First Lady Melania Trump is calling for attention to be shifted to focusing on the “next generation” following reports about her ex-close friend and adviser Stephanie Wolkoff’s book and recent remarks about the first lady.
The first lady noted on Friday that she recently has been able to reflect on personal things — she tested positive for COVID-19 when the president did. She noted that she wants to continue to put her time and effort into her initiative “Be Best.”
“We all know that more often than not, information that could be helpful to children is lost in the noise made by self-serving adults,” Trump said in a statement. “I have most recently found this to be the case as major news outlets eagerly covered salacious claims made by a former contractor who advised my office.”
She then appeared to blast Wolkoff, someone who, as the first lady writes, says she “made” Trump:
“A person who said she ‘made me’ even though she hardly knew me, and someone who clung to me after my husband won the Presidency. This is a woman who secretly recorded our phone calls, releasing portions from me that were out of context, then wrote a book of idle gossip trying to distort my character. […] These kinds of people only care about their personal agenda — not about helping others.”
The first lady took aim at media outlets for covering that “pettiness over my positive work.”
Trump wrote, “Anyone who is focused on tearing things down for their own gain, after knowing what I stand for, has lost sight of what we are here to accomplish and who we are here to serve. To push forward a personal agenda that attempts to defame my office and the efforts of my team, only takes away from our work to help children.”
Trump’s spokesperson Stephanie Grisham responded to Trump’s tweet, writing, “CC: [CNN], [MSNBC], [The Washington Post], [The New York Times].”
Cc: @CNN @MSNBC @washingtonpost @nytimes https://t.co/5Uzg0Ygbsu
— Stephanie Grisham 45 Archived (@StephGrisham45) October 16, 2020
The first lady called on those to “remember what we are all about and what we are trying to accomplish together,” adding that the media has “the choice of focusing on our next generation.”
Trump’s “Be Best” initiative is aimed at focusing on major issues children face with three pillars: well-being, online safety, and opioid abuse.