Given the magnitude of the presidency’s responsibilities, you would think that Donald Trump and his senior advisers would have bigger concerns than the sales of Ivanka Trump merchandise. And you would be wrong, as everyone found out this week when Trump, Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer went to war against Nordstrom one of the retailers that has dropped Ivanka’s copy-cat fashion line because it isn’t selling.

Trevor Noah suspects the Ivanka blowup may hint at deeper political problems. “For someone who would have won the popular vote, Trump seems pretty unpopular!” he observed. “It must be those millions of dead illegal immigrants who aren’t buying Ivanka Trump shoes.” In the face of the Nordstrom decision, “Tweeter’s gonna tweet,” and the Daily Show host dissects Trump’s weird message, which suggested that she was being punished by the department store not for poor sales but for his politics.

When reporters asked Spicer why the president was going after Nordstrom’s, he adopted the same phony argument. “It’s a direct attack on his policies and her name,” the press secretary replied, with his usual phony indignation. But his convoluted logic demonstrates how impossible it will be to of separate the Trump brands, such as they are, from the Trump administration.

On the brighter side, Noah thinks this humbling experience just might teach Trump something — an absurdly optimistic expectation.