Melania to attend cyberbullying summit one week after Trump's 'dog' tweet about Omarosa

Maria Puente | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption WH: Jabs at Omarosa Have Nothing to Do with Race The White House says former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman has "shown a complete lack of integrity" with her criticism of President Donald Trump and that his tweets referring to her as a "dog" have "absolutely nothing to do with race." (Aug. 14)

An announcement that first lady Melania Trump will attend an anti-cyber-bullying summit on Monday has renewed concern about her husband's own behavior on social media.

Her plan to attend the Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention summit in the Washington suburb of Rockville, Maryland, comes just four days after the president referred to former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman as a "dog" on Twitter. Critics viewed the tweet as further evidence that he uses coarser language against people of color.

The first lady is expected to deliver brief remarks addressing the positive and negative effects of social media on youth, one of the key issues of her Be Best campaign to improve the well-being of children, which she launched in May with a splashy event at the White House.

She will also attend a panel discussion with representatives from multiple social media platforms, although these were not identified in the one-paragraph-long advance announcement released by her East Wing office.

If there was any hesitancy on the part of the first lady or her 10-person staff about the timing of this appearance, they didn't show it, despite the longstanding vocal criticism of the president's use of social media to lob insult grenades at his foes.

His latest target: Omarosa, his former "Apprentice" co-star-turned-fired White House aide, who has used her book tour to take down Trump as a racist, misogynist and "mentally declining" cyber-bully-in-chief.

Omarosa claims Trump’s 'mental decline' in new book Former White House aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman claims in her new book, "Unhinged," that she saw evidence of President Trump’s "mental decline." Natasha Abellard has the story.

Omarosa generally praised the first lady in her tell-all book, "Unhinged," but also made some eyebrow-raising, unproven claims about her, such as Trump's desire to divorce her husband as soon as he leaves office. On Monday, the day before "Unhinged" was published, the first lady's spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, issued a statement saying the first lady and Omarosa “rarely, if ever, interacted."

Grisham noted her boss has been disappointed to see Omarosa "lashing out and retaliating in such a self-serving way, especially after all the opportunities given to her by the president.”

Once news of the first lady's bland cyber-bullying summit announcement began circulating, Twitter's anti-Trump chorus began firing Friday at both the president and first lady. Some in the media were just as contemptuous.

The Huffington Post, frequently critical of the Trump administration, featured the headline, "Melania Trump To Address Cyberbullying Summit. ‘That’s A Joke, Right?’

"First breakaway session: When it is okay to refer to females as dogs in a tweet to the world," hypothesized a male user called @Jpru30rush.

First breakaway session: When it is okay to refer to females as dogs in a tweet to the world. — JP71 (@Jpru30Rush) August 16, 2018

"Shouldn't @FLOTUS take care of the #BullyInChief, first. #BeBest is meaningless if she doesn't," declared @SueLawr30382612, who features an #IMPEACHTRUMPNOW hashtag on her Twitter bio.

"@FLOTUS needs a new topic. As a teacher, who teaches anti-bullying, it is hard to take her seriously. The kids hear & see what her husband tweets. No child can look up to this prez and we struggle to teach them honestly & honor. The anti-cyberbullying needs to start at home," tweeted Marnie Bond, who identifies as a Democrat on her Twitter bio.

@FLOTUS needs a new topic. As a teacher, who teaches anti-bullying, it is hard to take her seriously. The kids hear & see what her husband tweets. No child can look up to this prez and we struggle to teach them honestly & honor. The anti-cyberbullying needs to start at home. — Marnie Bond (@marnie_bond) August 16, 2018

"@FLOTUS someone is online bullying again #bebest," tweeted user Jennifer Raines.

Even before the summit appearance was announced, Twitter critics were aiming snarky tweets at the first lady in the wake of the president's Omarosa-is-a-dog jibe.

"Hey @FLOTUS how’s that eliminating online bullying campaign going?" tweeted Keith Hampe.

Hey @FLOTUS how’s that eliminating online bullying campaign going? — Keith H (@KHampe_) August 15, 2018

The disconnect between the first lady's stated concerns about cyber-bullying and her husband's Twitter habits has been obvious since the 2016 campaign, but Melania Trump has ignored this and carried on regardless.

In March, when executives from Amazon, Facebook, Google, Twitter and other social-media companies gathered for a roundtable discussion about cyberspace with her at the White House, she told them she was aware of the hypocrisy charge and undeterred.

“I am well aware that people are skeptical of me discussing this topic,” Trump said in her opening remarks. “I have been criticized for my commitment to tackling this issue, and I know that will continue. But it will not stop me from doing what I know is right.”

She took a similar public stance of indifference to the uproar caused when she wore a jacket emblazoned with "I DON'T REALLY CARE, DO U?" on the back, a fashion flub that undermined her humanitarian trip to Texas in June to meet migrant children separated from their parents at the border.

It was "just a jacket," there was no hidden meaning, Grisham protested at the time. Trump defiantly wore the jacket on the trip home to muggy Washington and as she made her way back into the White House.