Jared Kushner Goes To Harvard-Yale
Everyone is wearing barn coats.
Image: Erin Pettigrew via Flickr
JARED, his DAUGHTER, and GARY COHN are in New Haven for the Harvard-Yale football game, where they run into many other powerful people. JARED graduated from Harvard in 2003, and his DAUGHTER, assuming she takes a gap year, will graduate from the school thirty years after her father, in 2033. By that time, all jobs will be automated and most self-actualization will be automated as well. Life will pretty much be a never-ending gap year of coffees with robot CEOs and wine tastings with robot chefs and singing lessons with robot casts of Hamilton. GARY COHN did not graduate from Harvard, but because of his access to both political and financial power, he is able to enter whatever space he chooses. EVERYONE is wearing barn coats and networking and politely ignoring the opioid crisis ravaging much of New England. IVANKA is at home because she attended Penn.
KUSHNER DAUGHTER [marveling at the size of her barn coat’s pockets and wondering why anyone, even barn people, would need pockets this deep]: Why couldn’t mom come to this?
JARED [happily, for once]: Your mother didn’t get into Harvard or Yale.
KUSHNER DAUGHTER [fantasizing about all the candy she could fit into those pockets of hers]: Why didn’t the good grandpa get her into Harvard too?
GARY COHN [to KUSHNER DAUGHTER and then to JARED]: It doesn’t matter where you go to school. It matters which schools name buildings after you.
[HILLARY CLINTON, GEORGE W. BUSH and JOSH SAVIANO, who played Paul in “The Wonder Years” but is now a lawyer, approach JARED and his DAUGHTER. They’re wearing Yale sweatshirts underneath their barn coats and discussing whether TRUMP or GEORGE W. BUSH is the worse President. It’s a surprisingly intelligent and well-argued debate. Ever since he has begun painting, GEORGE W. BUSH is extremely self-aware and even-keeled.]
HILLARY CLINTON [likably]: Jared, help us out here. Your father-in-law seems worse to me but I don’t know if that’s only because white trash scare me and plutocrats don’t?
GEORGE W. BUSH [impishly]: Does Bill scare you?
KUSHNER DAUGHTER [provocatively]: Madam Secretary, I’ve thought a lot about this. Like, a lot. And your question is like asking if Hitler was worse than Stalin.
GARY COHN [whispering to JOSH SAVIANO]: My kid had a goth phase.
JOSH SAVIANO [to KUSHNER DAUGHTER]: I wasn’t Marilyn Manson. I was at Yale at the time. A school you should consider applying to. [JOSH SAVIANO tries to make a Y with his hand. It’s just a peace sign.]
KUSHNER DAUGHTER [winking to GARY COHN]: Get a building named after a slaveholder changed to my name and I’ll think about it.
[A cool autumn breeze blows. KUSHNER DAUGHTER smells what she understands to be the inside of a Subway restaurant. She knows instantly that STEVE BANNON is nearby and tugs at her dad’s barn coat.]
JARED [testily]: If this is about explaining what hygge is again—
[SHERYL SANDBERG, who is wearing a Harvard sweatshirt, approaches the group with her own news, but first she mentors KUSHNER DAUGHTER.]
SHERYL SANDBERG [exuding competence]: Life’s not a sprint, Arabella. It’s a marathon you train for a few times until you call the race organizer in tears begging to be dropped down to the half even though it’s been full since June. [She turns to GARY COHN.] I didn’t know you went to Harvard?
GARY COHN [to KUSHNER DAUGHTER]: If you think it, it becomes real. I think I went to Harvard, therefore I did. I manifested my diploma.
SHERYL SANDBERG [to HILLARY CLINTON]: The magical thinking of Wall Street.
[HILLARY CLINTON quietly askes SHERYL SANDBERG whether she has launched her Plan B exploratory committee yet. SHERYL SANDBERG demurs and also cusses out MARK ZUCKERBERG.]
SHERYL SANDBERG [channeling Velma from “Scooby Doo”]: Anyhow, thank God you’re all here. My staff just messaged me that seconds ago Steve Bannon pinged to an IP address nearby. He posted a picture of Steve Mnuchin and Lloyd Blankfein entering the game wearing Yale and Harvard sweaters, respectively. He captioned it “Look at all this White Power.”
HILLARY CLINTON [declaratively]: Why you give this man your air.
[HILLARY CLINTON leaves to buy some beers. SHERYL SANDBERG leaves to figure out where STEVE BANNON is. JOSH SAVIANO lights a cigarette and GEORGE W. BUSH asks him who taught him to hold it like that. CONAN O’BRIEN and SEAN SPICER walk by, wearing Harvard Dad hoodies, booing and eating kettle corn. They throw a handful at JARED. Four pieces get stuck in his hair.]
JARED [to his DAUGHTER]: They’re booing Yale.
CONAN O’BRIEN [entering the political thicket, for once]: We’re booing at you, Jared.
LLOYD BLANKFEIN [wearing a Harvard class ring, sized to fit his pinky finger, approaches the group, booing]: Whomst are we booing? [LLOYD BLANKFEIN eats a piece of popcorn from JARED’s hair.] And Gary, what’re you doing? Are tax cuts really that fucking important to you? Come home to Goldman. I’ll get Danny Meyer to put a Shake Shack in your old secret office, the one where you hid the reclaimed stolen Nazi art.
KUSHNER DAUGHTER [still six years old]: Dad, I have to go.
[JARED panics because IVANKA or KELLYANNE CONWAY typically accompany KUSHNER DAUGHTER to public restrooms.]
KUSHNER DAUGHTER [exasperated]: Just take me to the family bathroom.
[JARED and KUSHNER DAUGHTER walk to the family bathroom. EVERYONE ELSE is laughing that most Americans choose to buy premium gas with their tax rebate money instead of investing it.]
KUSHNER DAUGHTER [pulling the family bathroom door]: It’s locked.
[Someone screams “One second,” and it sounds exactly like Carrie Mathison from “Homeland.” AMY KLOBUCHAR, ED NORTON and CLAIRE DANES emerge from the family bathroom. JARED raises his eyebrows.]
AMY KLOBUCHAR [moderately]: Grow up. I was recording a fundraising robocall and these two were available to narrate.
[PAUL GIAMATTI and ALLISON WILLIAMS also emerge from the family bathroom. ONE OF THE DAUGHTERS FROM ROSEANNE follows them.]
AMY KLOBUCHAR [counting on her fingers]: These five. Hollywood is lining up against you assholes.
[After KUSHNER DAUGHTER finishes, they all head to their seats. PRAS FROM THE FUGEES and SOME KID FROM AN A CAPELLA GROUP perform the National Anthem. Obviously no one stands. No one even kneels. EVERYONE is too busy texting their children that JARED is here at the game with them, and asking whether he was the one who was in their class. TED CRUZ and DAMIEN CHAZELLE, the director of La La Land, approach JARED.]
TED CRUZ [squaring his shoulders]: You’re in our seats.
LLOYD BLANKFEIN [not looking up from his phone]: It’s a fucking Harvard football game, Ted. Just sit down there. [LLOYD BLANKFEIN points to the row of empty seats next to JEFF ZUCKER.]
DAMIEN CHAZELLE [figuratively]: How do you sleep at night?
JARED [confusedly]: I think of my favorite song each year starting with the year I was born. And by the time I get to like 1998—
KUSHNER DAUGHTER [to JARED]: He didn’t mean literally.
GARY COHN [emailing LLOYD BLANKFEIN his updated resume]: For what it’s worth, and it shouldn’t be worth much because I’m not a quote unquote movie guy, but I liked your little musical.
LLOYD BLANKFEIN [sniffing the air]: Do you smell that?
[SHERYL SANDBERG and JOSH SAVIANO sidle into the row, spilling their beers on JARED.]
SHERYL SANDBERG [gagging]: It’s like a Subway restaurant. [She smells her Harvard sweatshirt.] It’s fucking on me.
KUSHNER DAUGHTER [referring to STEVE BANNON]: Did you find him?
[SHERYL SANDBERG’s phone pings as she is notified STEVE BANNON has posted to Facebook again. He wrote, “They’re trying to convert the closed down Dairy Queen into a halal butcher.” He doesn’t specify where the Dairy Queen is or who “they” are. She shows her phone to GARY COHN.]
GARY COHN [decisively]: Fuck.
[Across the stadium, THEO EPSTEIN, SONIA SOTOMAYOR and JODIE FOSTER are booing JARED. MERRICK GARLAND, wearing a Harvard sweater, sits down next to them. JODIE FOSTER points to their Yale baseball hats, frowns, and then points to the other side of the stadium where everyone is also booing JARED.]
JOSH SAVIANO [to JARED]: We’re booing at you, just so you know.
KUSHNER DAUGHTER [powerfully]: We know, freak. Now go sit with your school.
[Even though it’s the fourth quarter, EVERYONE begins trickling out of the stadium. It’s a Harvard-Yale game, after all. They’re still booing, but it’s become an existential boo, not directed at JARED so much as the state of affairs generally. Meanwhile, STEVE BANNON lurks beneath the bleachers, feverishly petting Handsome Dan, the bulldog mascot of Yale, and eating an Italian BMT faster than a person has ever eaten one before—so fast he hasn’t even considered sharing with the animal. STEVE BANNON is wearing a tattered Harvard Business School t-shirt and two barn coats.]