My oldest brother has an incredible gift.

He's capable of saying the most incendiary, inappropriate things

at just the perfect moment and somehow getting a laugh regardless of who he's in front of.

I'm not quite sure how he does it, but I've watched him perfect this art since I was a kid.

It used to be most apparent with my parents who'd sometimes have trouble disciplining him

because he could essentially shit-talk his way out of any situation and earn a laugh.

And as we got older, it felt like this talent elevated to a new tier.

Like he'd beaten the mom is mad boss and moved on to,

can I get the priest to crack a smile in the middle of the funeral?

I've been thinking about this skill a lot recently.

This innate ability some people have to do something

in a particular way that disarms everyone around them. And then the way some people

try to replicate that behavior in the exact same context with the exact same approach and get disastrous

results. I think often about trying some of the jokes I've heard my brother make to my mom,

knowing full well they would never quite land, though I can't say exactly why.

Anyway, in April, the New York Times broke the story that President Donald Trump's daughter and

son-in-law are negotiating a luxury hotel with Syrian billionaires who are simultaneously lobbying

the president to lift economic sanctions on their country. I'm going to say that sentence again,

just in case it didn't land the first time.

President Donald Trump's children are negotiating a luxury hotel

with Syrian billionaires who are simultaneously lobbying the president

to lift economic sanctions on their country.

...