Former First Lady Melania Trump is not taking any criticism about her renovations to the White House Rose Garden lying down. Melania came out swinging after NBC News’ presidential historian Michael Beschloss gave his opinion on Twitter about her redesign nearly a year after the work was completed.
“Evisceration of White House Rose Garden was completed a year ago this month, and here was the grim result—decades of American history made to disappear,” he tweeted. The photo showed landscaping looking very green, but fairly barren in comparison to the colorful and luscious garden Americans have come to identify with its creator, former First Lady Jackie Kennedy. But Melania wasn’t going to let Beschloss have the last word on this topic.
.@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. https://t.co/LU243SANF1pic.twitter.com/PuVOSjxx5w
— Office of Melania Trump (@OfficeofMelania) August 8, 2021
“@BeschlossDChas proven his ignorance by showing a picture of the Rose Garden in its infancy,” the Office of Melania Trump fired back. “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 tweet included a photo of the Rose Garden in bloom with a splash of color hugging the White House walkway. Is it as colorful as it was in prior administrations? No. Does it look much better than Beschloss’ photo indicated? Yes.
But a lot of the reporting around the redesign was misleading, especially with the 10 crab apple trees that were removed between the rose bushes and the White House on each side of the landscaping — they were taken out, but not gone for good. “The trees, I am told, were removed to the off-campus White House gardening center for care,” CNN White House Correspondent Kate Bennett tweeted last year, “They will eventually be replanted on the WH grounds.”
Spring is here at the @WhiteHouse! pic.twitter.com/n87JOlJ7NN
— Jill Biden (@FLOTUS) May 7, 2021
A Change.org petition was started in April to ask “Jill Biden and Doug Emhoff to restore the Rose Garden to Jackie’s original design.” It currently has over 82,000 signatures, but any additional renovation work of the area isn’t a priority for the current Biden administration. Jill even tweeted a photo of the Rose Garden in bloom in May, writing, “Spring is here at the @WhiteHouse!” And that’s probably the final word on the redesign — the changes are here to stay.
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