Jared Kushner Breaks the Ice

JARED is approaching the Oval Office to ask TRUMP if he can relinquish some of his responsibilities. His portfolio, he plans to argue, is quite large for someone also being personally investigated by ROBERT MUELLER. KELLYANNE CONWAY intervenes and invites JARED to play team-building exercises she is coordinating in the hallway outside her office. IVANKA is having lunch with her personal lawyer, which means that JARED is also babysitting the KUSHNER CHILDREN.

KELLYANNE CONWAY [in baby talk voice]: Is it ‘Take Your Adorable Children to Work’ day? Where’s mom?

KUSHNER CHILDREN [in unison]: Meeting with her lawyer

JARED [guiltily]: Our lawyer.

KUSHNER CHILDREN [in unison]: Her.

JARED looks pleadingly at his daughter.

JARED’S DAUGHTER [sensibly]: Her lawyer, dad.

JARED whispers to his children and then texts his mom’s cleaning lady STEFA to go find his mom. When STEFA never responds, JARED posts to Facebook, looking for recommendations for attorneys in the DC area.

KELLYANNE CONWAY [putting on her metaphorical tour guide hat]: This is the exact hallway George Stephanopoulos threw up in because H — [KELLYANNE CONWAY claps to the TRUMP ADMINISTRATION.] — we’re calling her H now. [KELLYANNE CONWAY kneels down, making soft eye contact with the KUSHNER CHILDREN.] Because H screamed at him so nastily.

JARED’s son whispers to him that he has to go to the bathroom.

JARED [babysitting]: Do you know where it is?

JARED’s son nods.

JARED [gesturing to the bathroom near the Oval Office]: OK, then. Text me when you’re finished.

KELLYANNE CONWAY [passive aggressively, to JARED]: We’re doing ice breakers and other get-to-know-you games. We realized we wouldn’t be in so much trouble if we actually knew something about the people we work with.

BEKAH MERCER [diabolically]: Trust falls.

KELLYANNE CONWAY [aggressively, to REINCE PRIEBUS]: Why is she here? This is what I’m talking about. Donors mixing with staffers mixing with foreign powers. It stops now. [KELLYANNE CONWAY addresses the KUSHNER CHILDREN warmly.] You’re just in time for two truths and a lie. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, please go first.

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS [truthfully]: Whenever I’m at an ATM, I cover the camera lens so hackers or whoever can’t read my PIN number.

KELLYANNE CONWAY [passive aggressively, to JARED]: It’s common sense. They can see us from those things. Safety first.

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS [truthfully]: Number two. I only got this job because of who my father is —

SEAN SPICER [walking in while eating a cheeseburger sub sandwich]: That’s the lie.

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS [surprising even herself]: That’s actually true. Should I keep going?

KELLYANNE waves SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS on as SEAN SPICER asks REINCE PRIEBUS if he has a nail clipper.

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS [lying]: I got my start in politics registering people to vote and then shredding their registration forms before the ink even dried.

KELLYANNE CONWAY [happily]: That’s the lie. Republicans would never register anyone to vote. Reince, you’re up.

REINCE PRIEBUS [cooperatively]: One. I always thought I’d work in the White House but never under these circumstances.

KELLYANNE CONWAY [fake snoring]: Nevermind, it’s my turn. Reince, we’re firing you, and hiring a showrunner. The American people are having trouble following all the plot lines and we need someone with story experience. That’s one. Two. The President hired me because I know how to campaign to women who hate other women.

REINCE PRIEBUS leaks to the New York Times that he is firing himself.

KELLYANNE CONWAY [looking directly into a camera that is not there]: And three. I’m kind of the mother hen around here. [KELLYANNE CONWAY curtsies inexplicably.] Everyone, there’s birthday cake in the mini fridge that I saved for a rainy day.

JARED stares at his phone, waiting for his son’s text that he is done in the bathroom. His mind wanders, and he remembers his friend Seth’s karate-themed birthday party, when they were eight. JARED was the last child to be picked up from the dojo. STEFA was late because her own son had the chicken pox. JARED can’t believe that he once called STEFA ‘Mom.’

KELLYANNE CONWAY [snapping her fingers]: Earth to Jared. Do you want any birthday cake?

JARED thinks about what a hassle the cake will be to enter into MyFitnessPal and walks away to find his mentor, GARY COHN. There’s a loud screech outside. It’s STEVE BANNON on a crotch rocket. He storms into the White House dressed like a Vietnam vet who would’ve voted for Nixon because he believed he would end the war but got in a bar brawl with some Black Panthers and was hospitalized instead.

STEVE BANNON [alcohol on his breath]: Who had Athlete’s foot and who the fuck showered in the bathroom off the Oval Office?

KELLYANNE CONWAY [putting on her metaphorical nun habit]: Steve, quiet down. You’re going to get President Trump all riled up.

BEKAH MERCER [maniacally]: We want him riled up. We want him shattering old constructs.

KELLYANNE CONWAY: Only liberals say “construct.” When I was in law school this asshole I knew used to think he was funny when he said that murder is a construct. [KELLYANNE CONWAY pivots towards REINCE PRIEBUS.] Can you do your job one last time and get her out of here?

REINCE PRIEBUS walks away, defiantly, intending to whoop it up with some alpha males, but finding JARED instead. JARED is reading an issue of The Economist from the array that GARY COHN’s admin has spread out like it’s a doctor’s office, but for people who believe that declaring bankruptcy is a personal failing and not the direct cause of medical bills.

JARED [elevator pitching]: I’m working on my new business idea. It’s microfinancing but for the white working class.

REINCE PRIEBUS [conservatively]: I like your spirit, bud, but that’s called Social Security disability insurance, which we are against.

JARED [losing his audience]: Well, they’re micropayments. They’d be very small.

REINCE PRIEBUS [standing up to check on the Senate Republicans]: Right. Well, we can talk about this later.

IVANKA slips in quietly. She whispers to JARED that she knows he is going to flip on them.

KELLYANNE CONWAY [putting on her metaphorical woman who hates other women hat]: Look who’s decided to grace us with her presence. [KELLYANNE CONWAY kneels down and makes soft eye contact with the KUSHNER CHILDREN.] Children, it’s your mother.

IVANKA [powerfully]: Why are you addressing them so comfortably? What’s going on here?

KELLYANNE CONWAY: We’re playing two truths and a lie. So we can get to know each other better.

IVANKA [while texting her mainstream media back channels that she and JARED orchestrated her father’s pivot on the DREAMER children]: How many times do I have to tell you? It’s all lies, Kellyanne. It’s. All. Lies.

KELLYANNE [truthfully]: In case you haven’t noticed, Bob Mueller is assembling a team of Ivy League Avengers to destroy us all.

JARED [channeling a simpler time, the NBA Finals, five days ago]: I’m not on a super team.

IVANKA [calmly, to JARED]: Who are you ever talking to? I thought you had to meet with my father. He’s in there now.

JARED rises. He opens YouTube on his phone, puts in his headphones, and watches the “It’s not your fault” scene from Good Will Hunting three times before knocking on his father-in-law’s door. Meanwhile his daughter explains to KELLYANNE CONWAY that you eat Ethiopian food with this spongy bread not utensils, and his son reappears, to tell JARED that he couldn’t find the bathroom but he really has to go now.