WASHINGTON DC (Agencies): Former first lady Melania Trump fired back at a historian who criticized the renovations she made to the White House Rose Garden last year, calling his remarks “misleading” and “dishonorable” before questioning his credibility.
“.@BeschlossDC has proven his ignorance by showing a picture of the Rose Garden in its infancy. The Rose Garden is graced with a healthy & colorful blossoming of roses. His misleading information is dishonorable & he should never be trusted as a professional historian,” the former first lady’s office tweeted on Sunday.
The message was in response to a tweet from Michael Beschloss, presidential historian for NBC News and a frequent critic of former President Trump, who said that the “Evisceration” of the White House Rose Garden was finished a year ago this month.
“And here was the grim result — decades of Am-erican history made to disappear,” Beschloss wrote.
The Trump White House revealed the newly renovated Rose Garden last August, which was spearheaded by the then-first lady. Her office said she wanted to make the area more closely resemble the original 1962 design made by Rachel Lambert Mellon during the Kennedy administration.
The changes sparked criticism among many, who attacked the historic garden’s new look.
A petition surfaced in April, which has received more than 80,000 signatures, calling for first lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff to reverse the changes to the Rose Garden.
“In 2019, Melania Trump had the cherry trees, a gift from Japan, removed as well as the rest of the foliage and replaced with a boring tribute to herself,” the Change.org petition says.
“We want Jill Biden and Doug Emhoff to take this on and restore the Rose Garden to [former first lady Jackie Kennedy’s] original design,” it added.
The petition argued that the renovations made by the Trump administration “ripped away” Kennedy’s legacy. Biden and Emhoff have not previously responded to the petition.
