“Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady.” This is the title of the book by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, ex-best friend of Melania Trump, published this Tuesday, September 1 by Gallery Books. In her book, the author returns in particular to a significant episode, which occurred on June 21, 2018, during a visit by the First Lady to undocumented children, on the border between the United States and Mexico. Donald Trump's wife then wore a khaki-colored Zara jacket, on which were written the words: "I don't care at all. And you ?"
Hidden message to the address of the American president, flippancy or provocation to the attention of the media? Theories were rife about the reasons for this choice of dress. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff has since provided some answers in her book. The former adviser to Melania Trump (from 2017 to 2018) claims that, by evoking the media fallout from the event with the First Lady, the latter would have burst out laughing. Before retorting: “I decide myself what I wear.” According to Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Melania Trump would have worn this jacket for political reasons - what the first lady had already claimed, by putting more forms on it.
"I'm driving them crazy!"
"I'm driving liberals crazy! she would have confided. You know what ? They deserve it !" A little later, Melania Trump would have continued: “Some people are overdoing it. They interpret my outfit choices, but they don't really know me. They cogitate so much that their heads will eventually explode. I don't care what they think. They are always negative. Melania Trump's 39 dollar (32.5 euros) jacket had, at the time of this event, fueled various theories.
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Among them, that of Kate Bennett, CNN correspondent at the White House, according to whom this choice would be directly linked… to Ivanka Trump. By way of explanation, she says in her own book Free Melania that at the time, the first lady was fuming that her daughter-in-law was getting all the benefit from the president's softening stance on immigration, while it was obviously she who had made her husband back down.
"That won't stop me from doing what I believe is right"
Zac Petkanas, a communicator affiliated with the Democratic Party, interpreted the choice of this jacket as a form of contempt for the children whom Melania Trump visited. "It's not a joke," he tweeted. Melania Trump wore a jacket saying, "I don't really care, do you?" to go to detention centers for children. I am left speechless.”
Melania Trump later reacted to the controversy on ABC News. “It is obvious that I did not wear this jacket compared to the children, she had declared. I only wore it to get on and off the plane. It was a message for people and media on the left who criticize me. I want to show them that I don't care. You can criticize as much as you want, it won't stop me from doing what I believe is right."
Melania Trump shares video of herself in mask
Fifteen years of friendship
For its part, the White House would take a dim view of the publication of the book Melania et moi. Stephanie Grisham, the spokesperson for Melania Trump, thus affirmed in the columns of Hollywood Life that the work was “not only very megalomaniac, but did not tell the truth”. “It is a bizarre operation of distortion of the truth (…)”, she added. The author affirms, as for her, that she maintained a friendship of fifteen years with the First Lady.
Their relationship would have deteriorated in February 2018, after the publication of an article in the New York Times. The daily then revealed that Donald Trump's inaugural committee had paid Stephanie Winston Wolkoff 26 million dollars (21.7 million euros) for her contribution to the organization of the January 2017 inauguration ceremony. concerned firmly denies, receipts in support. She also criticizes Melania Trump, her lifelong friend, for not having come to her defense. “A Trump remains a Trump”, she concludes, pithy, in Melania and me.
