Donald Trump does not know how to manage and certainly doesn't know anything about running a government—and is uninterested in even attempting it—but don't worry, he's got it figured out: He'll just have the kid who married his daughter do it all.
And, now that it's become bloody obvious that Donald Trump's go-to solution for every problem is to foist it off on Jared Kushner, who has not a whit of experience with any of it himself but who has pa's "trust," for what that's worth, the new move for even the freaking United States Military Itself is to suck up to Jared and hope that lavishing attention on him will at some point result in him maybe mentioning their needs and concerns to the actual damn sitting president.
Yup. That's why the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff invited Jared Kushner, rich real estate kid married to Ivanka Trump, to come visit Iraq.
[Gen.] Dunford said in a statement released Sunday night that he invited Kushner to see events on the ground, "first-hand and unfiltered."
Dunford stood to gain something as well. For him, it was hours of direct access to arguably the most influential White House adviser — 16 hours sealed inside a plane to be exact.
“That is a looong time to have someone’s ear,” a second defense official explained to BuzzFeed News.
Guess what? He's not wrong! The military can't get Trump to pay attention to his daily briefings and nobody has much of a clue as to what his actual policy stances might be, or what they'll be the day after that, but if giving crown prince Jared a 16-hour lecture in all things Iraq will result in him maybe being able to pipe up on the subject during a White House meeting then that's what the Joint Chiefs will do.
You can’t blame the military for trying, but let's take a look at all the things Donald Trump has personally tasked Jared Kushner, Boy Wonder, with solving:
• He'll be piloting the Middle East peace process, of course. That goes without saying.
• He'll be coming up with a plan to restructure the federal government. He has no expertise here, but he married Ivanka and has a bit of money himself so he must be smart enough to handle that.
• There's the opioid thing. He'll be solving the opioid crisis. That's just a side job, though, and shouldn't interfere with the federal government carve-ups or brokering a lasting peace in the Middle East. Oh, and criminal justice reform. He's "spearheading" that one as well. And improvements at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
• Oh, and Mexico. He's also lent a hand toward stabilizing the administration's relationship with Mexican officials even as Trump continues to insult them.
• He's also the new sort-of secretary of state. Yes, we already have a secretary of state, but Trump doesn't talk to that guy and has prevented him from hiring a staff, so Jared will be doing that too. It is in this capacity that Jared will be in charge of the visit between Trump and the Chinese president at—you guessed it—Mar-a-Lago, where hopefully Kushner can settle this whole trade war and one China and currency manipulator nonsense while Donald gets in another round of golf.
That's why Kushner's trip to Iraq will be so short, in fact. It's because he has to get back in time to be in charge of the Chinese president's visit.
You know, at some point it's possible Jared Kushner is going to have to show some progress, in just one or two of the things golfing Donald has foisted off on him. Or, at the least, he's going to have to finish one or two of them out so that he has a spare moment when Donald declares him to be in charge of our new nuclear war against North Korea. Won't that be fun.