In the wake of Democrats largely refusing to show up to a roundtable meeting with beloved First Lady Melania Trump to promote the “Take It Down Act,” a bill that would force social media companies to take down explicit deepfakes, thus protecting teenage girls for whom the problem is growing increasingly problematic, Trump praised her hard work during his State of the Union address. Melania beamed with joy as he did so.
Speaking about his gorgeous wife’s work during a section of his speech in which he was commenting on protecting Americans by protecting our borders and industry, Trump took time to comment on her hard work in a brief but powerful digression that led to her smiling with joy at his very public praise of her.
Doing so, Trump began by calling her “very loving” and “magnificent”, saying, “And I also wanna recognize another person who has devoted herself to foster care community. She worked so hard on it. A very loving person, our magnificent First Lady of the United States. Melania’s work has yielded incredible results, helping prepare our nation’s future leaders as they enter the workforce.”
Continuing, he gave one example of the way Melania is helping young people, telling the listening country, “Our First Lady is joined by two impressive young women, very impressive. Haley Ferguson, who benefited from the First Lady’s Fostering the Future initiative and is poised to complete her education and become a teacher.”
He then got to the Take It Down Act that Melania has worked so hard for, and which Democrats refused to help her with shortly before the State of the Union speech. He said, “And Elliston Berry, who became a victim of an illicit deep fake image produced by a peer. With Elliston’s help, the Senate just passed the Take It Down Act. And this is so important.”
Commenting on the moment on X (formerly Twitter) and adding a bit of context, ABC News said, “Pres. Trump praised first lady Melania Trump’s work supporting the “Take It Down” Act, which is intended to criminalize the publication of deepfake and non-consensual pornography and require platforms to remove such content.” Watch the moment here:
"*" indicates required fields
Pres. Trump praised first lady Melania Trump’s work supporting the “Take It Down” Act, which is intended to criminalize the publication of deepfake and non-consensual pornography and require platforms to remove such content. https://t.co/XDLWXWC8pj pic.twitter.com/PRnQ5yRNQl
— ABC News (@ABC) March 5, 2025
Trump then added that Sen. Thune has aided Melania’s efforts on the subject, saying, “Thank you very much, John. John Thune. Thank you. Stand up John. Thank you John. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you to John Thune and the Senate. Great job to criminalize the publication of such images online.”
He also commented on the problem generally, saying, “It’s terrible… terrible thing. And once it passes the House, I look forward to signing that bill into law. Thank you. And I’m gonna use that bill for myself too, if you don’t mind. ‘Cause nobody gets treated worse than I do online—nobody. That’s great. Thank you very much to the Senate. Thank you.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video