MSNBC host Joy Reid couldn’t help but notice that there is a strange obsession on the right with the children of Democrats. Even after Hunter Biden pleaded guilty, “That doesn’t satisfy Republicans. Maybe in part because they actually seem to enjoy attacking the family members of Democratic presidents.” She went on to recall Rush Limbaugh’s obsession with 12-year-old Chelsea Clinton. The younger Clinton went on to comment on just how “creepy” she felt about someone that old who couldn’t stop talking about her.
“Rush Limbaugh and others, but notably Rush Limbaugh — and I think this is now somewhat well-known like — was quite vicious to me,” she recalled recently. “Said terrible things about my appearance and called me ‘The White House Dog’ repeatedly. I was 12, 13. And I remember thinking, like, this is just so, at best odd, and at worst just wrong. Like why is this old man obsessed with me? Like this is so weird and creepy and inappropriate.” Sasha and Malia Obama were even younger, Reid noted. Still, Republicans attacked their facial expressions, their clothing, and more. Malia was 10 when she entered the White House. Sasha was seven. But their young age didn’t spare them from GOP criticism.
At the same time, Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, were appointed to top jobs in the White House, despite anti-nepotism laws that were put in place after John F. Kennedy appointed his brother to be the attorney general. The Trumps got around the law by saying they weren’t accepting any federal funds for their positions.
“They were handed powerful positions in the Trump White House with broad portfolios with not a peep from the Republicans and their friends in right-wing media,” said Reid. “During the White House years, they reported between $172 million and $640 million in outside income. They should have never been allowed to work at the White House. Frankly, Jared couldn’t even get a security clearance until Trump intervened. The Department of Justice reversed decades of precedent to grant Trump’s wish that his children be allowed to work in the White House and profit from it. If the Republicans are so outraged about financial wrongdoing, you’d think they might want to investigate how Jared skated out of the White House to a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund.