On Wednesday, Melania Trump spoke at a luncheon on one of her few public topics: bullying and how it’s the responsibility of adults to teach kids how to behave through their words and actions. Unless they’re president, presumably.
The Washington Post reports the luncheon was hosted by Trump for spouses of world leaders at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, and Politico says she was seated with Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau, Brigitte Macron, and Emine Erdoğan. Rachel Roy, the famously bullied, was also in attendance.
Irony has long been dead, buried, exhumed, kicked around, and then dissolved in a vat of acid, but it’s still insane to read Politico’s account of Trump’s speech, which condemns the dangers facing bullied children. It just doesn’t get into any specifics about how Donald Trump and his administration have deliberately supported such abuses while shutting down systems for actual recourse against their perpetrators:
“No child should ever feel hungry, stalked, frightened, terrorized, bullied, isolated or afraid, with nowhere to turn,” the first lady said at a luncheon hosted at the U.S. mission to the United Nations. “We need to step up, come together, and ensure that our children’s future is bright.”
Though Melania Trump has stated she’d be pushing an anti-bullying initiative from her position as First Lady, no actual policy agenda has been submitted. But as her husband insults everyone from TV hosts to world leaders firing missiles, Trump reminded everyone of their “moral imperative” to stop the meanness:
“We must teach each child the values of empathy and communication that are at the core of the kindness, mindfulness, integrity and leadership which can only be taught by example,” the first lady said. “By our own example, we must teach children to be good stewards of the world they will inherit.”
The world they will inherit if Donald trump doesn’t imminently destroy it through climate change denial, that is.