Melania Trump has claimed that "Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump" and that she did not know Jeffrey Epstein until she attended a party in 2000, at which time she was introduced to Trump at a party. That is, generously speaking, dubious.
Fox News clown Greg Gutfield says "I can remember, not too long ago, how often I heard that Melania Trump was an escort." However, it was only yesterday that a video from May 1, 1999 surfaced in which Bob Sokoles of WHAS in Louisville met up in Kentucky with Donald J. Trump, who
addressed her as “Melania Knauss from New York, from
Austria.” The interviewer greeted her and asked him if he was at Churchill
Downs by Chapel? The President replied, “It’s certainly beautiful. I can’t
imagine a better investment. I’m here because a friend of mine has horse racing
today.”
pic.twitter.com/X8nYog72BI This was in 1999 She was a fucking Escort working for Epstein and Donald Trump was married to his 2nd wife Marla
Few are calling Melania a prostitue, a whore, or even a "slut" passed among the guys. The only serious claim is that she was an escort. And now we have video in which Donald Trump pronounces the last name of his "date" as if the "K" is not silent.
So he was dating and didn't know how to pronounce her last name. It is almost as if the relationship the young lady had was a transactional one, with a man who is believed to think that everything is transactional and for whom values always are subordinate to money and pleasure.
In his monologue on Thursday night, ABC's Jimmy Kimmel
speaking during a mock version of the annual dinner two
nights before the official event, delivered a series of jokes aimed at the
president and his family. Typically, a comedian headlines the dinner, and
Kimmel’s skit involved him delivering remarks as though he were the comedian
selected to roast the attendees.
“Our first lady is here. Mrs. Trump … you have a glow like
an expectant widow,” Kimmel said.
“By the way, in the unfortunate event that our president has
a medical emergency tonight, do we have a doctor in the house — oh, I’m sorry.
I mean, do we have a Jesus in the house? I always confuse them, too,” he added,
referring to a meme President Trump had previously posted and then deleted on
Truth Social that appeared to depict him as Jesus.
In January, Dr. Vin Gupta, medical analyst for NBC News, maintained that Trump, whose father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in his '80s, was displaying "word finding difficulties" and "inattentention, he loses his train of thought." He was exhibiting "clear inability to epress his own thoughts, difficulty completing a sentence, tangential speech. Of course, memory issues. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Greenland fro even the course of a sentnece and confuses it with Iceland."
Dr. Jonathan Reiner, the cardiologist who served as Vice President Dick Cheney's physician, pointed out that Trump was taking 325 mg of aspirin daily, typically prescribed only after a stroke or heart attack. Noting significant bruising that the President had been suffering, Reiner asked "Why would you continue to take a higher dose of aspirin than your doctor recommends if you're bruising excessively? Makes no sense."
Fresh concerns over US President Donald Trump’s health have
surfaced after recent visuals and reports suggested possible issues with his
mobility.
Speculation grew after observers claimed Trump may be using
a hidden leg brace, with some pointing to his movements and posture in public
appearances. Social media users also questioned his coordination, with videos
showing him appearing cautious while walking.
Kimmel contends that his words reflected the significant age difference between the middle-aged First Lady and the elderly President. Nontheless, the President is not a well man and, taken as a whole, evidence indicates that he may be dying. If Kimmel's critics had condemned the comedian for making light of the President's physical condition while evidence mounts that his health is critical, it would have been bad enough. Facts can be disregarded. But it's worse than that.
Kimmel made his weak joke in the evening of April 23. Yet, it wasn't until Monday, April 27 that Melania Trump- who once lived with husband Donald- complained "his monologue about my family isn't comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America." As deeply offended by "cancellation culture" as the rest of the Republican Party, Melania argued "People like Kimmel shouldn't have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate."
She continued "A coward, Kimmel hides behnd ABC because he knows the network willl keep running cover to protect him." "Enough is enough," whined the woman who hasn't had an original thought since she definitely was not a call girl nor passed among Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump, and other men. The ex-"model" added "It is time for ABC tot ake a stand. How many times will ABC's leadership enable Kimmel's atrocious behavior at the expense of our community."
A joke is not "behavior;" it is speech. The wife of the President, who did live with her husband at least a few years since she definitely was no longer a call girl, should know that.
A few hours later, the President himself, never missing a chance for demagoguery, described the comedian's joke as "shocking' and 'something far beyond the pale.'" Also a staunch oppponent of cancellation culture, Donald added "Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC."
Yet, the remarks of the presidential press secretary which were most significant. Lyin' Leavitt charged "Who in their right minds [sic]says a wife would be glowing over the potential murder of her beloved husband And having experienced what I did with the First Lady on Saturday night, I can tell you that she was anything but that."
In adding "this kind of rhetoric about the President, the First Lady, and his supporters is completely deranged," Karoline conflated Kimmel's comment with all other comments, inaccurately implying that they are polific. Referring to Donald as Melania's "beloved husband" is just short of bizarre when the First Lady evidently "hates his f---ing guts."
But the most telling phrase of Karoline's comment was "potential murder." This was not a reference to Ryan Routh, who poked a rifle through a chain-link fence while candidate Trump was golfing at Trump International Golf Club in Fort Pierce, Florida. Nor was it a reference to Thomas Crooks, who was shot dead after he fired at President Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Leavitt was linking Kimmel's joke to the effort of Cole Thomas Allen to storm into the ballroom where President Trump, Vice President Vance, and other members of the Administration had joined a vast numer of journalists and other invited guests for the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. Of course, the apparent assassination attempt had occurred after (by two days) Jimmy Kimmel's monologue.
The press secretary suggested that Kimmel's remark was in particularly bad taste given "what I did with the First Lady on Saturday night." She- and the President and his "wife"- could have expressed their alleged outrage on Friday or on Saturday morning or afternoon. Donald even could have posted something on Untruth Social overnight on Thursday. He often posts things overnight because he is awake when he is absolutely, positively not using drugs.
However, it was more advantageous to do so on Monday, following the incident at the Washington Hilton. It was an effort to anger those people who would know about the event, hear the condemnation on Monday or Tuesday, and assume that Kimmel made some wful remark after the President ws almost, almost shot and killed. Hypocritical? Cowardly? A little of both? You make the call.
A little thought and individuals would have realized the comment came before Saturday night but thinking these things through asks a lot of people busy with their personal lives. That applies especially to those "poorly educated" Trump claims to love.
A master propagandist, the presidential press secretary has learned much from the master propagandist, her own master. Others in the regime also have done so, which is reason not to understimate the Administration, even as the President suffers through a period of extraordinary unpopularity.
Nonetheless, Attorney General Pam Bondi has signaled that the Epstein matter, especially as it applies to Donald J. Trump, is no hoax.
She first told us on February 21, 2025. Asked by Fox News America Reports host John Roberts whether "the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients" will be released, Bondi replied "It's sitting on my desk right now to review."
There probably is no actual list of men to whom Epstein supplied women for their carnal pleasure. Flight logs (to Epstein Island and elsewhere), a Rolodex-type record of contact numbers, sure; yet ironically, the list the right-wing has been pining for, unlikely.
When Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed President Donald
Trump in May on the Justice Department’s review of the documents related to the
Jeffrey Epstein case, she told him that his name appeared in the files, sources
familiar with the discussion told CNN.
The conversation, which also included Deputy Attorney
General Todd Blanche, was characterized by two White House officials as a
“routine briefing” that covered the scope of the Justice Department’s findings.
Trump’s name appearing in the files, they said, was not the sole focus of the
discussions.
Translation: she told him, but we discussed other things, too. Three days prior to that conversation, the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois, had sent to FBI director Kash Patel a letter requesting a response to 15 questions Durbin posed. The Senator noted that "according to information my office received," Attorney General Bondi
pressured the FBI to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division (IMD), including the Record/Information Dissemination Section (RIDS), which handles all requests submitted by the public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Privacy Act, on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline. This effort, which reportedly took place from March 14 through the end of March, was haphazardly supplemented by hundreds of FBT New York Field Office personnel, many of whom lacked the expertise to identify statutorily-protected information regarding child victims and child witnesses or properly handle FOIA requests.
My office was told that these personnel were instructed to "flag" any records in which President Trump was mentioned.
In 2013, a group supporting Florida Attorney General Bondi accepted an illegal $25,000 contribution from the Donald J. Trump Foundation. The A.G.'s office thereafter declined to join a New York lawsuit against the Foundation despite 22 complaints against the latter and related entities.
That same Pam Bondi, now the US Attorney General de jure and de facto attorney for Donald Trump, pressures the FBI to assign 1,000 employees to review on 24-hour shifts approximately 100,00 Epstein-related files. They were expected to flag any records with a reference to Donald Trump so documents could be quickly released.
Yet, a "hoax." Responding to a subpoena, the Justice Department on Friday gave to the House Oversight Committee a few files, no doubt those in which they've thus far been able to redact Trump's name.
They all would be released, and with no redactions, if the President could make his name- and that of his wife- disappear without it being obvious. As usual, however, Trump's political instincts are sound. It might be Donald Trump's rape of women or of girls, or both; involvement in extensive money laundering schemes; Vladimir Putin's awareness of Trump's past and subsequent control of the American president; bygone activities of Melania Trump, nee Knauss; any combination of the other, or worse.
President Trump, Pam Bondi, and possibly Kash Patel know that the full, unredacted Epstein files cannot be released and will make sure they're not. If somehow they were, the political careers of Donald J. Trump and probably others would be over.
This is for the twenty-seven of us Americans who support neither open
borders nor a wall, decriminalizing illegal immigration nor separating
immigrant children from their parents.
Led by David Farenthold, The Washington Post has run several
articles about President Trump's business interests, including
"employment" of illegal immigrants at his golf courses. On August 9, Farenthold and colleague David
Partlow wrote
For nearly two decades, the Trump Organization has relied on
a roving crew of Latin American employees to build fountains and waterfalls,
sidewalks and rock walls at the company’s winery and its golf courses from New
York to Florida....
President Trump “doesn’t want undocumented people in the
country,” said one worker, Jorge Castro, a 55-year-old immigrant from Ecuador
without legal status who left the company in April after nine years. “But at
his properties, he still has them.”
He speaks the truth. Although Trump claims he does not want
illegal immigrants to come to the USA, he surely doesn't want them
undocumented. We know that in part because
Another immigrant who worked for the Trump construction
crew, Edmundo Morocho, said he was told by a Trump supervisor to buy fake
identity documents on a New York street corner. He said he once hid in the
woods of a Trump golf course to avoid being seen by visiting labor union
officials.
In some instance(s), Donald Trump probably wants even
undocumented illegal immigrants in the country. We return to three years to
this month when candidate Trump maintained
that his wife will hold a news conference "over the
next couple of weeks" to address reports that she violated immigration
laws when she first came to the U.S.
Trump said his wife would prove that "she came in
totally legally."
The New York Post last week published nude photos of Melania
Trump in 1995, quickly raising questions about whether the former model had
obtained the appropriate visa to work as a model in the United States.
And so later campaigning in North Carolina
Donald Trump added that he advised his wife to "let it
simmer for a little while" before holding a news conference to correct the
record.
"Let them go wild. Let it simmer, and then let's have a
little news conference and have some fun," Trump said.
For some people, these events are not a problem. But if you
believe, as a few of us do, that the nation's immigration system should be
humane while illegal immigrants should not get a free pass, you might wonder
about those workplace raids, including those in which
About 680 immigrants believed to be working without legal
documentation were taken away on buses by Immigration and Customs Enforcement
agents during the coordinated sting on Aug. 7. The operation, which might be
the largest work site enforcement action ever in a single state, focused on
plants run by five companies: Peco Foods, Pearl River Foods, Koch Foods, A
& B Inc. and P H Food Inc.
The New York Times reports affidavits "filed by federal
agents supporting the raids"
show that the agents believe that the companies were
“willfully and unlawfully” employing undocumented immigrants.
In some cases, the affidavits say, the companies employed
people who would show up to work wearing ankle monitors that are part of a
federal program to make sure undocumented immigrants appear at court
proceedings....
The P H Food Inc. and A & B Inc. plants are owned by the
same person, according to the affidavits. A confidential informant said that a
woman who prepares the payroll for both of the plants and another employee who
works with payroll companies knew about the undocumented immigrants working
there, the affidavits say.
One employee at the A & B Inc. plant who was in the
country illegally said that the plant manager had never required him to provide
any identification documents to work there and only asked for his name, an
affidavit says.
The affidavits say some of the companies had access to
E-Verify, but did not use it for dozens of undocumented employees. E-Verify is
an electronic system that checks documents provided by newly hired workers
against Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security
records to identify fakes.
In other cases, the affidavits implicate managers. For
example, at the Peco Foods plant, an employee told a confidential informant
that one worker presented a different name on the two occasions she was hired.
For what it's worth, the stakes for the employers are high because the maximum punishment is a $3,000 fine and six months in prison for
each illegal immigrant employed.
Nonetheless (or maybe therefore), no one yet has been indicted and
Prosecutions are not common, said Kimberley Best Robidoux, a
business immigration lawyer in San Diego who specializes in compliance.
According to data compiled by Syracuse Universityand released in May, only 11
people were prosecuted from April 2018 through March 2019 for employing
immigrants who did not have proper documentation. No companies were prosecuted
during that time, according to the data.
This was only one day of raids and immigration cases against
employers are difficult to prove, The Times points out. However, these took
place against seven plants and resulted in the arrest of approximately 680
immigrants. It therefore can be viewed as a test case for the US Justice
Department and USA law.
It is bad enough that approximately 680 workers, presumably in the country
without authorization, were led out in handcuffs while no manager or employer
was. If no one in a position of authority receives any period of incarceration, the notion of equal protection and the rule of law will have taken another hint. Moreover, the commitment to curbing
illegal immigration, with the President's companies routinely profiting from
the work of illegal immigrants and his wife currently and/or at one point
residing in the country illegally. will become another cruel joke played on us
by Donald J. Trump.
Anne Fearan, Josh Dawsey, and Emily Heil of The Washington
Post provide the boring, albeit necessary, background:
A transoceanic personnel crisis that engulfed the National
Security Council this week is partly rooted in a bureaucratic dispute over the
seating arrangements aboard first lady Melania Trump’s plane to Africa last
month during her maiden solo trip abroad.
As the East Wing prepared the flight manifest for the
marquee trip, deputy national security adviser Mira Ricardel became angry that
seats on the first lady’s government jet were assigned to a larger-than-usual
security entourage and a small press corps with none for Ricardel or another
NSC staffer, according to current U.S. officials and others familiar with the
trip and its aftermath.
Policy experts from the NSC and State Department were
advised to fly separately and to meet the first lady’s party on the ground, a
practice the State Department had often used, but Ricardel objected
strenuously, those people said. She threatened to revoke NSC resources
associated with the trip, meaning no policy staff would advise the first lady
during her visits to Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Egypt.
Bad blood between Ricardel and Melania Trump and her staff
continued for weeks after the trip, with the first lady privately arguing that
the NSC’s No. 2 official was a corrosive influence in the White House and
should be dismissed. But national security adviser John Bolton rebuffed the
first lady and protected his deputy, prompting the first lady’s spokeswoman,
Stephanie Grisham, to issue an extraordinary statement to reporters Tuesday
effectively calling for Ricardel’s firing.
This may be a personality dispute or someone overstepping
her bounds, fairly routine vices.
Somehow, however, "the first lady's spokeswoman" became
“It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she
no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House,” Grisham said of
Ricardel in the statement.
After an uncomfortable day of limbo, White House press
secretary Sarah Sanders announced Wednesday evening that Ricardel was leaving
the White House.
The "Office of the First Lady?" The reporters continue
Soon after the first lady’s office issued its statement
Tuesday, surprised senior White House aides walked to Ricardel’s office to see
whether she was still there. She was, albeit confused....
A senior White House official said the first lady believed
Ricardel was spreading false rumors about her office, including a misleading
story that aides had arranged a $10,000 hotel stay in Egypt. Other White House
aides said Ricardel belittled underlings, shouted at professional staff and was
the most disliked aide in the West Wing.
Last weekend, according to administration officials, the
first lady’s office again asked Bolton to oust Ricardel. Others, including
Kelly, have wanted her gone for months, administration officials said, with
little success in overcoming Bolton’s objections.
There is no Office of the First Lady. This website explains
From 1975 until the present day -- that is, from Betty Ford
to Laura Bush -- women in the White House rekindled their interest in policy
with a zeal unseen since Eleanor Roosevelt. In particular, Hillary Clinton
advanced the policy-making aspect of first ladyship with her appointment to the
task force committee for health care reform.
The "Office of the First Lady" is not mentioned in
the US Constitution, nor does it seem to have been foreseen by the Founders. It
has not been enacted legislatively, nor has it been the subject of any
Executive Order.
There is no mention of anything authorizing an "Office
of the First Lady," probably because there is nothing authorizing such an
office.
Some constitutional scholars- but especially politicians-
once boasted of being "strict constructionists" and many
conservatives similarly exhibited horror at "waste, fraud, and
abuse." There once also were (alleged) opponents of "big government."
Yet, no one on the right, nor any one on the anti-President
Trump left, has uttered a word about this office
It is, then, relatively courageous that the Post reporters- probably
going as far as their editor would approve- point out
Martha Washington, historian Carl Sferrazza Anthony noted,
once wrote that she felt like a “state prisoner” because of protocol rules and
a schedule set in part by her husband’s chief adviser, Tobias Lear. And there
was no love lost between Mary Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln’s chief counselors,
John Hay and John Nicolay, who referred to her as “the hellcat” behind her
back.
Pat Nixon, Anthony says, chafed at top White House aides
H.R. “Bob” Haldeman and John Erlichman for perceived offenses that included not
giving her enough notice before travel and for not taking her ambitious agenda
seriously, Anthony said.
“It goes back so far that what we’re really talking about is
human nature and the problem of the boss’s wife,” he said.
Melania Trump has taken on a more public role recently,
launching her anti-bullying campaign earlier this year and traveling to Africa in
October.
Notably, there is no mention of anything creating an
"Office" with a capital "O." In this instance, assertive behavior of
the First Lady is a wise strategic maneuver,
given that the GOP was recently shellacked by female voters and is generally
seen as fairly hostile to women's issues.
The spouse of the President of the United States of America
always will have a role. She (or he) can influence the President through "pillow talk" or in any manner they wish..
However, the First Lady is neither elected nor appointed and the designation of
staff as comprising an "office" comes out of thin air, wasteful and
extra-constitutional.
Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!
#CHANGETHELAWS Now is the best opportunity ever for Congress to change the ridiculous and obsolete laws on immigration. Get it done, always keeping in mind that we must have strong border security.
Keep in mind- as Trump or his Ghost Tweeter would put it-
that the President herein does not defend his policy, instead blaming it on
Congress and Democrats.
There are two problems with the headline. The more obvious is that Mrs. Trump not only
did not criticize the President's policy, she reinforced one of the media's
continuing themes: both sides do it. She "hopes both sides of the aisle
can finally come together..." She also wants a "country that follows
all laws," which is one of the Administration's (misleading) talking
points, and "a country that governs with heart," which the President
himself has periodically advocated.
Far better were the statements of Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Bush.
Mrs. Carter stated in part "the practice and policy today of removing
children from their parents’ care at our border with Mexico is disgraceful and
a shame to our country." Mrs. Bush wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post
in which she observed "this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral.
And it breaks my heart. "
These two were the most eloquent and courageous responses of the five to
a bad and very unpopular policy imposed by President Trump and Attorney General
Sessions and carried out by Homeland Security secretary Nielsen. Then we come
to the wives, one of them a presidential candidate, of the two most recent
Democratic presidents.
Michelle Obama struck a bipartisan note, favorably
retweeting a portion of Bush's article and added "Sometimes truth
transcends party." President
Trump's policy was enacted in May, 2018 and differs substantially and
significantly from the one imposed by Mrs. Obama's husband, who was condemned
by Mr. Trump as "one of the worst Presidents ever," who
"co-founded ISIS." As recently as late last year, Donald Trump doubted that Barack Obama was born in the USA. But "sometimes truth
transcends party."
And "crooked Hillary," whom candidate Trump vowed would be incarcerated were he to become President, stated "what
is happening to families at the border is horrific."
Like Mrs. Trump, Mrs. Bush, and Mrs.Carter, Mrs. Clinton and
Mrs. Obama assiduously avoided mention of the name of the individual- Donald J.
Trump- who is responsible for what appears to be, and what they (save possibly
Melania) believe, is a ghastly policy.
It's understandable in the case of Melania (who should have remained
silent), Republican Laura, and Rosalynn, who was First Lady over 37 years ago
and, truth be told, is 90 years old. (I would say age is the elephant in the
room but that would be partisan.)
None of the women uttered the words "Donald Trump," but otherwise give credit to Laura Bush and Rosalynn Carter. Melania Trump's remarks, which were not demanded by the media, politicians, or
the public, were at best neutral. Given who they are, Michelle Obama and
Hillary Clinton were no more impressive.
The bar is set low for former First Ladies, as CNN's headline demonstrates Two of them
cleared it: two of them did not. The unimpressive remarks of those two might go a bit in
explaining the current state of the Democratic Party.
Melania Trump spokesperson Stephen Grisham on Sunday morning
issued a statement which read
Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their
families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve
successful immigration reform. She believes we need to be a country that
follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart.
In unison: let us clap our hands for a First Lady who hates
to see children separated from their families. By now, she has presumably
turned off her television set and avoided videos on social media so that she's
not forced to see what her husband has wrought. The New York Times' Peter Baker
explains
The president has falsely blamed Democrats for the
situation, saying that he was simply enforcing a law that they had written. But
no law requires families to necessarily be separated at the border. Children
have been taken away from their parents because of a Trump administration “zero
tolerance” policy enacted this year to prosecute all unlawful immigrants as
criminals.
Melania isn't challenging her husband -- this is part of the
administration's bamboozlement process. Stephen Miller embraces the family
separation policy, Kirsjen Nielsen says family separation isn't administration
policy, the president blames it on Democrats -- it's all one big "sorry
not sorry," with Miller speaking to the immigrant-haters, the president
speaking to the Democrat-haters, and Nielsen and Melania attempting to confuse
everyone else.
But there is something additional: heart.
It turns out that even Mrs. Trump's appeal to governing with
heart is an echo of- and probably a shout-out to- the President. In defending his decision to strike a Syrian air base, in an April, 2017 interview with the
Associated Press Mr. Trump cited the "human responsibility" of the
presidency. He added
"here, everything, pretty much everything you do in government involves
heart, whereas in business most things don’t involve heart. In fact, in
business you’re actually better off without it.”
In September he claimed at a press availability in the White
House that he has "a love for these people" and "a great
heart" for Dreamers.
Prior to his State of the Union address the following
January, the president remarked
When you're a businessperson, you don't have to worry about
your heart, the heart. You really do
what's best for you — you know, for almost purely monetary reasons....
I'm telling you, the immigration is so easy to solve if it
was purely a business matter, but it's not.
And I think that's something that I've learned maybe more than anything
else. You have to govern with all of the
instincts of a businessperson, but you have to add much more heart and soul
into your decisions than you would ever have even thought of before.
The President has argued that he governs with
"heart," and now his wife "a country that governs with heart." We have seen what Mr.
Trump means by that and have no reason to believe his wife means anything else.
Melania Trump chose on her own to enter the political fray and issue a statement intended
to take the heat off the President of the United States of America for a very
unpopular policy. We should not pretend
she has done anything different.
Melania Trump told The Washington Post in July 2016 “We like to do what we like to do, and we give ourselves and each other space. I allowed him to do, to have his passion and his dreams come true, and he let me do the same."
If only the Administration would stick to that line.
They are not, as you would expect. Jordon, Heil, and Dawsey of The Washington Post have reported
The Trumps are often apart even during their free time, according to several people who know the couple's schedules. At Mar-a-Lago on holidays and weekends, the president golfs or dines with politicians, businesss executives and media personalities on the patio, while melania is often nowhere to be seen. According to several current and former aides, the president and first lady often do not eat together in the White House either.
Nothing scandalous or salacious about that, nor that
According to several White House staff members, Melania has erected a de facto wall between the East Wing, where she is renovating her office and enjoying growing popularity, and the West Wing, where her husband and Ivanka Trump, her oldest stepdaughter, have offices. While she goes to the west Wing for offical duties, she does not walk down the hall, pop her head in and see how the president's day is going. She seldom sets foot in the West Wing," said one person with firsthand knowledge.
Jordan/Heil/Dawsey add
Melania grants few interviews and declined to speak for this article, but during the campaign she told The Washinton Post that she and her husband are "very independent," adding "We give ourselves and each other space. According to several people who know the couple, that space appears to have grown wider under the White House roof....
Sarah H. Sanders was asked at Monday's news conference about the Post's revelation "there are persistent rumors that Mrs. Trump does not live in this White House and that she lives with her parents somewhere in the suburbs."
The son of Donald and Melania Barron- to whom The Post notes his mother is close- attends school there. If the rumor is accurate, Sanders could have noted the mother's dedication to her son, and even the President's commitment to his son's education and to his maternal grandparents.
She could have done that. But of course, she didn't, opting instead for
I make of the fact that just when you think the Washington Post can’t get things any more wrong, they do, and that that is an outrageous and ridiculous claim. The First Lady lives here at the White House. We see her regularly. And I think that’s something that belongs in tabloid gossip, not on the front pages of the Washington Post. And I hope that they’ll do better next time.
She might have emphasized how dedicated the parents are to their son. Even better, something akin to the following:
As the reporters conceded, a former advisor to the First Lady noted "they have an unspoken affinity." They are in that way similar to many marriages in America that work. Each has important roles to fulfill for this country and its people, and they do that effectively while continually working to strengthen their own relationship. There may be some controversy- and it's inflated- because the marriage does not fit the conventional stereotype in which both individuals were born in this country and the husband as well as the wife is in his first marriage. But just as the First Lady is like so many other women, born abroad yet a proud American, this marriage is like so many others in which the lack of a public show of affection should not mask the love each person has for one another.
A feeling of nausea might have come over the skeptical press corps and even over a segment of the public. And this might not even be an accurate description of the Trump-Knauss marriage.
Nevertheless, it would have thrown the issue back to the media, which would have not been so politically incorrect as to pick a fight with this depiction of this marriage, or of any marriage. However, Sanders would not have had taken the opportunity to slam the Post as "tabloid gossip." Further, it would have eroded ever so slightly the image Donald Trump has so assiduously cultivated and which was central to his nomination (especially) and election (secondarily).
He might not have been seen as much as a winner, as the guy who always gets the girl and better yet, the trophy wife. Maintaining the perception- whether fiction or reality- that there is no flaw in the marriage is central to maintaining the image. Suggesting any weakness would have reminded the public- and informed people who aren't aware- that most American families circa 2018 do not fit the pattern of June and Ward Cleaver or, for that matter, the Obamas.
Sanders knew that one or more questions about The Washington Post article would be asked, and could have had one of President Trump's speechwriters prepare an eloquent, possibly elegant, response better than what I wrote above. It also would have served an important public purpose in indirectly acknowledging that the "family values" srategy made famous by the GOP beginning in the 1980s has far outstripped the reality of American life.
Donald Trump as a candidate challenged traditional American values in the worst way, to the detriment of the nation. Here, his press secretary could have done so in the best way and made a singular contribution to our understanding of ourselves as a people. If for that reason alone, it was completely avoided.
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.
