Bob Woodward’s Fear: Trump in the White House told readers much of what they already knew: the president is a malicious idiot, and his administration is in a constant state of chaos and disorder. But apparently readers find comfort in what’s known: The book sold 750,000 copies as of Tuesday, its first day on sale, making it the fastest selling adult title since Go Set a Watchman in 2015.
Similarly, while you already know that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are both the very worst kind of shithead, there may be some comfort in the book’s anecdotes revealing, with some specificity, just how bad—tone deaf, incompetent, entitled, whatever—they really are.
The pair are depicted as nuisances to the likes of former White House chief strategist (and massive bigot) Steve Bannon and former White House chief of staff (and drippy coward) Reince Priebus, as well as occasional “voices of reason” or whatever sympathetic language is currently being used for self-serving enablers in this administration. Jared and Ivanka’s rudimentary understanding of climate change, for example, doesn’t negate their complicity in this monstrous administration.
Mostly, Ivanka comes across in the book as the endlessly annoying daughter who refuses to stay in her lane and is immensely unhelpful.
First up, that previously reported fight between Ivanka and Bannon (emphasis mine throughout):
During a meeting in Priebus’s corner office Bannon and Ivanka got into an altercation.
“You’re a goddamn staffer!” Bannon finally screamed at Ivanka. “You’re nothing but a fucking staffer!” She had to work through the chief of staff like everyone else, he said. There needed to be some order. “You walk around this place and act like you’re in charge, and you’re not. You’re on staff!”
“I’m not a staffer!” she shouted. “I’ll never be a staffer. I’m the first daughter”—she really used the title—“and I’m never going to be a staffer!”
The rift widened.
The sequel to My Date With the President’s Daughter is really fucking weird, you guys!
And then, there’s this “who is she?” moment:
Who is this person? Priebus marveled. What is she doing?
It’s Ivanka, bitch!
This next one feels like it’s straight out of a (very bad) movie:
“Where the fuck is Jared? I’ve got to talk to Jared and Ivanka.” Bannon had heard that Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, was the mastermind and genius here.
And cut scene to the following, with this music playing in the background:
Jared and Ivanka were on entertainment mogul and Democratic donor David Geffen’s $300 million yacht—one of the largest in the world—off the coast of Croatia, on vacation with Wendi Deng, a businesswoman and former wife of Rubert Murdoch.”
And finally, there’s Ivanka, as the goddess Artemis or some shit:
Months after his departure from the White House, Priebus made a final assessmement: He believed he had been surrounded in the West Wing by high-ranking natural killers with no requirement to produce regular work products—a plan, a speech, the outline of a strategy, a budget, a daily and weekly schedule. They were roving interlopers, a band of chaos creators.
There was Ivanka, a charming huntress dipping in and out of meetings or the latest presidential business. Jared had the same rights. Theirs was a portfolio without experience.
That’s enough Fear for today, folks.