Entitlement

It was meant as a joke, just a comedy skit meant to poke some fun. But often life, as the tired cliche goes, imitates art.

In June that in the first act of this three-part play Melania Trump was set to move into the White House from her the $64 million apartment she shared with her populist everyman husband. Steven Colbert pounced with a prescient skit with Laura Benanti.

Imitating Mrs. Trump's accent and perceived sexuality, the singer/actress glumly stated "Oh, I couldn't be happier- see? These are my happy eyes. It was so lonely in New York, doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I called it my 'prison of freedom.'"





The second act took place when in early August the President told his golf buddies that compared to his golf club in Bedminster, NJ "that White House is a real dump." The third act has taken place now that Mr. and Mrs. Trump have

met with the wife of an imprisoned Venezuelan opposition leader in February and tried to sympathize with her husband's plight by comparing life in the White House to that inside a Venezuelan prison, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

Lilian Tintori, who is married to the Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, was at the White House to discuss human rights in Venezuela

President Trump’s decision to suddenly announce a major change in U.S. policy toward Venezuela in February began with an unexpected Oval Office meeting with Lilian Tintori, wife of the country’s most prominent political prisoner.

At the White House to meet Vice President Pence and press the administration to do more about human rights in her home country, Tintori was whisked in to see Trump, who seemed unfamiliar with her story but praised her past as a reality television star in Venezuela’s version of “Survivor.”

Later, as Tintori made her case during the 40-minute meeting, first lady Melania Trump, who was also in the room, said she sympathized with the conditions Tintori’s husband, Leopoldo ­López, faced in jail back in Caracas because the White House often felt as confining as a prison, according to two people familiar with the meeting, a point on which the president agreed.

Finally, as the meeting ended, the president suggested a group photo, including Pence and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a Tintori ally who was at the White House for a scheduled dinner with the president. After a couple of attempts — Trump didn’t like the first photo because he was smiling — the president was pleased enough with the final version, which showed him scowling and giving a thumbs-up sign under a portrait of Andrew Jackson. He promptly posted the photo on Twitter.

First Lady spokesperson Stephanie Grisham claimed "Mrs. Trump only offered words of encouragement and strength,” reminding us yet again (as with Spicer, Sanders, and others) that the less a spokesperson knows, the harder it is to accuse her of lying.

It is tempting, Colbert and Benanti found, to sympathize with Melania Trump because she has to live with Donald Trump.  Nonetheless, she is more alike her husband than different from him, with the sense of entitlement pervading this couple as it has with few others.





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