Jared Kushner Plays the Lottery
And The Mooch has a nosh
Everyone at the White House is well rested because no one who works there stayed up to watch the Senate vote. No one cares if people have health insurance or not. JARED is thinking about whether today is the day he finally uses the bathroom at work, and IVANKA is slightly perturbed because someone on Twitter called her and her husband “White trash Camelot.” There’s a tray of Russ & Daughters MAGGIE HABERMAN sent the staff, as a thank you gift for making her a star. Only the people who used to be Democrats are touching any of it. ANTHONY “THE MOOCH” SCARAMUCCI is pooling together money to buy Powerball tickets for the office. THE MOOCH is somehow still White House Communications Director.
JARED [kind of standing up for himself]: I don’t know. I don’t really carry cash on me.
THE MOOCH [shouting]: You dumb fuck — what if there’s a run on the banks?
JARED [concentrating on something else so the urge to urinate disappears]: I don’t think I want to —
THE MOOCH [slathering an everything bagel with scallion cream cheese]: What’s wrong, Wimpy? You can’t have more money? [THE MOOCH taps JARED’s crotch.] Wimpy, can I call you that?
[JARED doesn’t react.]
THE MOOCH [skewering smoked salmon with a plastic fork]: Don’t answer that. [to EVERYONE] No more dumb questions, fucknuts. [to JARED] You already know we call you that behind your back. So why am I asking?
JARED [truthfully]: I didn’t know that?
THE MOOCH [decisively]: Here’s what I’m gonna do, Wimpy. I’m gonna email you, and the subject line is going to say “sad kitty” and that’s all it is going to say. Then you fucking wire me money because that means your kitty is empty. Do you know what a kitty is? Think of it as your lottery account. I’ll draw from it every time I go buy a fucking Powerball ticket for us. Or Paypal me or have your fucking admin deliver a roll of quarters in her fucking —
[SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS enters and examines the bagels like she has never seen one before.]
THE MOOCH [delicately balancing capers between the folds of smoked salmon]: That way when Mueller subpoenas us all — and he will, trust me; you don’t have bags under your eyes that dark unless you’re fucking staying up all night plotting how best you can ruin lives.
KUSHNER DAUGHTER [aptly]: Why are you letting The Mooch talk to you that way?
THE MOOCH [to KUSHNER DAUGHTER]: You have to create tension in the process.
KUSHNER DAUGHTER [wisely]: Daddy, are you hearing this?
THE MOOCH [witheringly]: And the fact that you didn’t know that shows me that you’ve already failed.
[There is crosstalk including THE MOOCH explaining to JARED that he got into Harvard his sophomore year, as a transfer, but he was fine with where he was at and knew he’d be going to law school there anyway.]
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS [removing her noise-canceling headphones]: Are bagels considered a quiet snack? [SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS pronounces bagel BAG-el.]
THE MOOCH [whispering psychotically]: Who the fuck is asking?
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS [no dog in this fight]: Reince Priebus sent out a memo earlier in the week about reducing office noise that said eating would now be limited to quiet snacks, and I don’t see bagels listed here. [SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS presents the “Quiet Snacks” memo and THE MOOCH snatches it away from her.]
THE MOOCH: He’s still sending out fucking memos? [THE MOOCH types an internal memo on his phone that it’s The Mooch, not Mooch.] Until further notice. Check the white board for whether we are using the “The” this week. Attention to fucking detail, you dumb fucks. And bagels, so long as they are actual New fucking York bagels, are a quiet snack. Not that I care what the fuck Reince says.
[STEVE BANNON enters with a bag of groceries, plugs in a toaster oven, and makes a pizza bagel. There are sparks because STEVE BANNON never fully picks his feet up when he walks and the scuffing generates enough friction to generate an electric current. JARED has nowhere to focus his eyes so he accidentally makes eye contact with him.]
STEVE BANNON [wiping pus from his eye]: Hey, Wimpy.
JARED [barking up the wrong tree]: Why do people keep calling me that?
STEVE BANNON [waving a memo that THE MOOCH circulated directing all staff to refer to JARED as Wimpy]: If it were up to me, I’d have everyone call you much worse.
[KELLYANNE CONWAY enters and approaches the bagel tray. She stuffs three into her purse, all cinnamon raisin, and gags at the smoked salmon. She tries reading the room, assessing which male is currently alpha. Jared, no. Bannon, maybe. She gambles on The Mooch.]
THE MOOCH [giving the middle finger to STEVE BANNON]: Why is he here?
KELLYANNE CONWAY [flirtatiously]: Don’t you know that you can’t exterminate Steve Bannon? He and the cockroaches will be all that are left after North Korea nukes us all.
[THE MOOCH ignores KELLYANNE CONWAY.]
KELLYANNE CONWAY [to no one]: What do we think of a credit card offer from one of the private contractors we’re having mine Afghanistan?
STEVE BANNON [consolidating power, again]: Put an image of a Crusader on it. [Locking eyes with THE MOOCH.] All this stuff still runs through me.
THE MOOCH [screaming like he’s talking to a reporter]: I’ll gun ISIS the fuck down myself, like I’m Bernie Goddamn Sanders.
KUSHNER DAUGHTER [correctly]: Goetz. Like he’s Bernie Goetz. Right, Mommy?
KELLYANNE CONWAY [cynically, for her]: Our voters are better with broad, incoherent generalities.
STEVE BANNON [still fixated on THE MOOCH]: I want to open a kitty with you, Mooch. Thomas Jefferson said the lottery is a tax on the stupid. That’s one place he and I will have to agree to disagree. [STEVE BANNON throws money at THE MOOCH.]
[GENERAL MATTIS descends Deus ex machina from the ceiling and explains that Thomas Jefferson actually said that the lottery is tax on those who can risk the price of a ticket without sensible injury for the possibility of a higher prize.]
EVERYONE [in unison]: Where the fuck have you been?
GENERAL MATTIS [ignoring everyone but KUSHNER DAUGHTER]: What are you reading, little girl?
[KUSHNER DAUGHTER shows the GENERAL her copy of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Then she asks whether TRUMP’s tweet four days ago calling JOHN MCCAIN an American hero is a self-own. IVANKA sternly warns her that if she says “self-own” one more time, she will attend summer camp in Ohio. GARY COHN enters to see if anyone wants to see the movie Detroit with him.]
GARY COHN [sensibly]: Yum, bagels. Jared, did you see this? [GARY COHN picks up an everything bagel.] Does this make our boy Jared smile?
JARED [sullenly]: I had a Clif bar earlier.
GARY COHN: Clif bars are food for people who take themselves seriously but not their work.
JARED [adding insult to injury]: I got called for jury duty.
GARY COHN [mentoring]: Make sure to say you’re a racist.
JARED [wanting badly to call GARY COHN “Dad”]: Will that get you out of jury duty?
GARY COHN [matter of factly]: Not for long [gestures to his colleagues]. My advice? Use it while you can. Did you give The Mooch money for the lotto yet?
JARED [remembering he still has to pee]: What? No. I thought —
GARY COHN: Jared, what if we fucking win? You want to be the only one who can’t afford to quit?
JARED [sadly]: I can afford to quit.
[GARY COHN sighs and shepherds JARED to the movies. There’s even more crosstalk, including KELLYANNE CONWAY asking KUSHNER DAUGHTER how she plans to celebrate the Obamacare skinny repeal. IVANKA interrupts to show her JOHN MCCAIN’s press release. KELLYANNE CONWAY asks how the fuck she missed this, as THE MOOCH goes to throw up his bagel. He forgot it wasn’t a carb day.]
