As the first lady, Melania Trump will be making the case again for her husband Donald Trump as he runs for reelection this year at the Republican Convention. Melania will be delivering her speech to the Republican Party from the newly-renovated White House Rose Garden.
The Daily Mail reports that she along with her husband will be delivering their respective speeches for the partisan event from the White House. This has raised concerns among critics especially as the residence was going to be used for political purposes. Melania will be speaking from the Rose Garden while Donald will making his speech from the South Lawn.
This would be the second time Melania will make her address to the Republican party, following the controversy surrounding her speech in 2016, where her speech was revealed to have been plagiarized from her predecessor Michelle Obama’s Democratic convention speech back in 2008. Some portions were copied word-for-word, including the points the former first lady made. The Trump campaign released a statement following the backlash, noting the similarities between the two speeches but did not address the plagiarism issue.
Melania has stayed out of the spotlight for much of August, staying in the Trumps’ Bedminster golf club with their son Barron Trump in the midst of overseeing the renovations that were being made to the Rose Garden. The first lady’s Republican convention address may be when she plans to unveil the newly renovated location.
The renovation of the Rose Garden is financed through private donations, and Melania plans to add new plants and shrubs to the landscape. The Rose Garden will also be better equipped for future television appearances, believed to be her way of boosting her husband’s reelection efforts while at the same time modernizing the historic location. Melania enlisted the help of landscape architectural firms Perry Guillot, Inc. as well as Oehme, van Sweden along with the National Park Service and White House Superintendent of grounds Dale Haney.
The improved Rose Garden is also expected to stay true to its original design back in 1962 that was implemented by the Kennedy administration by horticulturalist Rachel “Bunny” Mellon.