When Melania Trump was in the White House, the media and the left just couldn’t stop lying about her.
For example, there was the infamous jacket story. Remember when Melania Trump was reported to have worn a jacket that said “I really don’t care, do you” while visiting illegal alien children being held at a facility in Texas? Except that wasn’t true. She wore it for the media in Washington, D.C. but never wore it in Texas. She wore it to chastise the media for spreading lies about her after her kidney surgery, claiming things like she was “missing.” But to this day, the media and who knows how many people believe the lie that she wore the jacket to see the children.
But another lie they told last year that’s been incredibly persistent and was just was reiterated again by Presidential historian Michael Beschloss was that Melania Trump destroyed the Rose Garden.
Unfortunately, Beschloss is a rabid Trump hater who has an issue with reality when it comes to anything Trump. But many on the left have pushed this falsehood. Various iterations of the lie claim Melania removed all the roses of the other First Ladies and/or she chopped down cherry trees.
Not only did Melania not destroy the Rose Garden, but she tried to return it to the original Rose Garden plan that Bunny Mellon had during the Kennedy Administration in 1962, before the subsequent years of poor drainage and overgrowth put it in bad shape. She had to remove crabapple trees for the health of the garden because they were blocking out the sun from the flowers. She didn’t remove other First Ladies’ roses because most had died off by the time she got there. As the fact check of the claim noted, the flowers were constantly dying off and being replaced through every administration. Melania also made it accessible for people with disabilities by adding a path and improved the infrastructure. The picture Beschloss posted was shortly after Melania replaced things, so obviously there wasn’t a lot of growth yet.
A ‘historian’ should know all this or at least know to check his facts. If he didn’t let his Trump hatred get in the way of his history. But Melania let him have it with a little truth.
“@BeschlossDC has proven his ignorance by showing a picture of the Rose Garden in its infancy,” she said. “The Rose Garden is graced with a healthy & colorful blossoming of roses. His misleading information is dishonorable & he should never be trusted as a professional historian.”
When even Politifact and USA Today are calling it out you know how bad the lie is. But that likely wouldn’t stop the lie from continuing. Folks like Beschloss just refuse delivery on the truth.