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This week, first lady Melania Trump broke her silence on the riots that occurred at the Capitol in a statement that received a lot of backlash from the public. Mrs. Trump’s former friend and aide Stephanie Winston Wolkoff have also added to the criticism against her, reiterating the first lady’s complicity in her husband Donald Trump’s behavior.
Speaking with CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Monday, Wolkoff criticized Melania’s statement regarding the riots at the Capitol last week. Pro-Trump mobs stormed through the building during the House and Senate’s joint sessions in an attempt to undermine Joe Biden’s win. Five people died as a result of the clash with the outnumbered Capitol Police, two of them being police officers. Wolkoff noted that Melania only issued a statement five days after the incident and added that this was only one of the first lady’s failures.
“This isn’t the only complicit event that’s occurred throughout these four years. Melania Trump has a voice and she hasn’t used it,” said Wolkoff, who wrote a tell-all memoir about her friendship with the first lady. “She has a platform, she hasn’t used it. As the First Lady of the United States of America...You have the ability to speak loudly, clearly, and for the rest of Americans.”
Wolkoff stressed that Melania is not only complicit to her husband, but is also an enabler. “She’s his biggest cheerleader and unfortunately she’s done nothing but that.”
Melania’s statement received a lot of backlash from the public due to the fact that while she was condemning the violence, she also ended up trying to paint herself as a victim throughout the whole ordeal. The first lady criticized the “salacious gossip” about her that was being circulated online, which many believed was directed at Wolkoff, who accused Melania of having “blood on her hands” in a piece she wrote for The Daily Beast.
With the first lady only speaking up about the incident five days later, it poses a question as to what she may have been doing when the mobs stormed the Capitol. Several prominent White House officials also resigned in the wake of the riots, including Melania’s own chief of staff. People familiar with the matter revealed that as White House staff members urged Melania to intervene with her husband’s behavior, she was overseeing a photoshoot of rugs and other decors in the Executive Residence and the East Wing.
