Melania Trump Abused by Media’s ‘Double Standard’

There “absolutely” is a “double standard” between how the mainstream media treat first lady Melania Trump and how they treated other first ladies, Anita McBride, former first lady Laura Bush’s chief of staff in the White House, said Monday on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”

Melania Trump unveiled her “Be Best” initiative highlighting children’s issues Monday during an event at the White House’s Rose Garden. Her program will address children’s “well-being,” how to combat cyberbullying, and how to prevent the opioid epidemic from wreaking disastrous consequences upon children.

But even before Melania Trump announced her platform in the Rose Garden, mainstream media pundits and liberals dismissed her efforts.

McBride (pictured above, far left) said there “absolutely” is a double standard when it comes to Melania Trump’s treatment as first lady.

“This is a perfect initiative for her to talk about,” McBride said. “She has beautifully represented us overseas as a graceful and gracious first lady. Her first state dinner was flawless. And also, we know we have seen her with children. She’s authentic with the children. She cares about them — you could see it.”

McBride pointed to a CNN poll released Monday that found Melania Trump’s popularity soar 10 percent from 47 percent in January to 57 percent in early May.

“I have to say there’s no question in my mind why the polls are in her favor. It’s because people are beginning to see a lot more of her,” McBride said.

Cathy Areu, a liberal political analyst and publisher of Catalina magazine, argued that Melania Trump’s platform has come under fire because of its “irony.”

“The irony is she’s going after cyberbullies — that’s her initiative — and her husband is known as a cyberbully,” Areu (pictured above, far right) said. “So I think that’s the problem with her initiative.”

“It’s unfortunate because she is trying to do the right thing with this initiative, and he’s almost like canceling it out,” Areu added.

Host Laura Ingraham rebuked mainstream media outlets and liberals for their response to Melania Trump’s platform, saying that her initiative is “dismissed and denigrated before it even begins.”

“I remember Michelle Obama being lauded for having different priorities from her husband and for being a strong, independent woman,” Ingraham said. “But now that the Trumps occupy the White House, the press takes every opportunity to define the first lady only through what they view as her husband’s shortcomings.”

Pundits have mocked Melania Trump — who was born in what is now known as Slovenia and speaks five languages — for her accent and heavily scrutinized her relationship with President Donald Trump amid allegations of affairs.

Hours before Melania Trump unveiled her initiative, The Washington Post published an article that cited unnamed sources speculating that Melania Trump doesn’t even live in the White House and spends very little time with her husband.

“Except for a brief moment during the Lewinsky affair, I don’t recall this kind of granular relationship coverage when Bill and Hillary Clinton, of course, were in the White House,” Ingraham said. “Now if you want to know why the media has trained its sights on the first lady, it’s simple: She’s a real asset to the president, and her popularity is soaring.”

Noting that Melania trump “even jumped 15 percentage points with Democrats” in the CNN poll, Ingraham praised Melania for being a “presidential spouse” who “brushes off the celebrity culture and avoids politics.”

“Where Michelle wanted to retool everything from nutrition guidelines to school lunches and Hillary wanted to remake all of health care, Melania just wants to help kids’ well being and also to raise her son,” Ingraham said.

Ingraham also pointed to comments Michelle Obama made Saturday as the keynote speaker at the United State of Women Summit in Los Angeles. The former first lady said she was “concerned about us as women and how we think” after Trump defeated 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Related: Melania Trump Is Unveiling a Formal Platform at the White House

“When the most qualified person running was a woman, and look what we did instead, I mean, that says something about where we are,” Obama warned.

McBride said Obama’s comments were “offensive to women who sure would like to see a woman be president.”

“They want to see the right woman president. And we’ll have that sometime in our lifetime,” McBride said. “This was not the right time. This was not the right person — didn’t care about or project the issues that Americans, a lot of women like you and I care about. Security and prosperity — that was first and foremost.”

Tammy Bruce, a radio talk-show host and Fox News contributor, noted, “As a feminist, as a woman who worked in this line for most of my adult life, it was supposed to be about — and we’ve achieved this — women thinking for themselves, making choices that were best for themselves and their families.”

“And now that is being denigrated,” Bruce (pictured above, second from right) said. “This should be celebrated, that women are making a choice based on what’s good for them, not based on what an Establishment or celebrity or a political celebrity is telling them to do.”

PoliZette writer Kathryn Blackhurst can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter.