News
Greg Evans
Dec 08, 2020
REUTERS/Hannah McKay
First Lady Melania Trump is facing a backlash after she confirmed the completion of her renovation of the White House tennis pavilion despite more pressing matters such as coronavirus, clearly being a bigger priority to many other people at the moment.
In a press release, that was distributed on Monday by the White House, Melania said “I am pleased to announce the completion of the Tennis Pavilion on the White House grounds. Thank you to all of the talented craftsmen who made this project possible and to the generous supporters of the White House. It is my hope that this private space will function as both a place of leisure and gathering for future First Families.”
Although there isn’t anything majorly wrong with Melania doing this, the optics on it, given that more than 280,000 people have died of Covid-19 in the United States alone and cases are beginning to rise again, aren’t exactly great. Furthermore, in just over a months time Melania and the rest of her family aren’t going to be able to use this tennis court at all as they will have made way for Joe and Jill Biden.
Needless to say people were not impressed with this.
And in Hell, Marie Antoinette breathes a sigh of relief. She's off the hook now. (Note: During France's Reign of… https://t.co/CCReRDPGnt— David Rothkopf (@David Rothkopf) 1607361986
282,345. https://t.co/ss9RKAVcA3— David Corn (@David Corn) 1607350082
With 280,000 Americans dead from COVID-19, I really don't care about Melania's tennis courts, do you?— BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@BrooklynDad_Defiant!) 1607354684
Americans dying unemployed and melatonin melania talks about tennis pavilion https://t.co/1AiM0Nd2wm— greyfox1938 (@greyfox1938) 1607350858
The renovation of the tennis court was reportedly funded by unspecified private donors and came at no cost to the state. Planning was also started in 2018 and approval was granted by the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission last year so its completion was overdue but that being said its probably best to keep this sort of announcement on down low, given everything that has gone on in 2020.
This is the second high profile White House renovation that has gone awry from Melania. In August, she revealed her new look for the iconic Rose Garden, which some commentators compared to a ‘cemetry’.
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