It’s shock and awe as Trump’s granddaughter does her bit for the war effort. All hail Kai Trump, the shopper-in-chief | Marina Hyde
Yes, many Americans are struggling, but it’s good to know the first family can still afford the Earth’s most expensive provisions, says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde
In the absence of any clearly and consistently stated aims from the US administration, maybe each day of the Iran war just needs a moodboard description. In which case, Sunday was a tale of two nepo babies. In Iran, the high-level executive search for the new ayatollah concluded that the old ayatollah’s son was the best man for the position. It’s not for me to assess his job prospects, but you’d hope his supermarket order doesn’t contain any “ripen at home” pears.
Meanwhile, across the world, in LA, Donald Trump’s eldest granddaughter posted a YouTube video titled “I Brought My Secret Service to Erewhon”. By way of background, Erewhon is Earth’s most pretentiously extravagant hipster food shop, and, as Kai was at pains to brag, “the most expensive grocery store pretty much out there. Everything’s crazy expensive! So we’re going to get my favourite stuff.”
Thank you for your use of till service! It’s important that ordinary Americans understand this as Mademoiselle’s part in the war effort. And there’s a full 18 minutes of it, as Kai loads up on woo-woo supplements and something described as “the Hailey Bieber smoothie”, wonders “what kind of sushi are we feeling?” before finally dropping $233, leaving the store and getting into … a five-car, police-bike-escorted motorcade. “They really laid out the red carpet for you!” trills her unseen cameraman (let’s just call him Gary Antoinette).
Don’t judge her for splurging on that bit, though, as you have to remember it’s taxpayer funded, so, like, essentially free? As Kai puts it at one point in the video: “One thing about me is that I don’t spend a lot of money.” Another thing about her she’d like you to know is that “I hate filming in public, so this is, like, so awkward for me!” For sure. People had a lot of reservations about the US bringing in compulsory YouTube national service, but most would now argue it’s building increased social cohesion and improved personal maturity in young adults.
If you’re wondering which Trump’s daughter the 18-year-old Kai is – and why do I feel you already had a sneaking suspicion? – the answer is Don Jr’s. Kai made an onstage speech about her grandpa at the 2024 Republican convention which was credited by many as humanising him. Though her Erewhon adventures suggest she’s now on a monstering spree, wittingly or otherwise.
Still, the family that posts together, stays together, and within hours of Kai’s critically misunderstood video dropping, Grandpa could be found on his own social network calling people who can’t afford essentials in a world where oil prices were surging idiots. “Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace,” opined the grifter-in-chief. “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!” Totally. Only fools would not simply eat cake. Only fools would not drink the $21 Hailey Bieber strawberry glaze smoothie. Or, come to that, pump it into their car’s petrol tanks.
Alas, as indicated, the reactions to Kai’s video failed to appreciate its instant entry into the annals of solid-gold auto-satire. At some dim level, even she seems to have grasped – or had it grasped for her – that small adjustments for peasant taste might be necessary. But rather than taking the video down, all that ensued as a result was what appeared to be a change to the video’s link title, ditching that “I Brought My Secret Service To Erewhon” in favour of the not-altogether-more-adorable “I Tried The World’s Most Expensive Grocery Store”. Hate to say it, but Kai: you still didn’t fix it.
Then again, at least Kai is putting her money where her big mouth is, and continuing to own her content no matter how inevitably foolhardy it begins to look to the world once it makes contact with reality. I hate it when UK war influencers go quiet, and it must be said there isn’t a whole lot of chat from the pro-war politician and pundit class this morning about how muchly they back Trump’s suggestions that he’s going to waive sanctions on all-round horror and friend-to-Iran Vladimir Putin, following a good long call with the Russian leader. Come on, Iran hawks – all in, right? With us or against us, and so on? Although complete victory is apparently just around the corner, those of us who feel just a tiny bit more circumspect about the unforeseen consequences of Trump and Netanyahu’s “little excursion” will have found ourselves drawn ceaselessly back into the past this week. “It was a brilliant operation,” the hawkish historian Andrew Roberts reflected of the Iraq invasion back in May 2003. “It was over in three weeks and it cost 31 British dead. It was a miraculous victory.”
Hard to call exactly which stage of miraculous victory we’re in with this latest brilliant operation, given that the US president announced on Monday that the war is both “very complete” but also that he was to “going to go further”. But when ordinary people are sneered at for having the temerity not to have enough money for basics, or not understanding the “bigger picture”, it’s worth remembering that at last estimation, the president and his family were judged to have made at least $4bn by leveraging his second term in office. Of course, it’s great when friends can share in the trolley dash too, so if there’s a huge boost for the Kremlin coffers as a result of the Iran excursion, then so much the better.
All in all, yet another few days where the last line of Kai’s video would also serve as the perfect slogan for her grandfather’s presidency: “Like and subscribe please, I need to make back my money!”
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
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