The summary of the video is as follows:

- The video discusses the roles and influence of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump in the White House.
- They are portrayed as moderating influences on President Trump.
- Ivanka is seen as being on message and supporting her father consistently.
- There is skepticism about her actual influence and whether she truly disagrees with her father on certain issues.
- Examples are given where Ivanka's influence may not have had the desired effect, such as on Planned Parenthood and climate change.
- Jared Kushner's extensive White House portfolio is also questioned, particularly his role in Middle East peace negotiations.
- Overall, there is doubt about the extent of their influence and whether they truly moderate President Trump's actions.

- The video discusses Jared Kushner's role in the Trump administration and questions his qualifications and abilities.
- Kushner is described as being present in many important meetings and having a wide range of responsibilities.
- The video criticizes the notion that Kushner's silence makes him brilliant and questions his education and business record.
- It highlights Kushner's involvement in the 2016 election and his use of data analytics.
- The video concludes by suggesting that Kushner's qualifications are mainly based on who he is not, rather than his own abilities.

The piece criticizes the appointment of Jared Kushner as a top White House advisor, stating that he lacks qualifications and that his neighbors describe him as unremarkable. The fault lies with President Trump for appointing him. The piece warns against viewing Kushner and Ivanka as moderating influences and suggests that relying on them for reassurance is dangerous. The piece concludes by mocking Trump and suggesting that people should stay vigilant.

- The video discusses the roles and influence of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump in the White House.
- They are portrayed as moderating influences on President Trump.
- There is skepticism about their actual influence and whether they truly disagree with Trump on certain issues.
- Examples are given where their influence may not have had the desired effect.
- Jared Kushner's qualifications and abilities are questioned.
- The video concludes by suggesting that relying on Kushner and Ivanka for reassurance is dangerous.

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner hold an incredible amount of political power. That's troubling considering their incredibly small amount of political experience.

Connect with Last Week Tonight online...
Subscribe to the Last Week Tonight YouTube channel for more almost news as it almost happens: www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight

Find Last Week Tonight on Facebook like your mom would:
http://Facebook.com/LastWeekTonight

Follow us on Twitter for news about jokes and jokes about news:
http://Twitter.com/LastWeekTonight

Visit our official site for all that other stuff at once:
http://www.hbo.com/lastweektonight

-♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ ♪♪ The White House, the building inside which Donald Trump, and I feel this isn't mentioned enough, is regularly naked.

Maybe there's a band-aid somewhere on his person.

We don't know, we just know that he's there, and we all have to live with that.

But while Trump himself is divisive, there are 2 White House figures who are widely admired.

They're like America's William and Kate, except in this case, both of them are attractive.

And many, many, many people have praise for them.

The only adults in the room, the moderates, the centrist, frankly, Democrats, are Jared and Ivanka.

You know, thank God his kids are, you know, there day to day.

His best running mate, by the way, would be Ivanka.

I don't know that I've met a more composed, brilliant, beautiful, in every way, person.

Well, that is high praise from Senator Bob Corker.

I've never met a more brilliant, beautiful person.

I imagine that went down great with his wife and 2 daughters.

--LAUGHTER --But for liberals, the popular assumption is that Jared and Ivanka will be moderating influences.

Basically, if Trump is thinking about pressing a button labeled, Nuke Earth, they will, on behalf of all of us, guide his hands towards the button labeled, Hey, Maybe don't.

Ivanka has recently taken an unpaid position as assistant to the president.

And as for Jared, well, he seems to have a hand in basically everything.

He's been planning this week's visit of the Chinese president, Tamara Lago, and he's also tasked with brokering peace in the Middle East.

The president tapping his son-in-law to reform the criminal justice system, not to mention he's running the new office of American Innovation, where he's responsible for reforming veteran care, tackling the opioid epidemic, and overseeing the not-so-small feat of revamping the entire federal government.

It is not unusual for powerful men to give their son-in-laws do-nothing jobs.

But leave it to Donald Trump, who can't even get nepotism right to give his a do-everything job.

So given the power that they seem to hold, tonight, let's take a look at Jared and Ivanka.

And let's set aside the questions surrounding potential conflicts of interest between their business ties and their positions in the administration.

And instead, let's focus on answering just 2 basic questions.

Is Ivanka really the moderating influence that people claim?

And what in Jared's background justifies such a gigantic White House portfolio?

And let's start with Ivanka, Trump's only daughter, except for, and yet somehow including, Tiffany.

Now, Ivanka is reassuringly familiar, because she's been part of the Trump brand since she was a child.

She even co-hosted Trump's Miss Teen USA pageant at age 15, featuring this noticeably odd moment.

I can guarantee my brothers were loving that.

Yes, Eddie, my blood relatives are rock hard right now.

You heard me, the men with whom I share parents probably have erect penises at this very moment.

But in the public drama of the Trump family, Ivanka has been cast as the calm, reasonable, indoor-voiced 1.

A dynamic that's perhaps best exemplified by this moment.

What's the favorite thing you have in common with your father?

Well, I was going to say sex, but I can't relate that.

LAUGHS, CHEERS What is wrong with you, you colossal fucking creep?

You found the only possible wrong answer to that question.

That clip actually illustrates a lot of what we like about Ivanka.

And she is impressively on message at all times.

Just think about how little information she gave you in that exchange.

She was asked, what do you have in common with your dad?

They are core components of the Trump brand that any stranger would associate with him.

I mean, if you asked Huey, Dewey, and Louie what they had in common with their Uncle Donald, and they said, either feathers or no pants, you would think, wow, The Duck family really doesn't spend a lot of quality time together.

And that ability to apparently say nothing and yet consistently support her dad can actually apply to her political views as well.

Because the assumption that many of us have that she disagrees with him isn't actually based on much.

Just watch her response to being questioned about what they specifically disagree on.

My father agrees with me on so many issues.

And where he doesn't, he knows where I stand.

Can you give us an example of something that you disagree with him on and that you think that by speaking up to him, it made him change his position or soften his position?

Over time, most people will not actually know about.

So we should just give her credit when good stuff happens, and then blame others when bad stuff happens.

That's not a job description of a political advisor, that's a description of an Old Testament god.

And that answer there enables you to project whatever you want onto her, based on second-hand rumors and assumptions, which is exactly what Gayle King and her co-hosts then did.

Oh, yes, yes, certainly Planned Parenthood as well.

And you know, those things all feel true, but there is not a lot of evidence.

You know, it's the same way that I assume Johnny Depp's penis also has its own miniature hat and goatee.

Now, I don't have any concrete evidence that that is actually the case, but come on.

And when you look at what the Trump administration has been doing, it is hard to see much of Ivanka's influence there.

Take Planned Parenthood, which she certainly cares about.

Well, last week, Donald Trump allowed states to block funds to it, or maybe take climate change.

Ivanka did reportedly bring Al Gore to Trump Tower, but unfortunately, just 3 days later, Trump named climate change denialist, Scott Pruitt, to head the EPA.

And maybe that is an example of Ivanka's moderating influence.

Maybe Trump's initial choice was a guy strangling a dolphin with a six-pack rig.

Although, just out of interest, let's look at an issue that Ivanka has been very outspoken about.

Last year at the RNC, she brought up family leave and childcare.

And when the Trump campaign released their plan for that, she sold it hard.

We think we've proposed something that's incredibly comprehensive, it's very innovative, it's a bold and fresh solution.

There's no policy on Hillary Clinton's website pertaining to any of these issues, childcare, eldercare, or maternity leave, or paternity leave for that matter.

First, of course Hillary's site had pages on those issues.

So, it seems when it comes to lying about easily observable facts, the apple does not fall far from the orange.

And let's take a look, though, at that comprehensive, bold, fresh Trump childcare proposal.

Because according to the Tax Policy Center, very few of its benefits went to the lowest income families.

In fact, families with incomes between 10 and $30,000 would receive average benefits of just $10 a year.

And the only daycare that costs $10 is a padlock.

Masterlock is going to keep you in your bedroom for the next 8 hours.

And look, look, you may still like Ivanka.

She's been trained in the art of Trump branding to be as vague and likable as possible so that everyone can plausibly think that she shares their values.

And if that sounds like a harsh thing for me to say about her, I will point out, she's basically shared that message in 1 of her books.

Perception is more important than reality.

If someone perceives something to be true, it is more important than if it is in fact true.

This doesn't mean you should be duplicitous or deceitful, but don't go out of your way to correct a false assumption if it plays to your advantage.

She's pretty much telling you to your face not to trust any assumption that you are making about her.

So it is possible that she is doing nothing to moderate her father.

And I understand that there is an impulse not to want to think about that.

Just like you don't want to think about the fact that it is also possible that in the White House right now, her father may be bowling naked.

Maybe he's forcing Mike Pence to play alongside him.

We just have to deal with the fact that it's possible.

But the truth is, we may all be thinking that Ivanka is doing a lot more than she actually is.

Although the same can emphatically not be said for her husband, Jared Kushner.

The man, remember, responsible for, among other things, repairing the Middle East.

Something that his father-in-law is actually pretty confident in.

I have a feeling that Jared is gonna do a great job.

If you can't produce peace in the Middle East, nobody can.

And future history books will say, and peace was finally brought to the Middle East by a sentient Kohl's mannequin who read a book once.

-...but Jared actually has even more responsibility.

He's also reportedly been the primary point of contact for 2 dozen different countries.

And if you look at photos of Trump's meetings, it's like, where's Waldo?

When Trump met the leaders of Congress, there he was.

At a listening session with business leaders, there he was.

At a meeting on cyber security, there he was.

At a meeting with the Saudi prince, there's Jared.

Japanese Prime Minister, boom, it's J-Dog.

Chinese president visiting, you got Kushner in the house.

Discussing the airstrikes on Syria, where's the Kush?

Basically, Jared is either being invited to every important meeting, or he died in the White House in the late 1800s, and he has been haunting it ever since.

-♪ ♪ -♪ Jared's portfolio would be unmanageable for the smartest man on Earth.

So, is Jared Kushner the smartest man on Earth?

He can really rock a trill pair of sunnies.

And as it was described to me, he is a visionary.

If you have meetings with Jared Kushner, Jared listens, he doesn't talk that much, he absorbs it.

I see Jared as like the Alexander Hamilton of the new administration.

Just because you don't talk does not necessarily mean you're thinking something amazing.

It can just mean that you're sitting in a meeting, staring blankly at people's moving lips, thinking about why baby cats aren't called cat-tans.

Or whether all goldfish might have peanut allergies, but since they don't ever eat peanuts, we'll just never know.

And that whole .5% talker thing does point to something genuinely odd about Jared.

Because for someone with the amount of power that he has, have you ever heard him speak?

Seriously, what does his voice sound like?

And look, it wasn't easy, but we did actually manage to find an interview of him talking on TV in 2009.

I also own a newspaper and some other websites and online media businesses.

You're thinking, hold on, you just took that clip and you dubbed in Gilbert Gottfried, but you don't know that for sure.

My main business is real estate, and I also own a newspaper and some other websites and online media businesses.

You don't know for a fact that that is not his actual voice.

So in the absence of Jared's spoken thoughts, we've instead had to rely on second-hand evidence of his brilliance.

And the first thing many people cite is his education.

Jared is a great young man, went to Harvard, very smart.

Yes, but that's not really evidence of anything.

And yes, plenty of smart people went there, too.

But it is worth noting that officials at Jarrod's high school were reportedly dismayed he got in because, as 1 put it, his GPA did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it.

I'm sure it's absolutely nothing to do with the fact that his father pledged 2 and a half million dollars to the school shortly before he was admitted, and I'm certainly not saying that that is a textbook case of paying for admission.

I'll leave that to the textbook, The Price of Admission, in which that story actually appears.

But, but the point is, however Jared got in, after graduating, he took over his father's real estate business after his dad, Charlie, was sent to prison.

Let me just say, it involves blackmailing his brother-in-law, a sex worker, and a hidden camera in an alarm clock in a shitbox motel on Route 22 called the Red Bull.

But how has Jared run the family business?

Well, he made a big splash when he bought 666 Fifth Avenue for a record $1.8 billion in 2007, but that deal has not been a raging success.

They'd absolutely paid too much at the time.

He bought at the very top of the market, so then the market turned.

10 years later, the building is struggling to cover its debt payments.

Okay, so Kushner's purchase did make a splash, but it turned out to be more the kind of splash your phone makes when it falls into the toilet.

Now, that building is obviously not Jared's hold record in business.

He also owned the New York Observer, which even the paper's staff found a little odd, given that several people described him as an unenthusiastic reader with little use for newspapers, let alone books.

He also recently spearheaded a Brooklyn development called Dumbo Heights, and 1 of his partners praised his involvement there, saying, he's very uncluttered in his mind.

I think that simplicity allows him to filter some things out.

Which could be a compliment or a savage insult.

And to give you a flavor of what Jared's vision for Dumbo Heights is, I'd like you to watch a video that he showed to a real estate conference, which is the most infuriating combination of meaningless tech nonsense and stock footage of models pretending to conduct business that you will ever see.

Dumbo Heights, A dynamic space mechanically engineered for optimum performance and unrivaled connectivity.

This campus is the staging ground for the next generation of innovators and creators.

Change is forged on this campus in the fire of great thinkers and visionaries.

When innovation is cultivated, the world rises to meet.

It's hard to pick, but I think my favorite phrase in there is actually bragging that the development is mechanically engineered.

Because what are the other options there?

How many office buildings are naturally occurring or created with a wish on a genie's lamp?

And if you are starting to get concerned that Jared's business record may not qualify him for his current jobs, I should point out 1 other prominent item that is on his resume, the 2016 election.

A few weeks after it was over, Forbes ran a cover story titled, This Guy Got Trump Elected, which does sound impressive.

And it features quotes from Jared like, "...we played money ball, asking ourselves which states will get the best ROI for the electoral vote." Which is a sentence that can only be forged in the uncluttered mind of the Wizard of Dumbo Heights.

But in fairness, the article does give some examples of what specific technical expertise Jared may have brought into the operation.

They used targeting, they found a way to get people on Facebook and Twitter, and they evolved into this 100-person secret data center down in San Antonio, and they had data do everything.

Data determined his schedule, his rallies, even what he spoke about in the rallies.

Data determined what Trump spoke about at his rallies.

Look, I don't doubt that there were 100 people in a basement somewhere, money-balling the ROI.

But I would love to see the data that recommended this.

And I always said, You know, it's too tough putting a screen up.

This is a cheap version of a screen, okay?

You really mechanically engineered the shit out of that 1.

Trump did win the election, and I wasn't there.

Maybe Jared is single-handedly responsible for the entire victory.

But that still doesn't mean he has the specific knowledge to tackle government reform, or the Middle East, or the opioids epidemic.

Can somebody please reassure me that this is okay?

Jared is incredibly smart, very talented, has enormous capacity.

He is humble in the recognition of what he doesn't know, and is tremendously secure in his ability to...

And also, to that point that he will seek informed viewpoints, that will be harder since there are still hundreds of key jobs across the government that Trump has not yet named nominees for.

Some are agencies central to Jared's duties, including the Department of Transportation, the DEA, and the VEA.

It is too bad that Trump can't appoint someone to nominate people on his behalf, although even then, I am pretty sure that he'd give that job to Jared fucking Kushner.

And yet, the truth is, for many people, the main thing qualifying Jared for his position is not so much who he is, but who he isn't.

As many questions I have about Jared and Ivanka and their qualifications, they're a lot more qualified than people like Steve Bannon.

I, like everybody, would prefer to have them rather than Mr.

Jared Kushner is Not Steve Bannon, but that is a low bar.

That recommendation would get you no other job.

We shouldn't be excited about a top White House advisor simply because he is preferable to a man best described as every dark thought humanity has ever had, inhabiting the long-dead corpse of a Civil War-era plantation owner that even his fellow plantation owners called a bit much.

-♪ ♪ -♪ There has to be a third option here, and even some people who know Jared and like him have some serious questions.

Does this person have any qualifications?

Yes, he's temperamentally sane versus the present.

Having said that, what has this guy done in his life ever?

Lovely young man, seems level-headed, what's he done?

It does not bode well that Jared Kushner's neighbors describe him like he just got arrested for murdering 11 people.

And look, in the end, this isn't even Jared's fault.

It's the fault of the guy who appointed him.

See all LastWeekTonight transcripts on Youtube

Ivanka & Jared: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)