CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday night played secret recordings made by Melania Trump’s former aide Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who was in charge of organizing Trump’s inauguration. In the recordings, made in July 2018, the First Lady expresses frustration at criticism over Trump’s family separation policy and reveals her disdain for having to decorate the White House for Christmas.
In an interview with Rachel Maddow in September, Wolkoff said she began making secret recordings when she felt she was being thrown under the bus.
Says the First Lady in one segment: “They say I’m complicit. I’m the same like him, I support him. I don’t say enough I don’t do enough where I am. I’m working … my ass off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a f**k about the Christmas stuff and decorations? But I need to do it, right? Correct? Okay, and then I do it and I say that I’m working on Christmas and planning for the Christmas and they said, ‘Oh, what about the children that they were separated?’ Give me a f**king break. Where they were saying anything when Obama did that? I cannot go, I was trying get the kid reunited with the mom. I didn’t have a chance — needs to go through the process and through the law.”
The First Lady ripped the media: “They would not do the story. They would not do the story because they were against us. They would not do the story because they are against us because they are liberal media. Yeah if I go to FOX they will do the story. I don’t want to go to FOX.
And she talked about the “I Don’t Really Care Do U” jacket that went viral: “I’m driving liberals crazy that’s for sure. And that, you know, that’s – and they deserve it You understand? And everybody’s like ‘oh my God, this is the worst, this is the worst.’ After, I mean come on. They are crazy. Okay?
In another portion, the First Lady talks about the children separated from their parents at the border: “The kids, they say, ‘Wow I will have my own bed? I will sleep on the bed? I will have a cabinet for my clothes?’ It’s so sad to hear it but they didn’t have that in their own countries. They sleep on the floor. … They are taken care of nicely there. But you know, yeah, they are not with parents, it’s sad. But when they come here alone or with coyotes or illegally, you know, you need to do something. … A lot of like moms and kids they are teached how to do it. They go over and they say like, ‘Oh, we will be killed by a gang member, we will be, you know, it’s so dangerous.’ So they are allowed to stay here.”
“It’s not true that they would, you know what I mean,” the First Lady adds. “Some of them are using that lines. They’re not professional but they are teached by other people what to say to come over and to you know let them go to stay here. Because they could easily stay in Mexico but they don’t want to stay in Mexico because Mexico doesn’t take care of them the same as America does.”
