Melania Trump was less than impressed with President Trump’s order that she watch Fox News instead of CNN — with her rep saying Wednesday that the first lady will watch “any channel she wants” on TV.
Spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham told CNN on Wednesday that people should focus on the issues the first lady wants to highlight, such as neonatal abstinence syndrome, rather than what TV channel she’s watching or a recording of her hubby talking about paying hush money to a Playboy model he allegedly had an affair with.
“Did you know that every 15 minutes a baby is born with NAS? Maybe you’d like to talk about the 160,000 kids who skip school every day for fear of being bullied, or that 280,000 students are physically attacked in schools every month,” Grisham said, a reference to the first lady’s #BeBest anti-bullying effort.
“Seems kind of silly to worry about what channel she watches on TV (any channel she wants btw) or if she heard some recording on the news.”
Grisham was apparently peeved about a New York Times report that said the commander-in-chief flipped his lid on Air Force One when he spotted his third wife checking out CNN, which he regularly denigrates as “fake news” because of coverage he finds unflattering.
Trump, the paper reported, ordered that only Fox News be shown on his presidential jet, and caused “a bit of a stir.”
The blowup was revealed in an internal exchange between officials in the White House Military Office and the White House Communications Agency last Thursday, the paper reported.
Trump also ordered two additional TVs to support Beam, a streaming device, to ensure that the president and first lady could both watch TV when they travel — because they stay in separate hotel rooms, according to the Times.
The Fox-only policy reflected the president’s ongoing efforts to discredit news organizations that he doesn’t like, calling them “fake news” and claiming without evidence that reporters make up phony sources in stories critical of his administration.
Speaking at the national conference of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Missouri on Tuesday, the president urged his acolytes to ignore their own senses and listen only to him.
“Stick with us. Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” he said.
Trump on Tuesday also flipped the narrative on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, which the US intelligence community unanimously concluded was meant to help Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton.
“I’m very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election. Based on the fact that no President has been tougher on Russia than me, they will be pushing very hard for the Democrats. They definitely don’t want Trump!” he wrote on Twitter.
