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geniuses, the same people who talked him into firing Comey, the same people on Air Force One who cut out his outside legal team, knowing the email was out there, knowing that email existed, put the statement out about Don Junior, that the meeting was all about adoptions ... the same geniuses trying to get Sessions fired. “Look, Kasowitz has known him for twenty-five years. Kasowitz has gotten him out of all kinds of jams. Kasowitz on the campaign—what did we have, a hundred women? Kasowitz took care of all of them. And now he’s out in, what, four weeks? He’s New York’s toughest lawyer. Mark Corallo, toughest motherfucker I ever met, just can’t do it.” Jared and Ivanka believe, said Bannon, that if they advocate prison reform and save DACA—the program to protect the children of illegal immigrants—the liberals will come to their defense. He digressed briefly to characterize Ivanka Trump’s legislative acumen, and her difficulty—which had become quite a White House preoccupation—in finding sponsorship for her family leave proposal. “Here’s why, I keep telling her: there’s no political constituency in it. You know how easy it is to get a bill sponsored, any schmendrick can do it. You know why your bill has no sponsorship? Because people realize how dumb it is.” In fact, said, Bannon, eyes rolling and mouth agape, it was the Jarvanka idea to try to trade off amnesty for the border wall. “If not the dumbest idea in Western civilization, it’s up there in the top three. Do these geniuses even know who we are?” Just then Bannon took a call, the caller telling him that it looked as if Scaramucci might indeed be getting the job of communications director. “Don’t fuck with me, dude,” he laughed. “Don’t fuck with me like that!” He got off the phone expressing further wonder at the fantasy world of the geniuses— and added, for good measure, an extra dollop of dripping contempt for them. “T literally do not talk to them. You know why? I’m doing my shit, and they got nothing to do with it, and I don’t care what they’re doing ... I don’t care... . ’m not going to be alone with them, I’m not going to be in a room with them. Ivanka walked into the Oval today ... [and] as soon as she walked in, I looked at her and walked right out... . I won’t be in a room ... don’t want to do it... . Hope Hicks walked in, I walked out.” “The FBI put Jared’s father in jail,” said Preate. “Don’t they understand you don’t mess 29 “Charlie Kushner,” said Bannon, smacking his head again in additional disbelief. “He’s going crazy because they’re going to get down deep in his shit about how he’s financed everything... . all the shit coming out of Israel ... and all these guys coming out of Eastern Europe ... all these Russian guys ... and guys in Kazakhstan... . And he’s frozen on 666 [Fifth Avenue]... . [If] it goes under next year, the whole thing’s cross-collateralized ... he’s wiped, he’s gone, he’s done, it’s over... . Toast.” He held his face in his hands for a moment and then looked up again. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020096