Melania Trump has shared her first official White House photograph, but people have been left confused over one thing.
On 20 January, Donald Trump was officially sworn in as the 47th US president. Over the last week, the Trump administration has been pretty busy, putting in place a number of executive orders.
Some of the orders signed off include withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as changes to birthright citizenship, delaying the TikTok ban and only recognizing two genders – male and female.
Trump has also signed pardons for around 1,500 defendants who took part in the US Capitol riots back in January 2021, following Joe Biden’s election victory.
The Trump administration has also been making its presence known on social media, with First Lady Melania posting her official White House portrait this week.
The image was shot the day after Trump was sworn in and was taken by photographer Régine Mahaux, who has been working with the family for over 20 years and took Melania’s official portrait in 2017, too.
“I was really honored to be chosen to shoot this official portrait for the second time,” Mahaux told BBC.
“As an artist to work with such an inspiring woman is a great privilege. She is a perfectionist and is really involved in the creative process.”
Melania Trump’s official portrait was shared online (Régine Mahaux/The White House)
But after spotting the portrait on Instagram, some of Melania’s followers were left confused.
One person wrote: “I didn’t follow her.”
While another said: “Oh thanks I forgot to unfollow.”
Meanwhile a third commented: “Thanks for reminding me to unfollow. Girl, bye.”
A similar confusion happened last week, when people realized they were following both the president’s official account and Vice President JD Vance, despite having no recollection of doing so.
According to Meta, this allegedly occurred because such Instagram users were already following White House accounts before Trump and Vance took their oaths.
The changes were simply part of standard procedure during administrative turnover with Meta spokesperson, Andy Stone, writing on X: “The http://Facebook.com/POTUS and http://Facebook.com/WhiteHouse accounts are managed by the White House and they change when the occupant of the White House changes.”
This basically means that if you followed those accounts during one administration, you would still be following them as the administration changes over.
Ultimately, anyone following Joe Biden, Jill Biden or Kamala Harris’ official accounts, would automatically end up following the new president, first lady and vice president which, in this case, is Trump, Melania Trump and Vance.
