In a scorching piece for the Daily Beast, a former senior aide to first lady Melania Trump said the wife of Donald Trump wasted her four years in the White House by failing to use her bully pulpit to do anything other than to try and build up her image.
According to Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the first lady stood by while the Trump administration ripped children from the arms of their immigrant parents, botched the COVID-19 crisis and remained silent while her husband encouraged a violent assault on the halls of Congress.
Apologizing for her time serving Melania Trump, and reflecting on Wednesday's shocking attack on Congress, Winston Wolkoff wrote, "Every single MAGA mob rioter who stormed the U.S. Capitol did so 'at the direction of, and in coordination with' President Trump, and it was an assault on human life and our great democracy. Unfortunately, our president and first lady have little, if any, regard for either."
With CNN reporting that Melania was busy on Wednesday doing a photoshoot as the battle raged at the U.S. Capitol, the former aide said her indifference to the violence was similar to her husband's.
According to the former aide, "I wish I could say I was shocked by President Trump's actions, but sadly I can not, or say I don't comprehend Melania's silence and inactions, but pathetically, they are both expected. Melania knows how to 'Be Best' at standing up and reading from a teleprompter and not from the heart," before adding, "I'm disheartened and ashamed to have worked with Melania."
"By sharing my history with her, I unmasked her true identity and revealed an unvarnished portrait of a woman whose veneer I've stripped off, leaving nothing but an 'unapologetically, skin-deep' woman. Only they could flick aside having their lives ripped open and all their regretful, hateful, humiliating moments splayed out for the world to see and judge. Melania and Donald are a perfect match," she continued. "Melania is no better than Donald is in terms of needing attention. She wasted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a platform to make a difference in the lives of so many children and didn't provide any of that. She was just there as an extension of Donald, used to 'soften' his image, highlight his showmanship, and smile for the cameras."
Pointing out that the first lady sporting a jacket that read "I DON'T CARE," Winston Wolkoff suggested that was "wasn't just by design, it's her mantra."
"Melania represents what is wrong in America," she wrote before concluding, "As people are dying in America from COVID because of his ineptness, if Melania had an ounce of Eleanor Roosevelt in her, she would be out there getting the vaccine to people, supporting our nurses and doctors, and helping at food banks. They will depart the White House, with no regrets, leaving dead bodies behind, and driving off to Mar-a-Lago without looking back."
You can read more here.