First lady Melania Trump will advocate for legislation to regulate deepfakes during a meeting on Capitol Hill Monday, her first solo engagement since returning to the White House.
The bill Trump will highlight, the “TAKE IT DOWN” Act, was introduced by a bipartisan group of senators, led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), in the last Congress and reintroduced at the beginning of the current Congress. The legislation would make it a crime to publish “non-consensual intimate imagery” and require websites and social media platforms to remove offending content as part of an effort to curb so-called “deepfake pornography.”
The “TAKE IT DOWN” Act passed a Senate vote last month but has yet to be taken up by the House of Representatives.
The first lady’s trip will mark her second appearance on Capitol Hill in recent months, the other time being when her husband, President Donald Trump, was sworn back into office in the Capitol Rotunda in January.
Since returning to the office of first lady, Trump has made few appearances outside of the first few days in office. She joined the president on his trip to visit victims of natural disasters in North Carolina and California during the first week of her husband’s second term after attending all the usual Inauguration Day festivities.
Trump has reportedly spent most of her time away from the White House since the early days of the term, before returning to Washington, D.C., for the National Governors Association Evening Dinner late last month.
Prior to returning to office, Trump said her “first priority” would be to “serve the country” and indicated she would spend most of her time at the White House, despite reports suggesting otherwise.
Last week, the first lady’s office announced the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, which is scheduled for April 21, the Monday after Easter.
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During the first Trump White House, Melania Trump focused her efforts as first lady on her “Be Best” initiative, which focused on awareness of cyberbullying and promoting the well-being of young people.
Donald Trump will travel to Capitol Hill on Tuesday evening to deliver his first address to a joint session of Congress in his second term.