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On Sunday evening, HBO‘s resident British truth-bomb dropper John Oliver‘s main story concerned the next generation of Trumps – Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, “America’s William and Kate; except in this case, both of them are attractive.” Oliver initially reflected on the notion that Ivanka and Jared are the sensible ones in the White House, there to perhaps stop President Trump from pushing a “nuke Earth” button, and decided to focus on two basic questions: is Ivanka the “moderating influence” that people claim, and what could be in Jared’s background that could justify such a “gigantic White House portfolio”?
The host first examined Ivanka’s role in the Trump family, going all the way back to her humble beginnings as a co-host of the president’s Miss Teen U.S.A. Pageant when she was fifteen. Since Trump’s election, Ivanka has been painted as the restrained voice of reason in the administration; she’s the exact opposite of her dad, impressively “on-message” at all times. Her “ability to apparently say nothing and yet consistently support her dad can actually apply to her political views as well,” Oliver theorized. The host demonstrated this by a playing clip of Ivanka gracefully dodging questions about what she actually disagrees with Trump on, and balked at the convenience of her response: “…so we should just give her credit when good stuff happens, and then blame others when bad stuff happens. That’s not a job description of a political advisor; that’s a description of an Old Testament God.”
The convenient passing over of her blatantly untrue remarks has continued to aid the Trump administration: “the apple does not fall far from the orange”. Her appeal has been designed by the Trump brand, but Ivanka’s own words can be used against her, however; she once wrote that you shouldn’t “go out of your way to correct a false assumption if it plays to your advantage”. You may not want to think about the fact that she is likely as duplicitous as her father is, but the truth is, we have been led to believe that Ivanka is doing a lot more than she actually is – though the same can’t be said for her husband, Jared Kushner.
Oliver kicked off things with Kushner by running through his consistent appearances in White House happenings, referring to it as the “Where’s Waldo?” of the administration. Kushner’s portfolio couldn’t be managed by the smartest man on Earth, which led Oliver to question “Is Jared Kushner the smartest man on Earth?” Kushner’s coverage by the media has consistently referred to him as a quiet genius, but Oliver couldn’t help but stop things and break this down: “Just because you don’t talk does not necessarily mean you’re thinking something amazing. It can just mean you’re sitting in a meeting, staring blankly at people’s moving lips, thinking about why baby cats aren’t called ‘cattens’…” On that note, however, Oliver wondered – for a man with so much power, have you actually ever heard Kushner speak? “Seriously,” Oliver emphasized. “What does his voice sound like? You don’t know, do you?” A hilarious clip of Kushner in a 2009 interview dubbed with Gilbert Gottfried then rolled, and while Oliver, cracking up, admitted it could be Gottfried, he did emphasize that we don’t know for a fact that it’s not Kushner’s actual voice.
Kushner’s business experience in both real estate and journalism still don’t seem to qualify him for his position, and the claim that he won Trump’s election for him by using “data” is a questionable one. Regardless of how he contributed to the president’s victory, it still doesn’t mean that he has the knowledge to tackle the insane laundry list of responsibilities assigned to him (including but not limited to government reform, bringing peace to the Middle East, and solving the opioids epidemic).
In the end, Oliver emphasized that this wasn’t an evisceration of Ivanka and Jared – he simply doesn’t know enough about them to eviscerate them. The real message here is that it’s dangerous to think of them as “a moderating influence” – because neither of them have the qualifications to be where they are. With that, Oliver bid us sweet dreams with the image of Donald Trump airing out his balls in the Lincoln Bedroom.
