Several weeks before Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner began making major news headlines for his less than upstanding role in the Trump regime, John Oliver dug into the various talk-of-the-town stories that, for the most part, went completely unchallenged. With what seems like genuine curiosity over the many assumptions about the Kushners that dominated the beltway press corp, John Oliver did another of his brilliant — ‘wait a minute,.. not so fast’ — investigations into both Ivanka and Jared Kushner.
link to Video @ HBO
On the notion that perception trumps facts, (or is it an ideology or business model with the Trump regime ?); here, in this capture, is the second half of Ivanka’s quote:
For months now we’ve been bombarded with opinions touting the depth of Jared Kushner’s knowledge and expertise, praising the fact that he is a Harvard graduate,.. so of course he’s brilliant.
Except that officials at Jared’s high school had this to say;
“..officials at Frisch were dismayed..”
“..his GPA did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it..”
Shortly before Jared Kushner was admitted to Harvard:
“Charles Kushner had pledged $2.5 million to Harvard University in 1998..”
Nevertheless according to Donald Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner will be in charge of bringing peace to the Middle East ”very quickly” while his regular duties will include the list in the screenshot directly below
Wow, Jared’s list also includes revamping the entire Federal Government
One of the most revealing points of John Oliver’s investigation into Invanka Trump is his questioning of the narrative that Ivanka would;
a) be a “moderating influence” on Donald Trump, and
b) that Invanka Trump’s agenda on women’s issues, Healthcare and other notable issues would act as a check on her father’s “eccentricities”.
Both those media promulgated “assumptions” were not only remarkably easy to debunk (due to Ivanka’s complete lack of any specifics on most every question asked on any subject), but news anchors and pundits that repeatedly reported these myths as facts, did so by taking Invanka’s non-answers and filled in all the blanks, themselves, precisely as Ivanka herself touted in her book; “don’t go out of your way to correct a false assumption if it plays to your advantage”
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John Oliver said:
“I don’t know enough about them to eviscerate them, just as you don’t know enough about them to justify putting any real hopes in them.”
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But, he went on,
“If they are the reason you are sleeping at night you should probably still be awake.”
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It is a fascinating piece of work by John Oliver into the media’s handling of the Kushners and how they and their agenda — ‘perception trumps facts’... “don’t go out of your way to correct a false assumption if it plays to your advantage” — is manifest as the family business model — imo
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— Kudos John Oliver