On Wednesday (6 May), United States First Lady Melania Trump delivered a speech during a White House event honouring military mothers.
During the speech, the 56-year-old took the opportunity to praise her husband, Donald Trump, by attributing a certain characteristic to him, which prompted the audience to erupt into a chorus of laughs.
Melania told the crowd that while 'most know my husband as the strong commander-in-chief,' his 'empathy transcends the role and shape of a caring leader, who constantly remembers each and every American soldier is someone’s child'.
Footage from the event showed the crowd laughing while even Melania cracked a smirk.
Donald and Melania Trump spoke at an event for Military Mothers at the White House on Wednesday (Bloomberg / Contributor / Getty Images) It didn't take long for people to rush to social media to share their reactions to the viral clip, with one X user writing: "OMG. The crowd at the White House burst out laughing when Melania mentioned Trump’s 'empathy'. Even Melania laughed. Painfully humiliating for the dear leader."
A second chimed in: "Trump is the first guy to laugh at the concept of him having empathy."
"Empathy?" questioned a third as a fourth echoed: "Does she know what empathy means?"
A fifth jabbed: "Imagine being so morally bankrupt your own wife bursts out laughing at the thought of you having empathy."
"Empathy my a**," slammed another, and a final X user claimed: "Melania calling Trump empathetic is peak comedy. Even she knows it's a joke - the audience just said it out loud."
Melania said that Trump's 'empathy transcends the role and shape of a caring leader' during the event (Bloomberg / Contributor / Getty Images) Elsewhere during the event, Trump was talking about a woman named Melody Wolff before sharing an anecdote of an awkward autocorrect issue in his social media posts, prompting scrutiny from the public.
In a video shared by Fox News, he recalled: "I love the name Melody because for a long time, you know, they have spell correct and word correct on these crazy machines that we use to put out Truths, they used to be called Tweets.
"Every time I wrote Melania, it would correct to Melody."
Trump admitted: "I do think I work very fast and I'd talk about her, say and I'd say 'Melania is fantastic' and 'happy Mother's Day, Melania our great first lady, Melania.'
"But it would spell correct and word correct to 'Melody.' And sometimes I wouldn't proofread it, and I would get just absolutely decimated. These people would decimate me."
The crowd laughed as the President continued: "They said he didn't know the name of his wife. He keeps calling her... and I said what the hell is wrong with this machine, I didn't know about that little feature, but I got that corrected eventually."
Trump added: "You know who corrected it? The military. I said 'Come here, you gotta correct this, you're killing me. I took more abuse.' She's been called Melody a lot."