Over the weekend, the conspiracy theory accusing First Lady Melania Trump of using a body double while paying her respects to victims of a devastating tornado in Alabama trended on Twitter. President Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday to criticize the media for covering the unfounded conspiracy theory.
“The Fake News photoshopped pictures of Melania, then propelled conspiracy theories that it’s actually not her by my side in Alabama and other places,” Trump tweeted. “They are only getting more deranged with time!”
Vox reported that Trump’s tweet came shortly after “Fox & Friends” did a segment criticizing ABC’s “The View” for discussing the conspiracy theory.
“Fox & Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt called “The View” “hypocritical” because “they preach tolerance, yet they’re not tolerant of people who don’t agree with them.”
Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce accused the co-hosts of “The View” of creating a “classic mean girl environment.”
“This was an excuse to be able to mock her, to say she looked short, her face was a different shape, classic mean girl environment,” Bruce said. “When you’re in college or high school there’s the pretty girl who is nice and you go with a marker to mark up her locker and then you gossip about her and you call her names. That’s what these adult women were doing to the First Lady. What it did of course, is it reminds us of their jealousy, their envy, the fact that they have nothing else to do other than being mean.”
The White House director of communications for Melania Trump, Stephanie Grisham, pushed back on Monday against “The View” for discussing the baseless conspiracy theory, as The Daily Wire’s Ryan Saavedra reported.
“@flotus &@potus traveled to Alabama to pay their respects & comfort victims of the tornado devastation,” Grisham tweeted. “In typical fashion, @theview chooses to laugh in the face of tragedy. Shameful.”
In the segment, “The View” co-host Joy Behar pointed out that “some people think that the First Lady is using an imposter to stand in for her.”
“You mean there are two women that have to pretend they are listing to [Trump]?” Behar asked.
Behar then shared the photos of “Fake Melania” that conspiracy theorists are using to push their theory, claiming “that one does not look like her, sorry, I wasn’t going to go along with this but that one in that picture doesn’t look like her.”
“I spent like an hour on Saturday involved in this,” co-host Sunny Hostin said. “Melania is a very tall statuesque women. The one that we saw — the first one that we showed — she looks kind of short.”
In a statement to The Daily Wire, Grisham called the attack “disgusting.”
“I’ve always found it sad that a group of women spend so much time attacking another woman, whose only goal is to help children, but today’s episode went beyond the petty mean girl spirit that we’re used to. People died, people lost family, people are hurting. I watched the President and First Lady hug, speak with, and comfort people who had lost everything — and these ‘ladies’ are laughing about body doubles. It was disgusting.”