Why a 13 year old Conan O’Brien clip resurfaced during the RNC

A 2007 clip from Late Night with Conan O’Brien became relevant during the Republican National Convention

If you followed along with the Republican National Convention on social media last week, chances are you saw all sorts of reactions, memes, and arguments. It’s all the kind of things you’d expect to see on Twitter. But what was a surprise was the resurfacing of a 2007 clip from Late Night with Conan O’Brien.

During Ivanka Trump’s speech on the final night of the RNC, she shared a story of her son building his grandfather a LEGO replica of the White House. It was a callback to Ivanka Trump’s 2016 RNC speech in which she recalled playing with LEGO sets in her father’s office while he worked on construction projects.

But a number of others on social media considered the story to be another callback. They pointed to a 2007 interview on Late Night with Conan O’Brien in which Ivanka Trump told of how her father couldn’t help but criticize her LEGO replica of Trump Tower as a child:

"I remember…gluing the LEGOs together in a model of Trump Tower. So my father, in scolding me, also was never so proud… But one of the most amusing things that I think is so typical of him and his parenting style and just how he is is that four days later he actually came up to me and goes ‘You know, Ivanka, this has been bothering me,’ –keep in my I’m six years old–and I go ‘what Dad?’ and he goes ‘you know the other day when you made a model of Trump Tower with these LEGOs? You made five setbacks in the architectural facade of the building. There are only four."

The story was meant to be charming and demonstrate how Donald Trump, then the host of The Apprentice, was a businessman and builder through and through. If you watch the clip, the audience is less amused by Ivanka Trump’s story and only finds humor in Conan O’Brien saving it with his impression of Trump.

Did the story Ivanka Trump told Conan O’Brien actually happen?

On the surface, the only real connection between Ivanka Trump’s 2020 RNC speech and 2007 Late Night appearance is the mention of LEGO toys. However, those with more background information on Ivanka Trump’s 2007 Late Night story were quick to argue that that RNC tale was pure fiction. Ivanka Trump had already admitted her Late Night tale was made up.

In the book American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power, journalist Andrea Bernstein references the interview with Conan O’Brien. She also points to Ivanka Trump’s 2009 book The Trump Card in which she admits that her brothers glued the LEGO together and that her Late Night anecdote was fiction.

Bernstein’s book takes things one step further, noting that Ivanka Trump’s story is very similar to one in her father’s book The Art of the Deal. In that book, the future president recalls borrowing his brother’s blocks to build a tower and deciding to glue them together after admiring his work. The ghostwriter of The Art of the Deal,  Tony Schwartz, told Bernstein there is a “considerably less than 50 percent” chance that story is true.

So with this information being passed around Twitter, critics of Team Trump were quick to question the validity of Ivanka Trump’s story about her son building the White House out of LEGO. Are there more important issues that needed to be addressed during the RNC? Yes. But we’re talking about Twitter here.

Still, many people pointed to the example set by the Late Night with Conan O’Brien clip as proof that you can’t take the Trump family at its word. Even as Ivanka Trump was trying to showcase a softer side of the president, a history of misleading statements and playing fast and loose with the truth made it harder to believe.

Did you have a 2007 Late Night with Conan O’Brien clip coming up on your RNC bingo card? Let us know what you think of this story in the comment section below.