Melania's picture holding an orphaned baby beside a grinning Donald Trump doing a thumbs up has sparked an outcry from netizens.
The First Lady and the President, Donald Trump, recently took a trip to two communities that suffered casualties after mass shooting incidents. When they stopped at the first community, at El Paso, Texas, the first couple had a photocall, which showed them at the University Medical Center of El Paso Wednesday.
Mrs. Trump carried a baby in her arms, posing with the President, who held his thumbs-up out in front, grinning from ear to ear. The First Lady posted this photo on Twitter that same day, an occasion that earned the ire of social media.
The baby that Melania carried was a two-year-old boy, whose parents were killed at the El Paso shooting. The child's parents, Andre and Jordan Anchondo, died Saturday after a lone gunman opened fire and caught them both, killing them on the spot.
It was said that Paul, the orphan, had to be brought to the hospital again after the White House requested it. The baby was injured during the incident when her mother's body fell on him as she died while shielding him from the bullets fired, breaking his fingers. His father also attempted to stay in front of his family, to get in the way of the shots fired, and it became his last act of protection for his loved ones.
In the aforesaid picture, Paul's uncle, Tito Anchondo, stood beside President Trump. A supporter himself, he indicated his recently deceased brother was "very supportive" of President Trump. He also commented that "people" might just be "misconstruing" the president's "ideas."
However, Melania's post did not go down well on social media as only shortly after it had been posted, the backlash had been quick. One tweet posed the question "WTH," in disbelief, "is going on?" The same user expressed he was both "genuinely confused" as well as "horrified" by the photo of the baby whose parents were killed carried by Melania while she posed beside a grinning Trump, who had given a thumbs up.
The same user asked whether he was "taking" it "the wrong way."
At the hospital, the Trumps had not gotten an audience with the eight survivors, as five had declined. And the other three were either in "too poor" condition, recovering from their ordeal or did not speak English, the hospital had explained.
There were reports that the doctors at El Paso's Del Sol medical center perceived Trump did not have "empathy" and instead bragged about how much bigger the crowd he gathered during his January rally.
Mayor pro tempore of El Paso, O'Rourke, indicated, shortly before the Trump visit to his city, that he never wanted the President to come, believing that the latter's anti-immigrant stance had primarily fueled the shooting. It was a sentiment that figured largely in the manifesto, which the suspected shooter Patrick Crusius posted just a short time before the shooting began.
