First Lady Melania Trump spoke to Trump supporters at a Make America Great Again event in Atglen, Pennsylvania, on October 27, 2020. (GABRIELLA AUDI/AFP via Getty)
While attacking Democrats at a Make America Great Again event, Melania Trump insisted that husband Donald “sees potential in everyone, no matter their gender or sexual orientation”.
First lady Melania Trump spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania Tuesday (October 27), where she claimed: “The Democrats with help from the media have worked tirelessly to all but destroy our traditional values.”
When it came to her husband, however, she then claimed: “Before my husband decided to run for president, the media loved him because they saw the man that I see every day. Someone tough, successful and fair.”
A Trump supporter in the crowd screamed: “And handsome!” With a pained smile, Melania said: “I agree.”
She then confusingly went on to describe the president as a “man who sees potential in everyone he meets, no matter their gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation”.
Melania Trump claimed Donald ‘sees potential in everyone’, but he has attacked the LGBT+ community 181 times.
Despite Melania Trump’s claims, the US president has so far attacked the LGBT+ community 181 times, according to GLAAD’s Trump Accountability Project, during the 1377 days he has held office.
Donald Trump failed to see the “potential” in the LGBT+ community when his administration banned transgender people from serving in the military, actively supported discrimination against LGBT+ people in employment, services and healthcare and erased LGBT+ resources, data and language from government websites.
In June, Trump’s Republican Party announced that it would be leaving its 2016 party platform unchanged, meaning that the GOP will continue to officially support the reversal of marriage equality.
Despite an outbreak of “Gays for Trump” and “Trump Pride” events in the final few weeks before the presidential election, his re-election campaign has published no policies whatsoever on LGBT+ issues.
This week saw the confirmation of Trump pick Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court, taking the place of LGBT+ rights champion Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Barrett’s anti-LGBT+ record, including her membership of the Catholic group People of Praise which kicks members out for having gay sex and her ties to listed anti-LGBT+ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom, has sparked fears that she could roll back marriage equality.