet it seems that the former and possible future first lady is again prepared to campaign for her spouse – up to a point.“It’s not going to be in volume but you’ll see her at key moments,” said Mary Jordan, author of The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump. “She likes to heighten the interest in her appearances by being scarce. It’s very intentional, like a movie star who doesn’t want exposure. She’s hyper-aware of her persona and her celebrity. This is a model who learned to get covers of magazines so she wants to be in control.”The former Slovenian model, who married Trump in 2005, became only the second foreign-born first lady in US history. She delayed moving to the White House after Trump won the 2016 election because she was renegotiating their prenuptial agreement, according to Jordan’s book, and in one notorious incident was seen swatting his hand away. She had a rivalry with Trump’s daughter Ivanka. But she came to love the trappings and prestige of being first lady.Since Trump’s defeat in 2020 she has maintained a low profile. Her main public appearances have included a memorial service for former first lady Rosalynn Carter, a funeral for Trump’s older sister and the funeral for her mother, Amalija Knavs. Last year she addressed a naturalisation ceremony in Washington, telling new Americans that citizenship means “actively participating in the democratic process and guarding our freedom”.But her absence is often more notable than her presence. Melania has been missing from Trump’s run of campaign rallies and court appearances. When he celebrated Super Tuesday primary election victories with a party at Mar-a-Lago, his children Don Jr, Eric and Tiffany were there but his wife was not.It is a potentially worrying sign for Trump in a country that traditionally prizes political candidates with loyal spouses and wholesome families. The spouse is often a vital surrogate, able to step in at fundraisers or other events; few doubt the authenticity of the love affair between Joe and Jill Biden. But the Trumps, who typically sleep in separate rooms and lead separate lives, have never followed anyone else’s playbook.Just as in the 2016 campaign, Jordan believes that Melania will pick and choose her moments for maximum effect. “She doesn’t like being on the political road but she likes to be a celebrity and she will be out there,” she said. “There were parts of being first lady that she loved and so you’re just going to see her pick her shots. She’ll go to events that she can have maximum control over. She won’t do too many because she absolutely knows newspapers write about it and she’s on TV.View image in fullscreen“Everything she does is very thought out and calculated at. Yes, we’re going to be seeing her at key moments but we’re not going to be seeing her as other political spouses are. She never has and never will act like any other political spouse the country’s ever seen. When he started running the first time, people were like, wow, this is crazy, this is such a valuable asset staying at home. But she’s definitely doing it her way.”It might be assumed that this week would be an especially rough one for Melania. Jury selection has been under way for Trump’s trial in New York on charges of falsifying business records tied to a $130,000 hush-money payment made to buy Stormy Daniels’ silence about an alleged sexual encounter that took place not long after Melania gave birth to their son Barron.Melania, who rarely betrays emotion in public, is known to have been furious about reports of the affair when they first surfaced, flying off to Palm Beach and taking a separate car to his first State of the Union address. But she is now said to be more sympathetic to Trump, privately calling the proceedings “a disgrace”, the New York Times reported.Jordan, a reporter for the Washington Post newspaper, commented: “She was mortified at the time and furious at her husband when she found out originally. But now she thinks that this is being used as a political weapon against her husband and she’s focusing her anger on that.”Indeed, the New York trial is unlikely to deliver surprise revelations that Melania is not aware of already. Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said: “This is what she signed up for. She knows who this guy is. It’s no surprise that he’s a serial philanderer. Whatever trade-offs she has made to live the life that she wants to live, she is comfortable with them. She makes her own choices and I couldn’t care less.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBardella, a former senior adviser for Republicans on the House of Representatives oversight committee, added: “I do think that when you are auditioning to be the first family of America there is an expectation from the public that you are open and transparent about what your real family situation is and those who have fallen short of that have paid a political price over the years. For the party that wraps itself and this cloak of so-called family values all the time, it’s interesting that they seem to completely bypass that when it comes to their leader.”Melania’s current main focus has been preparing Barron for university after he graduates from a private high school in May (Trump complained on social media this week that he might miss his son’s graduation because of the New York trial). But Trump often brings up her name at rallies, sometimes with some rare self-deprecation, and has assured crowds that they will see her on the campaign trail.Melania is thought to be one of the few people that Trump trusts to be straight with him. The former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told a congressional panel investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol: “He listens to many of us, but he reserves fear for one person, Melania Trump.”Indeed, Melania helped persuade Trump to select Mike Pence, rather than Chris Christie or Newt Gingrich, as his vice-presidential candidate in 2016. She also encouraged him to support the celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz’s losing effort in Pennsylvania’s Senate race in 2022. Melania is now said to be lobbying for Conway to return to the fold in an official capacity.She is also known to have admonished Trump on occasion for vulgar outbursts or mockery of people with disabilities. But there is no evidence that she intends to act as a brake on his radical rightwing policy agenda.Speaking last month at the Politics and Prose bookshop in Washington, Katie Rogers, author of American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden, said: “There was this idea that she would be a secret resistance figure early on. First ladies channel and mirror their husbands, even in this case. She shares his grievances. She has the same anger over how her family is perceived and covered as he does. They’re more united in that dynamic than people think.”Rogers, a White House correspondent for the New York Times and former Guardian reporter, said she did not know if the couple would remain married through a second term. “I know they have an agreement in place in the event that they’re not. But she likes the role.”Biden v Trump: What’s in store for the US and the worldOn Thursday 2 May, 3-4.15pm ET, join Tania Branigan, David Smith, Mehdi Hasan and Tara Setmayer for the inside track on the people, the ideas and the events that might shape the US election campaign. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live More

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      Say it with cash: Trump’s Valentine love letter to Melania is fundraising email

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      In a Valentine’s Day fundraising message, Donald Trump sought to demonstrate the depth of his love for Melania Trump, his third wife, by referring to his lengthy list of criminal charges.“Even after every single indictment, arrest and witch hunt, you never left my side,” the message said.The probable Republican presidential nominee faces four criminal indictments: for election subversion (13 state charges, four federal), retention of classified information (40, federal) and hush-money payments to an adult film star and director who claims a sexual affair (34, state).Stormy Daniels claims to have had sex with Trump in 2006, shortly after Melania gave birth to her son, Barron Trump, a claim Trump denies despite having arranged to pay Daniels $130,000 to be quiet during the 2016 election.Nor is that Trump’s only legal problem – or product of what he claims are witch-hunts mounted by his enemies – to do with matters of sex.Last month, Trump was on the wrong end of an $83.3m judgment in a defamation case arising from an allegation of rape, from the writer E Jean Carroll, that a judge said was “substantially true”.Carroll said Trump assaulted her in a New York department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. In a deposition, Trump memorably confused a picture of Carroll for a picture of Marla Maples, his second wife.And yet, despite it all, when it comes to his current wife – and the matter of raising campaign cash – Trump remains a determined softie.Under the headline “This is a Valentine’s Day letter from Donald J Trump”, the message sent out on Wednesday began: “Dear Melania. I love you!”It then took its unexpected turn.“Even after every single indictment, arrest and witch hunt, you never left my side. You’ve always supported me through everything. I wouldn’t be the man I am today without your guidance, kindness and warmth. You will always mean the world to me, Melania! From your husband with love, Donald J Trump.”Recipients who clicked on one of three big red invitations to “send your love” were directed to a page offering the chance to send a “personalised message” to Melania – and to donate to Trump’s campaign amounts ranging from $20.24 to $3,300 or “other”.Melania Trump has recently reappeared in public with her husband, after an absence believed related to the death of her mother, Amalija Knavs, last month. Donald Trump recently told Fox News his wife “wants to make America great again, too” and would “play a big role” in his campaign to return to power.“I think she’s going to be very active in the sense of being active,” Trump added. More

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      After Ivanka Trump’s strategic exit, is Tiffany the new ‘first daughter’? | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Well, it looks like Melaniawatch is officially over. The former first lady has a habit of periodically disappearing, sparking fanciful theories that she has left her philandering husband and is crashing at the Obamas’ mansion to write a tell-all. Her latest vanishing act came, understandably, after Trump was arrested last week for hush money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. Melania was conspicuously absent from Trump’s arraignment and he failed to mention her in a speech where he thanked his entire family, and – bizarrely – praised his son Barron for being very tall. Like Jesus, however, Melania made a public reappearance on Easter Sunday.As soon as the where-is-Melania speculation was laid to rest, the what’s-Tiffany-up-to conjecture started. Eyebrows were raised when Trump thanked Tiffany, his youngest daughter, in his post-arraignment speech, because Trump famously has a habit of forgetting that Tiffany exists. Her siblings reportedly aren’t much kinder. According to Michael Cohen’s memoir about his time as Trump’s lapdog, Donald Jr, Eric and Ivanka (Trump’s children with his first wife, Ivana Trump) referred to Tiffany, who Trump fathered with his second wife, Marla Maples, as the “red-haired stepchild”. Cohen also claims the former president and Ivanka were rude about Tiffany’s looks.While Tiffany has always been on the sidelines in the Trump family, she has recently started to edge closer to the spotlight. Now that Trump’s eldest, Ivanka, is strategically keeping a distance from her disgraced dad, it looks like Tiffany is finally getting a little bit of her father’s attention. Publicly supporting him in his hour of need “could be her way to get closer to her father”, a source speculated to the New York Post in a recent piece titled “Is Tiffany Trump taking Ivanka’s place as Donald’s ‘First Daughter’?” Heartwarming stuff, eh? Sometimes it just takes being charged with 34 felony counts to bring a family together. More

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      Trump boasts about ‘great family’ amid legal troubles – but where’s Melania?

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      When Donald Trump was photographed entering his Trump Tower skyscraper on Monday evening in New York and then emerging again on Tuesday to face criminal charges in a Manhattan court, in a historic low for a former US president, he cut a solitary figure.And as he flew back on his private jet to Florida after pleading not guilty to 34 charges accusing him of covering up hush-money payments to an adult film star and an ex-Playboy model while he was married, the woman to whom he was then (and is now) married, Melania Trump, was not there.As people increasingly wondered “Where’s Melania?” Donald Trump gathered supporters and family members in the glittering ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach and delivered a rambling but defiant speech on Tuesday evening, part tirade against his indictment, part thanks to his family. But Melania was neither mentioned nor anywhere to be seen.“I built a great business with my family, a fantastic business,” Trump said to the assembled, as his family watched from the front row, alongside Melania’s father, Viktor Knavs.His oldest sons Donald Jr and Eric were there, as was Tiffany Trump, his daughter with his second wife, Marla Maples. His other daughter, Ivanka Trump, was not present, having distanced herself from her father’s 2024 presidential campaign and her time serving as a key aide in his White House, and neither was Trump’s only child with Melania, Barron. But all the offspring got a mention.“I have a son here who has done a great job, and I have another son here who has done a great job,” Trump said, referring to his sons Eric and Donald Jr, before adding, “And Tiffany, and Ivanka. And Barron will be great someday. He is tall, he is tall and he’s smart.“But I have a great family and they have done a fantastic job and we appreciate it very much. They have gone through hell,” he added.In a family line-up photo Melania is noticeably absent.At one point on Tuesday afternoon there had been a smattering of reports that Melania was sighted in New York as if to join her husband at Trump Tower, but a picture claiming to capture the moment was inconclusive. No verification or confirmation was ever forthcoming and no further evidence of anyone seeing Melania in New York or Palm Beach in public emerged.A source told People last month Melania was “leading her own life, and still feels happy being at Mar-a-Lago, surrounded by people who love her and who never talk about reality, or bad things about her husband”.Nevertheless, the source said Melania “remains angry” about her husband’s extramarital affairs, adding that she “doesn’t want to hear [the alleged hush money payment] mentioned … She is aware of who her husband is and keeps her life upbeat with her own family and a few close friends.”In addition to being accused of falsifying business records in what prosecutors claim to be a conspiratorial attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election by quashing claims of a sexual encounter with the adult film star Stormy Daniels, Trump is also accused of paying hush money to a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, over an affair. Trump denies having affairs with either woman. More

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      Trump tax returns show China bank account as six years of records released

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      Trump tax returns show China bank account as six years of records releasedReturns date from 2015 to 2020 and span nearly 6,000 pages as former president rails against effort by ‘radical left Democrats’ Six years of Donald Trump’s tax returns were made public by a congressional committee on Friday, ending the former president’s long-running effort to break precedent and keep them secret.Trump says tax returns release will ‘lead to horrible things for so many people’ – liveRead moreThe documents, dating from 2015 to 2020, offer insights into the complex finances and foreign bank accounts of a man who was accused of abusing the presidency for personal profit and who has already announced another bid for the White House.A House of Representatives report released earlier this month analyzed the documents and showed Trump and his wife Melania paid no federal income tax in 2020, the last full year he was in office.The couple paid $641,931 in federal income taxes in 2015, the year Trump began his campaign for president. They paid $750 in 2016 and 2017, nearly $1m in 2018, $133,445 in 2019 and $0 in 2020, the year Trump unsuccessfully sought re-election.Such numbers reflect heavy business losses and undermine Trump’s self-perpetuated narrative of commercial wealth and success – a crucial part of his brand during his successful 2016 campaign.Trump reported bank accounts in Britain, China and Ireland from 2015 to 2017, and from 2018 only reported a bank account in Britain.During a presidential debate in 2020, Trump said the Chinese account “was closed in 2015, I believe” and insisted: “I closed it before I even ran for president, let alone became president.”Responding to the release on Friday, Daniel Goldman, a congressman-elect from New York who was counsel to House Democrats in Trump’s first impeachment, said: “Generally, you only have bank accounts in a foreign country if you are doing transactions in that country’s currency. What business was Trump doing in China while he was president?”The returns also show Trump claimed foreign tax credits for taxes paid on business ventures around the world, including licensing arrangements for the use of his name on development projects and his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland.During his first three years in office, Trump apparently fulfilled his campaign promise to give his salary to charity. But in 2020, he reported $0 in charitable giving.The returns span nearly 6,000 pages, including more than 2,700 pages of individual returns from Trump and Melania and more than 3,000 pages from Trump’s businesses. Sensitive information such as social security and bank account numbers have been redacted.Trump responded angrily to their release, saying in a statement: “The Democrats should have never done it, the supreme court should have never approved it, and it’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people. The great USA divide will now grow far worse. The Radical Left Democrats have weaponized everything, but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street!”Defending his business record, he added: “The ‘Trump’ tax returns once again show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises.”The congressional report published last week also found that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) failed to conduct mandatory audits of Trump in his first two years in office. By contrast, there were audits of Joe Biden for the 2020 and 2021 tax years, according to the White House.Richard Neal, the Democratic chairman of the ways and means committee, said in a statement on Friday: “A president is no ordinary taxpayer. They hold power and influence unlike any other American. And with great power comes even greater responsibility.“We anticipated the IRS would expand the mandatory audit program to account for the complex nature of the former president’s financial situation yet found no evidence of that. This is a major failure of the IRS under the prior administration, and certainly not what we had hoped to find.”Trump’s finances have been shrouded in mystery since the 1980s and his days as a New York property developer. In 2016, he became the first major-party candidate for president in four decades to refuse to release his tax returns. He continued to do so in office.In 2019, the House ways and means committee, which has the authority to see any taxpayer’s federal returns, requested the documents from the treasury department. The Trump administration refused to provide them, setting off a three-year legal battle. In November, the supreme court ruled that the committee could access the returns.Last week, the committee decided in a party-line vote to make the returns public. Democrats argued that transparency and the rule of law were at stake. Republicans said the release would set a dangerous precedent with regard to privacy protections.Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat, presided over a pro forma House session on Friday as the returns were released, days before Democrats cede control to Republicans.Beyer said: “Despite promising to release his tax returns, Donald Trump refused to do so, and abused the power of his office to block basic transparency on his finances and conflicts of interest which no president since Nixon has foregone.“Trump acted as though he had something to hide, a pattern consistent with the recent conviction of his family business for criminal tax fraud. As the public will now be able to see, Trump used questionable or poorly substantiated deductions and a number of other tax avoidance schemes as justification to pay little or no federal income tax in several of the years examined.”Kevin Brady of Texas, the ranking Republican, condemned the move, saying: “This is a regrettable stain on the ways and means committee and Congress, and will make American politics even more divisive and disheartening. In the long run, Democrats will come to regret it.”Trump stalled efforts to put his taxes in the public domain. Running for president in 2016, he promised to release them once he had been audited. But later that year he appeared to take pride in not paying taxes.Kayleigh McEnany a ‘liar and opportunist’, says former Trump aide Read moreDuring a presidential debate, his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, said: “The only years that anybody’s ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn’t pay any federal income tax.”Trump replied: “That makes me smart.”But in 2018 the New York Times reported leaked records that showed Trump received a modern-day equivalent of at least $413m from his father’s property holdings, much of it coming from “tax dodges” in the 1990s.In 2020 the paper showed Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2017 and 2018, and no income taxes at all in 10 of 15 years because he generally lost more than he made.Trump continues to face major scrutiny about his business practices. Earlier this month, a New York jury found the Trump Organization guilty of 17 counts of criminal tax fraud. Though Trump was not part of the trial, prosecutors said he was aware of the off-the-books practices at issue. Lawyers for the Trump Organization blamed Allen Weisselberg, the longtime chief financial officer.The New York attorney general, Letitia James, is suing Trump for fraud related to inflating his net worth. Trump and his company have denied wrongdoing.TopicsDonald TrumpMelania TrumpUS taxationRepublicansUS politicsUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 panel to show Trump violated law by refusing to stop Capitol attack

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      January 6 panel to show Trump violated law by refusing to stop Capitol attackThe committee will demonstrate the ex-president was ‘derelict in his duty’ to protect the US Congress as supporters mobbed building The January 6 House select committee is expected to make the case at its hearing on Thursday that Donald Trump potentially violated the law when he refused entreaties to take action to stop the 2021 attack on the US Capitol by a mass of his supporters, according to two sources familiar with the matter.Meet the key players who have defined the January 6 hearingsRead moreThe panel will demonstrate that the former Republican president was “derelict in his duty” to protect the US Congress and might have also broken the federal law that prohibits obstructing an official proceeding before Congress, which had gathered to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.Trump could have called on national guard troops to restore order when he saw on TV the melee unfolding at the Capitol, the panel is expected to argue, or he could have called off the rioters via a live broadcast from the White House press briefing room, but he did not. Or he could have sent a tweet trying to stop the violence far earlier than he actually did, during the 187-minute duration of the Capitol attack.The former president instead only reluctantly posted a tweet in the afternoon of January 6, hours after his top advisors at the White House and Republicans allies in Congress repeatedly implored him to intervene, the select committee will show.And the panel is expected to reinforce that Trump’s inaction directly contributed to the extended battle between the US Capitol police and rioters, who outnumbered them, since many rioters dispersed after he tweeted the now-infamous video asking them to leave the Capitol.The sources described what the select committee sees as potential legal culpability for the former president, speaking on the condition of anonymity ahead of the prime time hearing.Among the witnesses for the eighth hearing – characterized by the panel’s members as a “season finale” with more hearings after the summer recess – include Trump’s former deputy national security advisor Matthew Pottinger and former Trump press aide Sarah Matthews.The two witnesses with inside knowledge of how the West Wing operated on January 6 are expected to narrate how that day unfolded, starting with how desperately Trump did not want to return to the White House after delivering his speech at the rally at the nearby Ellipse, where he had urged supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his election defeat.Former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified in a previous hearing that Trump was so determined to go to the Capitol alongside his supporters that at one point, infuriated, he attempted to wrestle control of the steering wheel from the Secret Service in the presidential vehicle as they insisted he return to the White House.The Guardian has learned, according to a person directly familiar with the matter, that in a previously unreported incident, the fracas about going to the Capitol, after Trump told his supporters at the rally to go to Congress and “I’ll be there with you”, continued when he arrived back at the White House, and the argument spilled into the West Wing driveway.Pottinger and Matthews are expected to testify about what happened when Trump was back at the White House, including details on Trump in his dining room off the Oval Office, where he watched the Capitol attack erupt on TV, transfixed by the images as rioters overran police and rampaged through the halls of Congress, the sources said.The select committee will show through videotaped testimony from the Trump White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, and other aides, that the former president ignored repeated entreaties from advisers to help stop the Capitol attack, the sources said.Hutchinson previously testified that she tried to get Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to lobby Trump – only for him to tell her that the former president “wanted to be left alone”.The select committee will also show that Trump never once called the national guard or other law enforcement, the sources said.With Trump unwilling to act, the panel is expected to describe how the duties of commander in chief were effectively assumed by then vice-president Mike Pence, who was sheltering in a loading-dock on the Senate-side of the Capitol after lawmakers had to flee the chamber amid the violence.“Trump gave no order to deploy the national guard that day, and made no effort to work with the Department of Justice to coordinate and deploy law enforcement assets,” the panel’s vice-chair, Liz Cheney, previously said. “But Mike Pence did each of those things.”The Guardian has also learned, according to another person directly familiar with the matter, that then First Lady, Melania Trump, appeared to choose not to intervene with her husband or try and stop the Capitol attack herself.That day, the person said, Melania Trump was conducting a photoshoot for a new rug for the White House residence and when her then chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham, asked if she wanted to tweet condemning the attack, Melania responded curtly: “No.”Meanwhile, Cipollone told top aides that Trump might have legal liability, the sources said. And the hearing may present more details of the calls that mounted after the insurrection for Pence to convene the Cabinet and remove Trump from office through the 25th Amendment.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpMelania TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Melania Trump’s auction of NFT, hat and painting fall short of $250,000 opening bid

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      Melania Trump’s auction of NFT, hat and painting fall short of $250,000 opening bidSteep dive in crypto market resulted in final bid of about $170,000 – $80,000 short of the starting bid threshold What do Melania Trump’s wide-brimmed white hat, a painting of her wearing the hat and an NFT of an animated version of the hat have in common?They were all put up for auction by the former first lady – and as of early Wednesday, failed to rake in the target price of a $250,000 opening bid.Trump announced earlier this month that she would auction off the autographed hat, which she wore to meet the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife during an official state visit in 2018. The auction also included a watercolor painting of herself wearing the hat and a non-fungible token, or NFT, of the painting.She insisted that all bids be made in Solana tokens, a cryptocurrency.When the auction concluded on Wednesday there were only five bids on the items, each around the minimum requirement of 1,800 Solana tokens.Although the minimum number of tokens was met, a steep dive in the crypto market over the last two weeks resulted in the final bid being approximately $170,000 – about $80,000 short of the opening bid threshold.“The auction winner will receive a personalized letter from Mrs. Trump, accompanying the hat and watercolor on paper and certifying authenticity. The NFT will be minted on the Solana Blockchain,” said a statement released earlier this month from the Office of Melania Trump.It said a “portion” of the proceeds derived from the auction would be given to provide people “who have been in the foster care community with access to computer science and technology education”.The auction collection, named “Head of State”, marks Trump’s second high-profile venture into NFTs and cryptocurrency. In December, she put up for sale an NFT titled Melania’s Vision: a watercolor painting of her eyes.TopicsMelania TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Restorationists urge Jill Biden to erase Melania Trump’s Rose Garden makeover

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      Efforts to erase the Trump family legacy have reached the White House potting sheds and nurseries with Jill Biden being urged to restore the mansion’s garden to a state that predates ex-First Lady Melania Trump’s 2019 makeover.An online petition calling on the first lady to return the Rose Garden to its “former glory” has been signed by more than 54,000 people. The petition says Biden’s predecessor “had the cherry trees, a gift from Japan, removed as well as the rest of the foliage and replaced with a boring tribute to herself”.Restorationists urge that the garden be returned to a state that was created in the early 1960s by Jacqueline Kennedy with the help of famed designer Bunny Mellon.“Jackie’s legacy was ripped away from Americans who remembered all that the Kennedys meant to us,” the petition reads, and notes that her husband, the president, had said that “the White House had no garden equal in quality or attractiveness to the gardens that he had seen and in which he had been entertained in Europe.”In July 2020, as her husband fought for re-election and the coronavirus pandemic raged, Trump announced that her renovation project, which included electrical upgrades for television appearances, a new walkway and new flowers and shrubs, would be an “act of expressing hope and optimism for the future”.The changes to the garden were the first since Michelle Obama initiated a project in 2009 to dig up an 1,100 square foot plot on the South Lawn adjacent to the tennis courts for a vegetable garden.The plan included replacing crab apple trees, introducing a new assortment of white “JFK” and pale pink “peace” roses, and a new drainage system. “In a way, the metaphor of openness and improved access became our overall plan concept,” wrote Perry Guillot, the landscape architect overseeing the project.But the renovation met with criticism focused on Trump’s decision to go ahead with her project during the Covid-19 pandemic. There is no indication, as yet, that Jill Biden plans to act on the petition’s recommendations.On Thursday, her husband was spotted by the White House press corps picking a dandelion for his wife from the White House lawn before they boarded a helicopter.A day later, on Friday, the first lady commemorated Arbor Day by planting a linden tree on the north lawn of the White House. Her press office said it was to replace one removed last month that was deemed a risk and had not been planted by a historical figure.“Who doesn’t plant trees in high heels?” she said. More