The Gist

Rejecting Jared

In 2016, Trump insisted he wasn’t trying to get a top security clearance for his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. See? Now it’s finally true.

President Donald Trump and adviser Jared Kushner at the White House on Oct. 16.

Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Listen to Episode 941 of Slate’s The Gist:

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Well, what do you know? In 2016, Trump tweeted that he wasn’t trying to get a top security clearance for his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. A year later, he’s finally right.

On The Gist, what’s so special about an octopus? Slate’s Daniel Engber has a takedown of the many-armed beast of the deep: The research on cephalopod intelligence is flimsy, he says, and the octopus is hardly the first animal to have fascinated us with its methods of escape.

In the Spiel, it’s time to name another Lobstar.

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