The leftstream media is trolling the White House bigly over Ivana Trump’s joke about being the “first lady.”
Having first decided there was something fishy about First Lady Melania Trump’s decision to let her and the president’s youngest son finish his school year in New York before moving to the White House, then created a flurry of accusations that Melania secretly hates her husband and won’t hold his hand, they’ve now landed on an imagined insult to her from Trump’s first wife, Ivana.
The headlines:
CBS News: Ivana Trump’s “first lady” comment causes stir with first lady Melania Trump
Slate: Melania Trump Blasts Ivana Trump After She Calls Herself “First Lady”
Washington Post: Ivana Trump says she’s the ‘first lady.’ Melania Trump’s office claps back
Chicago Tribune: Ivana Trump says ‘I’m first lady,’ and Melania fires back
Today.com: Melania Trump responds to Ivana Trump calling herself ‘first lady’
When I first saw the headlines, I was a bit puzzled. How on earth, I wondered, could Ivana possibly think of herself as the “real” First Lady? So, like any marginally curious person, I looked up the video and watched it.
Color me crazy, but that looked to me like a joke. I’m Trump’s first wife, so I’m really the “first lady.” No caps, not a “title.” Just a joke, linking “first wife” with “first lady.” If it hadn’t been for the headlines and for Melania’s response, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it.
Which brings us to Melania’s response. Why did she respond at all? Her husband’s a master troll of the media, couldn’t she see that the media was trolling her? Apparently not.
From Newsweek, perhaps the most vehement in its anti-Trumpism among “mainstream” publications:
Ivana Trump and Melania Trump keep saying they’re fine with each other, but the pettiness of their long feud is alive and well.Ivana Trump let everyone know she is in fact “first lady Trump”—she just isn’t the “first lady of America,” when she appeared on The Wendy Williams Show Friday to promote her new book, Raising Trump.“I tell you, I’m technically first lady Trump,” Ivana told Williams. “I was first wife. I don’t know what is Melania’s problem. She just have to get over it. She is first lady of America, but I’m first lady Trump, excuse me, and have three grown-up kids.”. . . . Melania Trump’s spokesperson clapped back at the original Trump wife earlier this week by releasing a statement that said, “Mrs. Trump has made the White House a home for Barron and the President. She loves living in Washington, D.C., and is honored by her role as First Lady of the United States. She plans to use her title and role to help children, not sell books. There is clearly no substance to this statement from an ex, this is unfortunately only attention-seeking and self-serving noise.”When Williams asked Ivana Trump about Melania Trump’s statement, Ivana Trump said, “I have no idea why she did it, ’cause I never said I’m first lady of America. Better her than me, frankly, you know.”
English is not Ivana’s first language, so her joke may seem a bit awkward to some, but it was still quite clearly (to me, anyway) a play on words, a joke.
My guess is that Melania didn’t see the comment by Ivana and was responding (or even more likely her people responded) to news reports that Ivana thought of herself as the First Lady.
This is a mistake she will not make, or allow her spokespeople to make, again.
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