First Lady Melania Trump has found herself at the center of an unlikely attraction at President Donald Trump’s patriotic state fair extravaganza.
A cow named “Melania” was paraded about at the Great American State Fair, a White House-backed spectacle staged on Washington, D.C.’s National Mall as part of celebrations marking America’s 250th anniversary.
When asked about the unusual moniker, Future Farmers of America student Piper Stolipher explained that she and her fellow students were brainstorming patriotic names tied to the nation’s semiquincentennial.
“We thought Melania would be a good idea because it’s the first lady’s name, and the hair colors kind of match,” Stolipher told The Washington Post. “And it just fit.”
The fair itself has become one of the Trump administration’s most ambitious - and controversial - America250 projects. Amid the sprawling grounds sits a towering 110-foot Freedom 250 Ferris wheel and a plywood “Triumph Arch,” modeled after a monument Trump has proposed constructing near Arlington National Cemetery.
But despite the grand ambitions, attendance appeared sparse. The Daily Beast visited during late afternoon and early evening hours and found little sign of the large crowds organizers had hoped would arrive after work and school.
Several states declined to participate altogether, citing taxpayer costs, sponsorship challenges, or concerns that the supposedly nonpartisan celebration had taken on an overtly political tone after Trump kicked off the festivities with a MAGA rally earlier in the week.
The event emerged after months of friction between the White House and the congressionally chartered America250 commission, which had spent years planning anniversary celebrations before Trump’s team launched its own competing vision.
