Melania Trump calls for end to cyberbullying

She’s married to a man with a well-documented propensity for vicious Twitter battles and insulting his opponents, but Melania Trump says combating cyberbullying will be a cornerstone of her work if she becomes first lady.

“Our culture has gotten too mean and too rough,” Trump told a crowd Thursday in Berwyn, Pa. Saying she’d be an “advocate for women and for children” if GOP nominee Donald Trump wins the White House next week, the former model said, “I do worry about all of our children. As we know, now social media is the centerpiece of our lives.”

{mosads}“It can be a useful tool for connection and communication,” Trump continued. “But like anything that is powerful, it can have a bad side. We have seen this already.”

“As adults, many of use are able to handle mean words, even lies. Children and teenagers can be fragile,” Trump, mom to 10-year-old Barron, said during a rare speech by her on the campaign trail.

“They’re hurt when they are made fun of, or made to feel less in looks or intelligence. This makes their lives hard and can force them to hide and retreat.”

Donald Trump has been known to engage in Twitter spats with political and personal foes alike. “The thing that really gets me in trouble is retweets,” he said in an interview earlier this year when asked about his tweeting habits. “The retweet’s really more of a killer than the tweets. The tweets I do pretty well with.”

.@ariannahuff is unattractive both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man- he made a good decision.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 28, 2012

I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2016

.@FrankLuntz works really hard but is a guy who just doesn’t have it – a total loser!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2014

After Melania Trump’s speech, CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash reacted by saying, “I kept thinking, ‘Have you met Donald Trump?’”

“It is never OK when a 12-year-old girl or boy is mocked, bullied, or attacked. It is terrible when that happens on the playground, and it is absolutely unacceptable when it’s done by someone with no name hiding on the internet,” Melania Trump said to cheers on Thursday.

“We have to find a better way to talk to each other, to disagree with each other, to respect each other,” she said, adding it will be one of her “main focuses” if she is first lady.