Picture This: Jared Kushner Brandishing a Dagger and Two Swords

Remember Jamal Khashoggi? The U.S. resident and Saudi dissident said to be kidnapped and dismembered via bone saw, reportedly on the order of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a grisly murder Donald Trump let the guy get away with even after Saudi Arabia admitted the killing was premeditated and the CIA separately concluded that MBS directed the whole thing? And that Trump bragged to Bob Woodward that he’d “saved [the crown prince’s] ass,” adding, “I was able to get Congress to leave him alone”? And that, according to The New York Times, it was former first son-in-law Jared Kushner who urged Trump to “stand by” MBS, arguing that the outrage—about a man being dismembered—would simply blow over? According to a new report, it appears young Kushner was handsomely compensated for his loyalty!

In a Times story detailing the many gifts the Trump administration received from foreign governments, and an inspector general’s investigation into a missing $5,800 bottle of Japanese whiskey given to Mike Pompeo (which, per the Times, Pompeo said he never received), a 22-karat gold coin given to another State Department official, and allegations that “Mr. Trump’s political appointees walked off with gift bags worth thousands of dollars that were meant for foreign leaders at the Group of 7 summit planned for Camp David in 2020,” comes this fun detail:

In addition, the Trump administration never disclosed that Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and a top White House adviser, received two swords and a dagger from the Saudis, although he paid $47,920 for them along with three other gifts in February, after he left office.

Obviously, this raises more questions than it answers. Because the gifts were paid for, and Kushner presumably retained possession of them, what special display case does he keep them in? Does he show them off to visitors, saying, “These are from my buddy MBS, you know, the guy who had a man chopped into tiny pieces”? And maybe most importantly, how many times a week do you think he takes the swords and dagger out to play with them, and how many times has Ivanka had to take him to the emergency room for stitches despite having told him on numerous occasions, “Jared, these are not toys”? Inquiring minds would like to know.

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Texas Governor faces off with private businesses who want their employees to live

In one corner, you’ve got companies like Southwest and American Airlines, who don’t want their employees to die an easily preventable death. In the other, there’s Greg Abbott. Per Bloomberg:

American Airlines Group Inc., the biggest U.S. airline, and No. 4 Southwest Airlines Co. will follow President Joe Biden’s mandate requiring that employees be vaccinated against Covid-19, defying an order from the Texas governor blocking such actions. The decisions Tuesday set up an immediate challenge to Republican Governor Greg Abbott by two of the state’s largest corporations. Companies with business operations in Texas like the two airlines have been caught between Abbott’s decree and a White House measure that says federal contractors must require the shots.

Abbott’s move to counter the White House action came amid a national debate over vaccine mandates, which has engulfed corporate America as it tries to placate customers, employers and regulators. Some large oil and gas companies with operations in Texas, such as Royal Dutch Shell Plc, said they were still evaluating the ban and others, including Valero Energy Corp., declined to comment. “No entity in Texas can compel receipt of a Covid-19 vaccination by any individual, including an employee or consumer,” Abbott said in his executive order Monday. He plans to put his ban before a special session of the state House and Senate, which would let the Republican-controlled legislature enshrine his executive order into law.

Southwest has set a deadline of November 24 for workers to be vaccinated, or potentially lose their jobs, while American has set a December 8 deadline. Both companies have said they will consider exemptions on a case by case basis. In defending his ban on mandates, Abbott claimed the Biden administration is “bullying” private companies into vaccine mandates, which is an interesting argument coming from a guy who is currently trying to force pregnant people into having children against their own will.

In related news…

Representative Jim Jordan thinks we should bring back polio.

The White House warns some of you will be getting coal this Christmas

Apparently even Santa’s workshop is suffering from supply chain woes. Per Reuters:

White House officials, scrambling to relieve global supply bottlenecks choking U.S. ports, highways and railways, warn that Americans may face higher prices and some empty shelves this Christmas season. The supply crisis, driven in part by the global COVID-19 pandemic, not only threatens to dampen U.S. spending at a critical time, it also poses a political risk for President Joe Biden.

The White House has been trying to tackle inflation-inducing supply bottlenecks of everything from meat to semiconductors, and formed a task force in June that meets weekly and named a “bottleneck” czar to push private-sector companies to ease snarls…American consumers, unused to empty store shelves, may need to be flexible and patient, White House officials said.

“There will be things that people can’t get,” a senior White House official told Reuters.

Someone may be actually willing to buy Trump’s Washington hotel

It reportedly lost $70 million during Trump’s time in the White House but that apparently hasn’t deterred these would-be buyers:

Former President Donald Trump’s family company is in advanced discussions to sell the rights to its opulent Washington, D.C., hotel in a deal worth more than $370 million, say people familiar with the matter. CGI Merchant Group, a Miami-based investment firm, is in talks to acquire the lease on the hotel, these people said. The Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C., is located in the former Old Post Office, a short walk down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House in a building featuring some of the largest guest rooms in the capital.

The property is owned by the federal government, but with extensions the lease runs close to 100 years. CGI has also entered into discussions with hotel operators, including Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc.’s Waldorf Astoria luxury brand, about removing the Trump name in favor of that of another hotel manager, these people said.

Located less than a mile from the White House, from 2016 to 2020 the hotel was the place where Republican lawmakers, executives with business at the Department of Justice, foreign officials, and anyone looking to get on Trump’s good side knew their money would go far. “Why wouldn’t I stay at his hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, ‘I love your new hotel!’ Isn’t it rude to come to his city and say, ‘I am staying at your competitor?’” an Asian diplomat told The Washington Post back in 2016. Last February the Washingtonian reported that servers at the hotel’s restaurant had to follow a seven-step protocol for serving Trump a Diet Coke; that his dining companion’s steak had to be smaller than his; that mini glass bottles of Heinz ketchup were to be opened “in front of [him], taking care to ensure he could hear the seal make the ‘pop’ sound;” and that “a tray of junk food needed to be available for every Trump visit: Lay’s potato chips (specifically, sour cream and onion), Milky Way, Snickers, Nature Valley Granola Bars, Tic Tacs, gummy bears, Chips Ahoy, Oreos, Nutter Butters, Tootsie Rolls, chocolate-covered raisins, and Pop-Secret.”