Trump's Failspawns Take a Turn at the January 6 Hearings
And it has been embarrassing for Donald’s kids
As bad as the January 6 select committee hearings are for Donald Trump, they are incalculably worse for his dependents—his failspawns. If you’re not familiar with the term, a failspawn is the adult child of a wealthy or famous parent or in-law who coasts off the largesse and accomplishments of said parent or in-law. In 2019, I defined the more specific term failson this way: “One is not born a failson. Nor does one simply inherit the status of failson. No—failson status is earned through a display of equal parts incompetence, stupidity, and arrogance.” If you’re hawking meat with the discount code “MAGAKING” for a company that lost its Better Business Bureau accreditation, you might be a failspawn. As a beneficiary of nepotism myself, I am not condemning the entire failspawn lifestyle, only the democracy-undermining style practiced by the younger Trumps.
On Thursday, during the first installment of the January 6 hearings, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner appeared on-screen for a few brief moments that nevertheless proved to be a blistering self-humiliation.
Kushner’s testimony is a master class in the dangers of being a dumb person who thinks they’re a smart person. As he told the committee, recalling the final days of his father-in-law’s administration, “I—I kind of—like I said, my interest at that time was on trying to get as many pardons done. And I know that, you know, [then–White House counsel Pat Cipollone] was always—him and the team were always saying, ‘Oh, we’re going to resign. We’re not going to be here if this happens, if that happens.’ So I kind of took it up to just be whining, to be honest with you.” Maybe Kushner thought he was explaining his no-nonsense attitude, but in reality, he was freely admitting to dismissing the concerns of lawyers who were threatening to resign over Trump’s immoral and likely unconstitutional behavior.
According to a New York Times story that came out right before the hearings, “No matter how vociferously Mr. Trump claimed otherwise, neither Mr. Kushner nor Ivanka Trump believed then or later that the election had been stolen, according to people close to them.” It’s almost as if people close to Jared and Ivanka were hoping to get ahead of whatever would come out in front of the committee, and distance themselves from the fallout over the Big Lie.
As for Ivanka, during her testimony used in the hearing, she said that Bill Barr’s rejection of the election-fraud claim “affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he was saying.” Trump then publicly chided his (once?) favorite daughter on Truth Social, truthing, “Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at, or studying, Election results. She had long since checked out and was, in my opinion, only trying to be respectful to Bill Barr and his position as Attorney General (he sucked!).”
Meanwhile, on Twitter, Tiffany Trump’s name trended—seemingly not because of anything she did, but because she did not have to appear at the hearing. What’s the secret for being a winner in the Trump family? Don’t play.
Still, there is money to be made off the Big Lie. But only if you’re as shameless as the Trump patriarch, who, it was revealed in the second committee hearing, raised $250 million for an “Official Election Defense Fund,” leveraging spurious election-fraud claims. Senior investigative counsel for the committee Amanda Wick noted that “most of the money raised went to [a] newly created PAC, not to election-related litigation.”
In a post-hearing interview with Jake Tapper, Representative Zoe Lofgren also said that Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle, was paid $60,000 for a two-and-a-half-minute introduction to a Don Jr. speech. Apparently you don’t even need to marry into the family to partake in the self-dealing.
As someone well versed in the failspawn lifestyle, I can attest that a spawn’s fortunes are inexorably tied to one’s famous parent. In the 17 months since Trump left office, the kids have continued to sell stuff on social media, give speeches, appear on Fox, and, I guess, spend money? They haven’t run for office or secured any kind of non-daddy-dependent political future, despite being very popular with the Republican base. It would have been so easy, one imagines, for Jr. to have won a congressional seat or for Ivanka to get a show on Fox. How lost must these little spawns be that they have so far largely failed to parlay Trumpism into meaningful employment beyond their family businesses? Then again, fail is right there in the name.