Melania Trump, Michelle Obama carry on an awkward tradition, too
First Lady Michelle Obama meets with Melania Trump for tea in the Yellow Oval Room of the White House, on Thursday.
The Washington Post :
Michelle Obama carried on an awkward White House tradition when she hosted Melania Trump for tea Thursday. It was their first meeting, coming on the heels of the ugliest campaign in recent history.
They talked about raising children and took a tour of the White House’s private residence before heading to the Oval Office to meet with the president and president-elect. The tour also included a visit to the Truman Balcony, which overlooks the South Lawn, and a tour of the State Floor of the executive mansion with the White House curator.
Mrs. Obama’s aides offered no further details of the meeting. Donald Trump and his wife arrived at the White House via a backdoor on the South Lawn, an area not visible to the public.
There were no grip-and-grin photos of the meeting between Michelle Obama and Melania Trump and no indication of how well they interacted.
Still the meeting of the current and future first ladies was a moment to consider both the fraught public relationship between the two and their differing styles.
Michelle Obama played an unprecedented role in the failed campaign to elect Hillary Clinton, traveling the country to make the case that Donald Trump was a poor role model for the nation’s children and unfit for the presidency.
Melania Trump was less involved in her husband’s campaign. She rarely gave public speeches, saying she preferred to stay home in Manhattan and care for her young son, Barron.
Mrs. Trump’s most prominent moment of the campaign came during the Republican National Convention when she gave her first speech before a large national audience. It was well received – until a journalist discovered that several phrases had been plagiarized from a 2008 Michelle Obama speech. Trump’s campaign later explained that Melania was an admirer of Michelle’s.
Obama addressed the plagiarism matter only briefly, when talk-show host Stephen Colbert asked her about it during a September appearance on his show. “That’s tough,” she said.
Aside from being mothers whose children were young when their husbands won the presidency, Obama and Trump have little in common. Trump, who is from Slovenia, is only the second first lady to be born outside of the country.
Though Melania Trump has evidently read up a little on the current first lady, Michelle Obama has said she never expected to become first lady and purposely did not read the memoirs of other East Wing inhabitants before she took on the role.
Michelle Obama carried on an awkward White House tradition when she hosted Melania Trump for tea Thursday. It was their first meeting, coming on the heels of the ugliest campaign in recent history.
They talked about raising children and took a tour of the White House’s private residence before heading to the Oval Office to meet with the president and president-elect. The tour also included a visit to the Truman Balcony, which overlooks the South Lawn, and a tour of the State Floor of the executive mansion with the White House curator.
Mrs. Obama’s aides offered no further details of the meeting. Donald Trump and his wife arrived at the White House via a backdoor on the South Lawn, an area not visible to the public.
There were no grip-and-grin photos of the meeting between Michelle Obama and Melania Trump and no indication of how well they interacted.
Still the meeting of the current and future first ladies was a moment to consider both the fraught public relationship between the two and their differing styles.
Michelle Obama played an unprecedented role in the failed campaign to elect Hillary Clinton, traveling the country to make the case that Donald Trump was a poor role model for the nation’s children and unfit for the presidency.
Melania Trump was less involved in her husband’s campaign. She rarely gave public speeches, saying she preferred to stay home in Manhattan and care for her young son, Barron.
Mrs. Trump’s most prominent moment of the campaign came during the Republican National Convention when she gave her first speech before a large national audience. It was well received – until a journalist discovered that several phrases had been plagiarized from a 2008 Michelle Obama speech. Trump’s campaign later explained that Melania was an admirer of Michelle’s.
Obama addressed the plagiarism matter only briefly, when talk-show host Stephen Colbert asked her about it during a September appearance on his show. “That’s tough,” she said.
Aside from being mothers whose children were young when their husbands won the presidency, Obama and Trump have little in common. Trump, who is from Slovenia, is only the second first lady to be born outside of the country.
Though Melania Trump has evidently read up a little on the current first lady, Michelle Obama has said she never expected to become first lady and purposely did not read the memoirs of other East Wing inhabitants before she took on the role.
