Former First Lady Melania Trump touted her widely-panned 2020 renovation of the White House Rose Garden in a video posted to X on Friday.
The renovation, which consisted of tearing up cherry blossom and crabapple trees and replacing historic rose varietals with more muted strains in a dramatic re-work, drew intense scrutiny from historians and gardening enthusiasts for its destruction of the historically significant and iconic botanical display.
“When the Committee for the Preservation of the White House asked me to renovate the Rose Garden, I felt a deep responsibility to respect tradition,” Trump said in the video, despite reports that renovations were completed for use in the 2020 Republican National Convention. “In my book, I share the story of this journey: how my team and I worked to safeguard this piece of our history.”
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: @dougmillsnyt pic.twitter.com/78OqjkoOPt
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) August 7, 2021
Following the changes, Trump defended the new look and called criticism from presidential historian Michael Beschloss “misleading” and “dishonorable,” prompting another wave of backlash against the historic gutting.
The garden was the subject of a petition in 2021 begging First Lady Jill Biden to restore it to its former glory.
Trump drew attention during her tenure as First Lady for her disregard of many White House traditions. She was infamously caught on a hot mic asking “who gives a f*ck” about Christmas decorations in the White House.
Melania has used much of the rollout of her memoir, due out in October, to rehash old arguments. Earlier this week, she shared ad for the book where she defended herself against criticisms of her nude modeling work that arose during the 2016 election.
