Toon: One Masterpiece After Another

Trump has tapped son-in-law Jared Kushner to be in charge of whatever part of the federal COVID-19 response Vice President Mike Pence is not supposed to be in charge of.

Throughout the coronacrisis, Jared has demonstrated his complete and utter incompetence dealing with it. Back in January, he advised his father-in-law that the media were exaggerating the danger of the virus. When the danger became undeniable to all but the most ignorant right-wingers, he helped write his father-in-law's widely criticized March 11 address to the nation that falsely stated that the U.S. was cutting off all travel and imports from Europe.

Two days later, he was behind his father-in-law's Rose Garden promise that Google was on the verge of launching a website where anyone could test themselves for coronavirus, which was news to Google. By some extraordinary coincidence, a company Jared's brother founded was working on such a website, but that project has since been abandoned.

Last week, Jared showed his face at one of the daily White House coronabriefings, and responded testily to a question about data showing states' need for masks, ventilators and other emergency equipment, "The notion of the federal stockpile is that it's supposed to be our stockpile. It's not supposed to be states' stockpiles that they then use." Instead, he called on states and localities to rely on states' medical stockpiles.

By the end of the day, somebody from Trump's Ministry of Truth altered the Strategic National Stockpile page on the Public Health Emergency website so that it would no longer contradict what Jared had just said.

But the website read on April 2: “When state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most during an emergency.”
Shortly after Kushner’s remarks, however, the text of this website was changed.
On April 3, the website read instead: “The Strategic National Stockpile’s role is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies. Many states have products stockpiled, as well. The supplies, medicines, and devices for life-saving care contained in the stockpile can be used as a short-term stopgap buffer when the immediate supply of adequate amounts of these materials may not be immediately available.”

Jared's latest duty adds to a long and scattershot list of things his father-in-law has assigned to the 39-year-old real estate heir. He had some success in getting a package of prison reforms through Congress; it's no wonder this would be a priority for an administration which has seen 14 prominent advisers, donors and aides indicted or convicted of criminal activity (as of January).

But the rest of Jared's portfolio is bullish on ambition and bearish on results. He started negotiations for peace between Israel and Palestine by taking off the table everything Palestinians have ever wanted. He was then shocked and offended that no Palestinian official was willing to agree to the terms of surrender Jared and Bibi Netanyahu demanded of them.

All we have to show for Jared's mastery of immigration reform are children in cages and a ugly, easily breached wall tearing through nature preserves and private property. Ironically enough, the coronacrisis has forced the government to designate migrant farm laborers as officially "essential workers."

That ugly wall may be the only thing Jared has to show for the Infrastructure Weeks announced by his Office of American Innovation from time to time. As for management of trade talks with China, most of that has been kept Top Secret. But his wife got China to grant her five trademark deals, so that's at least one thing Jared has accomplished there.

There are, thankfully, some cases where Jared has been able to get COVID-19 supplies where they are desperately needed. But Jared and his father-in-law's modus operandi is that it matters less what you need and more on who you know — and what you can do for la loro cosa.