Donald Trump and his wife Melania. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Melania Trump wanted to light the White House up in rainbow colours to celebrate Pride Month, but she was forbidden from doing so, according to two Republican sources.
The White House was famously lit up in the rainbow colours in 2015, when Barack Obama was president, in the wake of the landmark Supreme Court ruling that made equal marriage the law of the land.
And Melania Trump wanted to repeat that incredible show of solidarity in June, Republican sources told the Washington Blade – but the plan never came to fruition.
The first lady’s plans were scrapped when Mark Meadows, as chief of staff, was blocking any attempt to show support for the LGBT+ community within the Trump administration, reports suggest.
According to one unnamed Republican source, Meadows ensured that the White House completely ignored Pride Month in June.
Meadows may also have played a part in Donald Trump’s failure to acknowledge Pride celebrations on Twitter. The US president tweeted about the event in 2019, but completely ignored it in 2020.
While it is unknown if Meadows directly interfered in Melania Trump’s efforts to light the White House in the rainbow colours, Republican sources believe he may have been instrumental.
Melania Trump later said she was ‘shocked’ that people think her husband holds anti-LGBT+ views.
Just months after the first lady’s alleged plans to mark Pride Month failed to materialise, she appeared in an election video for the Log Cabin Republicans, an LGBT+ conservative group, in which she claimed she was “shocked” that people think her husband is anti-gay.
“I was shocked to discover that some of these powerful people have tried to paint my husband as anti-gay or against equality,” Melania said.
“Nothing could be further from the truth.”
The first lady said her husband was an “outsider” and claimed he was the “first president to enter the White House supporting gay marriage”, despite the fact that he opposed marriage equality for years before he was elected.
Following the momentous Supreme Court ruling that made marriage equality a reality across the United States in 2015, Obama said: “All people should be treated equal regardless of who they love.”
The decision to light the White House in rainbow colours was met with widespread joy from LGBT+ people across the United States.