title:  Melania Pauses Anti-Bullying Initiative To Say Her Husband Is Allowed To Mock Women’s IQ And Looks
text: Set off by a comment about his small hands on MSNBC s Morning Joe, Donald Trump lashed out at the female host Mika Brzezinksi with a vicious attack on her intelligence and appearance.I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017 to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017The people closest to Trump, his family, had a unique opportunity to intervene and tell him to shut up. Instead, Melania Trump s spokesperson rushed out with a short message endorsing her husband s words and blaming the victim. It was sickening.Statement from the First Lady's Communications Director @StephGrisham45 pic.twitter.com/N8Sz0bobL4  Yashar Ali (@yashar) June 29, 2017Encouraging people to hit back  10 times harder  when they are attacked is an odd choice for Melania to go with. After all, her big White House initiative was supposed to be  anti-bullying.  Shortly before the election, she even specifically said part of her vision was that people would stop harming people based on  looks or intelligence. Melania Trump on cyberbullying, 11/3/16: We need to stop hurting people  made to feel less in looks or intelligence pic.twitter.com/Si2JEtLtLK  Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) June 29, 2017Her husband s attack on Mika checked both of those boxes   and she s apparently okay with it.The White House came out with a similar response as well. Trump is allowed to demean Mika because she s a liberal and criticized him. That was Trump s spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee s take: This is a president who fights fire with fire and certainly will not be allowed to be bullied by the liberal media and the liberal elites in the media, or Hollywood, or anywhere else. Meanwhile, experts have repeatedly warned that Donald Trump exhibits the  textbook  signs of a bully himself.Parry Aftab, a lawyer who leads the Internet safety group WiredSafety, said Mr. Trump s behavior was a textbook example of cyberbullying.In particular, she said his methods were characteristic of  mean-girl cyberbullying  because he enlists others to mimic his attacks. She said his conduct resembled the violent and abusive language her organization can often get removed from Facebook and Twitter.Indeed, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had to personally intervene on Trump s behalf and ensure none of Trump s Facebook posts were deleted for violating hate speech rules during the election because his messages often crossed the line.Trump is a man consumed by a rage directed at his critics   and it burns most brightly at his female critics. Infamously, he made attacking Megyn Kelly the centerpiece of his campaign, including shots at her menstruation cycle. It is no surprise, then, that he s turned his rage towards Mika Brzezinksi.Sadly, it s also no surprise that Melania is choosing to stand by her sexist husband rather than with a fellow woman.Featured image via Twitter