Melania Trump can watch whatever she wants on TV, the East Wing says

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July 25, 2018 5:48 PM

Though the standard operating procedure on Air Force One now requires televisions on board to be tuned to Fox, the president’s preferred channel.

WASHINGTON — Melania Trump has freedom over her own remote control.

Though the standard operating procedure on Air Force One now requires televisions on board to be tuned to Fox, the president’s preferred channel, Melania Trump ultimately has freedom over what she watches, the East Wing said Wednesday.

The statement was delivered in response to a report in The New York Times describing the president’s displeasure over Melania Trump’s television being tuned to CNN on the first couple’s recent European trip.

In an statement sent to CNN, the first lady’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said that it was “kind of silly” to ask what the first lady watches on TV, then added, in parenthesis, “any channel she wants.”

The statement is consistent with one message the East Wing has tried to drive home on behalf of Melania Trump over the past year and a half. She has repeatedly directed her aides to declare that she operates independently of her husband.

Examples abound. The separate events held on her trip through Europe with Donald Trump earlier this month? “Mrs. Trump looks at her role independently,” Grisham said of activities that included visiting children and playing lawn bowls in London with the prime minister’s husband.

The events the first lady held throughout the spring in her efforts to end bullying, despite being told to focus on something less controversial given her husband’s pugilistic tendencies? “Of course she knows there is going to be criticism, but she is an independent woman,” Grisham told reporters.

The concern over the first lady’s health after a weeklong hospital stay and weeks out of the public eye? “Mrs. Trump has always been a strong and independent woman who puts her family, and certainly her health, above all else, and that won’t change over a rabid press corps,” Grisham said in June.

And what about that jacket, inscribed with “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” that Melania Trump wore on the way to visit children held in detention centers near the U.S. border?

“No one tells the first lady what to do,” Grisham said. “Our office has nothing to do with what clothing choices she makes and this situation was no different.”

As far as the first lady’s channel-changing independence goes, Melania Trump and her office stay abreast of coverage of the White House, particularly anything about the East Wing.

And she has said in the past that she prefers fictional TV dramas. She is a fan of the show “Empire,” and enjoys the Shonda Rhimes-created drama “How to Get Away With Murder.”

She does not enjoy reality TV.

Wednesday, Grisham did not answer a question from The New York Times asking if Melania Trump agreed with her husband that his supporters should not believe what they hear in the news.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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