Melania Trump lays out priorities as first lady

As first lady, Melania Trump would focus on women’s issues and eliminating cyber bullying, she announced in Pennsylvania on Thursday in a speech aimed at female voters in the critical battleground state.

In a rare campaign appearance just days before the election, Trump, reading from a teleprompter at a rally in Berwyn, talked about growing up in rural Slovenia and how she was inspired at a young age by Ronald Reagan’s presidency. 

{mosads}She recalled life as a model in Paris and Milan, her journey to citizenship and marriage to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, citing her life story as an unlikely example of the American Dream playing out for a girl from a tiny country under communist control. 

“Love for this country is something I shared when I met Donald,” she said. “He loves this country and knows how to get things done, not just talk. He certainly knows how to shake things up, doesn’t he?” 

“Every time my husband learned of a factory closing in Ohio or North Carolina or here in Pennsylvania, I saw him get very upset,” she continued. “He could see what was happening. He saw the problems and he always talked about how he could fix them.” 

Melania Trump’s last campaign speech was at the Republican National Convention in July, where she faced backlash for appearing to plagiarize portions of an address first lady Michelle Obama delivered at the Democratic National Convention in 2008. She has said she prefers to stay out of the spotlight as she raises the couple’s youngest child, Barron. 

But in the final days of the campaign, Trump joined running mate Mike Pence’s wife, Karen, for a rare appearance in Pennsylvania — a traditionally blue state the Trump campaign is hoping to flip. 

New polls out of Pennsylvania show Donald Trump has moved to within striking distance of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton there. 

Clinton led by as much as 9.5 points in the RealClearPolitics average there a month ago, but Trump has moved to within 4 points now. 

And a Monmouth University survey released Wednesday might indicate why the Trump campaign dispatched its top female surrogates to the state. 

The poll found Trump’s gains are largely due to his growing support among white women. He still trails Clinton among the group, 45 percent to 48 percent, but has gained considerable ground over the last survey, when he trailed among white women 35 percent to 55 percent 

Supporters at the rally held signs that said “Women for Trump” as Melania Trump ticked through ways she said she’d make life better for women and girls. 

“I will also work hard every day to improve the lives of women,” she said. “The women in America are strong, intelligent, generous, committed, determined. With opportunity, women will advance and achieve, but some women have been left behind. I see that. We cannot call ourselves a fully developed or advanced nation when 50 percent living in poverty, when 60 percent are without health insurance, when too many are choosing between basic needs like rent, food and healthcare. This cannot be. We cannot afford to have more of the same.” 

Trump also expressed a passion for ridding the internet of bullying over social media, describing it as a scourge akin to children picking on one another on the playground. 

“Our culture has gotten too mean and rough, especially to children and teenagers, who are mocked, bullied and attacked,” she said. “It is terrible when it happens on the playground and unacceptable when it happens from someone with no name hiding on the internet.” 

That claim drew mockery from some quarters, as critics argued that Trump has used his massive social media presence to attack his opponents.

.@DanaBashCNN on @MELANIATRUMP appeal for decency on social media: “I kept thinking, ‘Have you met Donald Trump?'”

— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) November 3, 2016