First Lady Melania Trump will not be attending her office’s holiday decorations preview, according to a White House statement obtained by reporters.
Numerous reporters obtained a statement that said next Monday, “the Office of the First Lady will host a preview of the 2020 holiday décor at the White House,” but Trump herself “will not be in attendance.”
The absence of the outgoing first lady from the final run of one of her most notable annual duties was quickly noted on Twitter, where users recalled audio that leaked of her disparaging the holiday in the fall.
“I’m working … my a– off at Christmas stuff that you know, who gives a f– about Christmas stuff and decoration? But I need to do it, right? Correct?” asked Trump in a conversation with her former friend Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who recorded their chat and later published it while promoting her tell-all about the first lady.
In the audio from 2018, she went on to complain not only about her job of decorating the White House for the holiday but media coverage of her role.
“OK, and then I do it,” she can be heard saying, “and I say that I’m working on Christmas and planning for the Christmas and they said, ‘Ooh what about the children that they were separated? ‘ Give me a f—ing break. Where they were saying anything when Obama did that?”
Trump wrote on Twitter Monday that she was “excited” to start the decorating process this year.