Rose Garden row: Ex-NYT reporter says 'foreigner' Melania had 'no right to wreck our history' in xenophobic rant
Former New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald was forced to delete the tweets criticizing Melania Trump for renovating the White House Rose Garden after his posts claiming the first lady was “a foreigner,” was termed "xenophobic" by other journalists.
“It is a destruction of our history, something no other First Lady would have had the gall to do,” Eichenwald, a New York Times bestselling author, tweeted on Saturday, “This is the first time I have been furious that @FLOTUS is a foreigner. She has no right to wreck our history.”
In a follow-up tweet, he added: “I still find it unbelievable that @FLOTUS who has only been a citizen since the middle of GW Bush's second term had the audacity to wreck the Rose Garden, to pull up history dating back a lifetime. These trashy, evil, stupid people need to get out of our house. What GALL she has.”
He didn't stop there. Reacting from a tweet from the first lady on Saturday, August 22, which featured photos of the renovations. Eichenwald, who spent two decades as a senior writer at The New York Times, also wrote: “Someone who has only been a citizen for less than 1/3 of her life should be reverent to America's history, should honor our history, not decide her personal taste should rip it up.”
The negative connotations of his tweets were pointed out soon after by a number of journalists. Mehdi Hasan, a senior columnist at The Intercept and host on the Al Jazeera network, reacted to that tweet writing, “This is a horrible anti-immigrant take, Kurt, and you should delete it and apologize." In another tweet, he added, "Call Melania awful, fine. Call her a hypocrite, fine. But don't question her naturalized citizenship or suggest immigrants have second-class or inferior citizenship rights to the rest of the citizenry. That's totally wrong and a dangerous path to go down, sorry."
This is a horrible anti-immigrant take, Kurt, and you should delete it and apologize https://t.co/SW7CtqTzTJ
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) August 23, 2020
Call Melania awful, fine. Call her a hypocrite, fine. But don't question her naturalized citizenship or suggest immigrants have second-class or inferior citizenship rights to the rest of the citizenry. That's totally wrong and a dangerous path to go down, sorry.
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) August 23, 2020
In reply to Hasan's tweet, CNN anchor Jake Tapper wrote, “This is xenophobic and wrong. It’s bigotry."
Agree. @kurteichenwald this is xenophobic and wrong. It’s bigotry.
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) August 23, 2020
Eichenwald eventually deleted his tweets and eventually replaced them with an apology extending over a couple of tweets.
"People may have misunderstood my point about Melania being a foreigner & ripping up plants put in place by almost 100 years of First Ladies. It was a complex point & I was wrong to say it. My point was, people who come to America should celebrate its history, not ignore it. But I deleted the tweets. I did not have the ill-intent they seemed to have conveyed to so many. I should be more careful in what those types of words seem to imply. We all fail in our words at times, this was one of my times. I apologize," he wrote.
People may have misunderstood my point about Melania being a foreigner & ripping up plants put in place by almost 100 years of First Ladies. It was a complex point & I was wrong to say it. My point was, people who come to America should celebrate its history, not ignore it. But..
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) August 23, 2020
...I deleted the tweets. I did not have the ill-intent they seemed to have conveyed to so many. I should be more careful in what those types of words seem to imply. We all fail in our words at times, this was one of my times. I apologize.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) August 23, 2020
Melania posted photos of the updated Rose Garden the same day that the renovated area was unveiled to the White House reporters. “Excited to honor history & celebrate the future in our beautiful @WhiteHouse Rose Garden this evening,” she captioned the tweet. “Thank you to all who helped renew this iconic & truly gorgeous space.”
Excited to honor history & celebrate the future in our beautiful @WhiteHouse Rose Garden this evening. Thank you to all who helped renew this iconic & truly gorgeous space. pic.twitter.com/ggiqLkdGbw
— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) August 22, 2020
The renovations took three weeks to complete. She announced last month that she was overseeing a redesign of the Rose Garden and was aiming to restore it to its original 1962 style similar to the one maintained during the Kennedy administration.
“The very act of planting a garden involves hard work and hope in the possibility of a bright future,” she said in a statement. “Preserving the history and beauty of the White House and its grounds is a testament to our nation’s commitment to the care of this landscape and our dedication to American ideals, safeguarding them for our children and their children for generations to come.”