Laura Ingraham blasted liberal media critics Tuesday night on her Fox News show, “The Ingraham Angle,” for a “first lady double standard” when it comes to first lady Melania Trump versus Democratic first ladies.
Media outlets and liberal critics were aghast when Melania Trump unveiled this year’s White House Christmas decorations in a tweet with a video Monday.
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Although former first lady Michelle Obama received almost nothing but praise from the media for her eight years of Christmas decorations, Ingraham noted that Trump received no such favors.
“She’s gracious, she’s generous and she’s beautiful inside and out. So, if Melania Trump were a liberal, it would be a nonstop love fest from the media. But, since she’s married to President Trump, it’s a very different story,” Ingraham said. “According to some in the media, she can’t even decorate the White House for Christmas properly.”
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Vanity Fair’s Kenzie Bryant wrote that Trump “stars in what is either the official unveiling of White House decorations or a seasonal advertisement for J.Crew.”
“Is it safe to assume we have some clarity as to what she’s been up to when not traversing the Great Wall of China or making an appearance at the turkey pardoning ceremony? Maybe!” Bryant wrote.
The Daily Beast’s Tim Teeman wrote that the White House “has become the most terrifying domestic space in America.”
“Melania Trump, with what looks like the help of Tim Burton, has designed an anti-Christmas wonderland of white branches set stark against the wall and casting creepy shadows on the ceiling, leading to — at the end of the corridor — in the East Garden Room, a traditional Christmas tree bathed in golden light,” Teeman wrote, adding that Trump “could definitely keep the East Colonnade as a Halloween attraction.”
The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino wrote an article called “With the White House Christmas, the Image of Melania Trump Transforms from Fairy-Tale Prisoner to Wicked Queen.”
“With these Christmas photos, the image of our first lady as the wicked queen has taken over,” Tolentino wrote, adding that “it is easy to imagine the White House as a site of menacing enchantment — a place that transforms to suit the rulers who pass through it, a place where hearts grow colder and stonier, where snow appears on the gleaming floors overnight at the behest of the silent woman in her white dress.”
Noting that media have ridiculed Trump from everything ranging from her Slovenian accent to her heels, Ingraham pointed to how well-received Obama was during her entire White House tenure.
Related: Media Go from Michelle O. Worship to Melania T. Snark
“Online, some are comparing nighttime images of the Christmas decorations to a total nightmare,” Ingraham said. “But you know what the real nightmare is? It’s the double standard that has become so obvious, so routine, and apparently so acceptable where conservative women are concerned.”
“The only acceptable, real, authentic woman in the media landscape today is a liberal woman, a progressive one. And if you’re not, you’re just too dumb, you’re too stupid to know the difference,” Ingraham added, pointing to remarks that Obama herself made back in October in which she ridiculed female Trump voters.
Ingraham argued that the mainstream media’s usual standards for covering first ladies, their White House projects, and their decorating skills do not apply to Melania Trump.
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“But when a conservative first lady decorates the White House, spends time with D.C. school children, she is accused of exploiting them and was savaged for her wardrobe,” Ingraham said. “What happened to women being able to choose whatever they want to wear whenever they want to wear it? They’re always pro-choice when it comes to aborting babies, but you now can’t choose what you want to wear?”
“It’s a glaring double standard. It has to end. It’s so obvious,” Ingraham concluded. “Leave the first lady alone and just enjoy the decorations.”
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