Jared Kushner's First Hundred Days

Because JARED and IVANKA straddle the millennial and Generation X divide, they love to host parties whenever seasons of their favorite television shows end. IVANKA thought it would be cute to host a season finale party to commemorate her father’s first hundred days in office. She and JARED invited all of their New York friends, though quickly dwindling in number, to their D.C. home.

The doorbell rings. It’s seat fillers IVANKA has paid so the party appears crowded. One of the seat fillers is wearing a t-shirt that reads “I hate Mondays” and another is wearing one, in Stanford colors, that reads “Smartass University.”

IVANKA: Go over there. [Ivanka gestures to her fainting couch, enlivened with gold balloons with the words ‘100 days’ printed on them.] You can eat, but ensure your faces are clean before the guests arrive. [She hands the two seat fillers baby wipes, and then presses her temples so hard that she grimaces slightly.]

[JARED enters. He notices the marks in the flooring, the marks that STEVE BANNON made when he tried dragging the fainting couch to the Potomac River. He calls over one of the waiters, points to a rug on the other side of the room, and demonstrates pulling it over to this side of the room. The waiter shakes his head, points to IVANKA and then mock cuts his throat.]

IVANKA [happily]: I don’t want them making changes unless I’ve signed off on them. The marks on the floor will remind me to micromanage you, and they will remind you that you have failed.

JARED [unhappily]: What time do we get to go back to New York?

IVANKA [putting on surgical gloves]: Go to New York whenever you feel. You know the arrangement.

JARED [trying his damnedest to remember the arrangement, but every time he is able to conjure a bit of it, the memory dissolves]: I thought this was over, like when Don comes up with the Coke ad while he is losing his mind in California. And then he goes back home to New York. I thought this was that?

IVANKA [adjusting the shoulders of one of the seat fillers]: That’s a series finale. This is the season finale. We are killing off —

JARED [perfunctorily]: Bannon?

IVANKA [matter of factly]: No. We have to keep him on staff until right before the 2020 election. Firing him will persuade college educated white people that we are pivoting. And so they will return home to us.

[STEVE BANNON is upstairs, sleeping. He is snoring so loudly that the seat fillers have asked each other whether a wild animal, a bear, maybe a monster, is constrained somewhere. They discuss escape routes, if it comes to that.]

IVANKA [powerfully]: We are killing off taxes.

[The door bell rings again. This time it’s JARED’s brother JOSH, a venture capitalist, and his girlfriend KARLIE KLOSS, a famous model. They’re wearing cool clothes and sunglasses even though it’s raining. They’re talking about how they are Democrats and how anyone who voted for IVANKA’s dad is literally the devil. Like a devil person who stands for the National anthem and who believes that granola is a health food.]

IVANKA [to JOSH and KARLIE]: Hello girls. [IVANKA goes in to air kiss JOSH but instead walks past him.]

KARLIE: Just FYI I’m only here because Josh said you built a really nice yoga studio in your subterranean addition. I doubted him because how could there be natural light in a basement, but here we are. [KARLIE takes a selfie, adjusts the filter and tags #antifa.] It’s really dangerous how your administration produces everything like it’s a television show.

[KARLIE goes downstairs to salute the sun bathed in artificial light. JARED tries impressing his brother by showing him their sophisticated projector, which is airing the NBA playoffs on the large blank wall.]

IVANKA [from her fainting couch]: Your brother doesn’t care about that. Pitch him.

JARED [obediently]: It’s Craigslist but for —

JOSH [genuinely but while entering his last meal on MyFitnessPal app]: How are you?

JARED [disarmed because someone asked him how he is]: No one is going to come to this party.

JOSH [in troubleshooting mode]: Who else did you invite?

JARED [counting on his fingers]: Mindy Kaling, Tom Hanks, Senator Gillibrand, the girl who sings Rehab.

JOSH: Jared, those are all Democrats. And Amy Winehouse has been dead for like five years. [JOSH points to the NBA playoffs.] You should be showing a NASCAR race or something. You’re a Republican now. You should’ve invited like Karlie’s friend Taylor or Eli Manning maybe. Who do we know who hunts?

JARED [whispering but exaggerating]: My life is a nightmare.

JOSH: Download MyFitnessPal.

JARED: We don’t have to lose weight though.

JOSH [mentoring]: Big bro, you have to get better at hacking reality. If I’ve learned anything working in venture capital, it’s that. [JOSH takes JARED’s phone.] Is your password still fuckchuck?

[JOSH types ‘fuckchuck’ into JARED’s app store, and tosses the phone back. JARED wants to hack reality — he really does — but he has never been an athlete and so he drops his phone, cracking its screen. IVANKA sighs audibly from the other side of the room, yells that her husband can’t catch, and procures a fresh phone from her enormous bag.]

JOSH [powering on JARED’s new phone, and then doing everything all over again]: Trust me. I’ve dated a lot of girls with eating disorders and it’s never about losing weight. It’s about control. Now you can watch my meals. Watch me be in control and that’ll remind you to be in control.

JARED [gesturing to Steph Curry, projected onto his wall]: Why do you think he does that with his mouth guard all the time?

JOSH: You’re looking at it all wrong. Who gives a fuck about the mouth guard? He’s a tiny basketball player. He hacked his own system. Like you are going to. More like Steph. Less like Jared. Say it back to me.

[IVANKA is still reclining on her fainting couch. She is bouncing ideas off the waiter, assessing how he reacts when she says that next season’s arcs include rumors that Justice Kennedy is retiring, and a trade war with Canada over kayaks and Tim Hortons.]

JARED: It’s just I thought we got to move home after today.

JOSH [wisely]: What’s home even? Like where we grew up? [JOSH holds up his phone to JARED’s face.] This is where we live, big bro. We are globalists. We carry our homes with us everywhere we go. In our pockets.

JARED [while texting his mother that JOSH arrived safely]: Thanks for coming down, brother. I really appreciate it.

JOSH [reasonably]: I’m here because we are both rich. Plutocrats stick together. Never forget that, brother. Now, where in the hell is Gary Cohn? I’m raising another round.

[Convinced that every single person has something to teach him, a lesson he gleaned from a business book he bought at the Acela news stand this morning, JOSH approaches the seat fillers to make small talk with them.]

JOSH [to JARED]: Where did you find these girls?

JARED: It’s what I was telling you before. Craigslist, but exclusively for human trafficking.

IVANKA [from her fainting couch]: Jared, please unspeak that, and then reframe.

JOSH [excitedly, like he orchestrated a discounted share sale in an early round of financing]: Tatiana got into all eight Ivies.

TATIANA, SEAT FILLER #1: And Stanford.

JOSH: And this awful t-shirt is made from the detritus that commercial fishing operations accumulate in their nets.

TATIANA, SEAT FILLER #1 [actually pitching]: We are nearly dolphin safe.

JOSH [lying]: Venture capital has taught me to wring out bias from all my decisions. That’s why I struck up a conversation with your seat filler. And hired her. [JOSH mentors TATIANA, SEAT FILLER #1.] You’ll start Harvard next year. Malia is doing that too.

KARLIE [reemerging from her practice, and feeling refreshed and calm until she hears STEVE BANNON snoring one floor up]: What the fuck is going on up there? It sounds like a wounded animal fighting a second, more wounded animal. Let’s go, Josh.

JOSH: Karlie’s right. I need to call Malia’s dad about speaking at my fund. [JOSH and KARLIE make out and then leave.] Remember, Jared. More like Steph, less like you.

[JARED texts Justice Neil Gorsuch and some Congressional Republicans and asks them if they’d like to commemorate the first one hundred days of Trump by watching a stock car race. IVANKA texts her dad that trade war with Canada is market testing well.]