Melania Trump wants people to know that she’s got nothing against Christmas.
It’s been nearly two years since a secret recording of the former first lady was released in which she complained to her then friend and aide, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, about working “my ass off at Christmas stuff” at the White House.
“Who gives a fuck about Christmas stuff and decoration? But I need to do it, right?” Melania Trump said in the recording of the 2018 phone call released by Wolkoff.
But now Melania Trump wants to “set the record straight” ― just as she’s launched a new line of Christmas ornaments and corresponding NFTs.
“I will personally set the record straight because the mainstream media has failed to provide context for these misleading exchanges,” she said in a statement to right-wing outlet Breitbart. “Christmas is an important time for me, my family and the American people, and my devotion to the holiday is personal and profoundly serious.”
She claimed Wolkoff “spitefully edited and released our conversation to create the perception that Christmas is not significant to me.”
Wolkoff responded derisively to the comments Tuesday.
“Melania Trump needs to attack ME to sell Christmas ornament NFT’s. What is Melania worried about? She can’t sell ornaments on her own?” she tweeted, calling the statement “fiction.”
“A portion” of the proceeds from the ornaments will go toward one of Melania Trump’s “Be Best” initiatives for foster care children, according to Fox News.
Melania Trump’s stylistic choices for White House Christmas decor invited controversy on several occasions. In 2017, she decorated the East Wing hallway with stark white branches, which spawned a meme and comparisons to horror movies. In 2018, she went with an assortment of crimson trees that The Washington Post dubbed a “nightmare forest” reminiscent of costumes in “The Handmaid’s Tale.”