Politics

People are still upset that Melania Trump “destroyed” the White House Rose Garden

NOVEMBER 26, 2019: First Lady Melania Trump stands in the Rose Garden of the White House as the President pardons a Turkey named "Butter".
NOVEMBER 26, 2019: First Lady Melania Trump stands in the Rose Garden of the White House as the President pardons a Turkey named "Butter". Photo: Shutterstock

Presidential historian and author Michael Beschloss went viral in 2020 when he tweeted side-by-side before-and-after pictures of the Rose Garden to show how it changed during the Trump administration. On President Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day, attention was again focused on the White House and Beschloss went on MSNBC, where he brought up how the Trumps built a tennis pavilion near the space that “looks quite like a mausoleum.”

He said that the Trumps wanted a shot of Melania walking in the Rose Garden for the Republican National Convention, but they couldn’t get it because of the crabapple trees Jackie Kennedy Onassis had planted. So they had the trees all “yanked out… essentially for a camera shot,” as journalists on the channel laughed. On Twitter, Beschloss said that the pavilion looks like the set of The Beverly Hillbillies.

Related: Anti-LGBTQ “evangelical advisor” to Trump dies just weeks after attending Rose Garden spreader event

In 2020, the site served as host to a COVID super-spreader event following the confirmation of anti-LGBTQ Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

In 2021, he tweeted about the “evisceration of the White House Rose Garden,” earning a response from the former First Lady, who oversaw the renovation. She insisted that he “has proven his ignorance by showing a picture of the Rose Garden in its infancy. His misleading information is dishonorable & he should never be trusted as a professional historian.”

But the topic has come up again already in 2022 when someone tweeted, “Who wants to see Jackie Kennedy’s Rose Garden (destroyed by Melania) re-established on the White House grounds?”

With almost 10,000 likes and countless responses, other users were quick to jump in with their opinions – both of the remodeled garden and the Trump administration.

“She turned a beautiful garden into something that looks like a walkway in between apartment buildings,” one person moaned. “Hideous.”

“The Rose Garden should be named a national historical location,” one woman posited. “Make it a penalty to mess with.”

“I would put out a cattle call for all master gardeners to come to the White House and present plans to restore the Rose Garden better than ever,” another user said, sparking visions of Joe Biden lighting a spotlight with a big rose in the middle to summon the gardeners.

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