3338

Statuesque, really. Hence the 10,000 Trumpstatues we’ll be forging from solid gold and placing in the center of every city with more than 500 residents.

3339

Solid gold? Far too high quality. Trump would never go for that. It has to be gold leaf.

3340

Solid uranium. We must project our strength. Directly into the bone marrow/lymph nodes of every American citizen!

3341

Dem cholesterol clogged arteries.

3342

Look a bit at the portrait, too. :)

3343

So tiny!

3344

Our government may be all fucked up right now, it’s true, but at least we know that our President has a shoe salesmen by his side advising him on matters foreign and domestic.

Ivanka Trump’s role in her father’s administration is expanding. Though the president’s eldest daughter currently holds no official title in the White House, she is working out of a West Wing office and will soon get access to classified information, even though she is not technically serving as a government employee.

Jamie Gorelick, an attorney and ethics adviser for Trump, said Monday that the first daughter will not have an official title but will get a West Wing office, government-issued communications devices and security clearance to access classified information.

Gorelick said Trump would follow all the ethics rules that apply to government employees.

In a statement issued to Politico, Trump acknowledged the lack of precedent for an adult child of the US president to take on such an ambiguous role: “I will continue to offer my father my candid advice and counsel, as I have for my entire life,” she said. “While there is no modern precedent for an adult child of the president, I will voluntarily follow all of the ethics rules placed on government employees.”

3345

Trump’s role, according to her attorney Jamie Gorelick, will be to serve as the president’s “eyes and ears” while providing broad-ranging advice, not just limited to women’s empowerment issues. Last week, for instance, Trump raised eyebrows when she was seated next to Angela Merkel for the German chancellor’s first official visit to Trump’s White House.

As her role in the White House grows — a role that comes with no playbook — Trump plans to adhere to the same ethics and records retention rules that apply to government employees, Gorelick said, even though she is not technically an employee. But ethics watchdogs immediately questioned whether she is going far enough to eliminate conflicts of interest, especially because she will not be automatically subjected to certain ethics rules while serving as a de facto White House adviser.

"Having an adult child of the president who is actively engaged in the work of the administration is new ground,” Gorelick conceded in an interview on Monday. “Our view is that the conservative approach is for Ivanka to voluntarily comply with the rules that would apply if she were a government employee, even though she is not.” A spokeswoman for Ivanka Trump said her role was signed off on by the White House counsel’s office, and the conflict issues were “worked through” with the office of government ethics. A White House spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment about the unique arrangement.

People close to Ivanka Trump said that she sees nothing unusual about the arrangement — it’s simply how she has worked with her father for years, as a senior official at the Trump Organization and as Donald Trump’s partner on “The Apprentice.”

But in the White House, the unprecedented arrangement for a child of the president has raised new questions about potential conflicts of interest — and about why Ivanka Trump can’t simply join the administration as a government employee. Her husband, Jared Kushner, serves as an official senior adviser in the White House and was sworn in, but his hiring also raised questions of whether it violated anti-nepotism laws. The Justice Department ruled that those laws applied only to agency appointments.

3346
3347

Al Franken in 2020! I’d be on board with that. He could get Ben Stein as a running mate.
Franken-Stein 2020!

3348

Not to demean Hillary in any way but how much different is it to have Ivanka in the WH advising the Donald compared to Hillary or any other wife advising their husband. Ivanka has been involved in her fathers business world for many years. She may even moderate him a bit.

3349

All right, you got me. I lol’d.

3350

“It’s time to put a different monster into the White House!”

3351

Technically, it’s not much different, but everyone acknowledges that this is unprecedented. Since George Washington, we’ve known that US presidents take advice and counsel from their wives. It’s inevitable that a married man will do so from time to time regardless of whether or not it’s technically accounted for in the job description. In the last few decades, the First Lady position has come with social/family policy tasks like promoting childhood exercise or “Just Say ‘No’ to Drugs” and other bipartisan work. With that added responsibility has come more scrutiny from the public for the spouse of the President.

Throughout the history of POTUS, one of the implicit deals was that everyone (journalists and political figures) stayed away from the kids of the President. It was a gentleman’s agreement that they were off-limits except for the most salacious or egregious violations. In turn, no one expected or wanted children of the POTUS to have a hand in the presidency. They were free to go to school or begin their careers and no one would bother them much.

With Ivanka, this is going to change that dynamic. It’s actually kind of amazing the amount of influence she has over her father in the Trump business. Everyone agrees that she’s sharp, ambitious, and motivated. Even Trump’s enemies acknowledge that she’s the more moderate and level-headed out of the two. What we’re all in the weeds on here is exactly how her counselor role should be quantified and what this means for future elections.

3352

Ivanka 2024…

3353

Nepotism rules don’t apply here? I know there’s nothing illegal about this but surely it violates some ethical guidelines.

3354

This means nothing in the Trump administration and no one in the GOP seems to care.

3355

But he wants to have sex with her, so she’s kind of like the first lady.

3356

Especially his enemies.

3357

Dude. “Feed my Franken-Stein!”

*Edit: lyrics.