Yet the onslaught of criticism against Nordstrom didn’t end with the protective father’s Twitter barrage. “This is a direct attack on his policies and her name,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said on Wednesday.

Then on Thursday morning, presidential aide Kellyanne Conway appeared on Fox and Friends. “Go buy Ivanka’s stuff is what I would tell you. I hate shopping, I'm going to go get some myself today,” she said.

Trump critics immediately leapt on that, arguing that it violated the laws against pushing products. Larry Noble, the general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center pointed to the endorsement law, as did former Obama administration official Chris Lu, and Eisen agreed. Trump, as president, might be exempt from the law, but Conway is not.

Richard Painter, who was top ethics lawyer in the Bush administration, said a statement like Conway’s would never have been allowed during that presidency.

“It is a violation of federal ethics regulations prohibiting use of public office for private gain for any government employee in an official speech, an official capacity TV interview or any similar communication to promote the products or services of a particular private business belonging to the employee’s own family, the President's family, a friend, a campaign contributor or anyone else,” he wrote in an email. “That was strictly forbidden in the Bush administration because it is illegal.”

Thursday afternoon, Representative Jason Chaffetz, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, and Elijah Cummings, the Democratic ranking member, wrote a letter to the head of the federal Office of Government Ethics saying that Conway’s remarks “raised extremely serious concerns.” The two members ask that OGE recommend a remedy, whether that is dismissal, demotion, reprimand, or suspension to Conway’s superviser—although they note that it’s a challenging situation, since Conway’s boss is Trump, who “has an inherent conflict of interest since Conway’s remarks relate to his daughter’s private business.”

The White House’s performative outrage at Nordstrom is a bit much—the company says it informed the Ivanka Trump team in January of the decision to cut ties, and that it was based on declining sales. Even if the decision is political, and Nordstrom has made the calculation that due to Trump’s toxic standing, it would prefer not to be associated with him, that’s a solid business decision, and well within its rights.

But Trump, despite rising to power on his reputation as a great businessman, has shown little traditional respect for capitalism. When, as president-elect, he inserted himself into Carrier’s decision about whether or not to move some jobs to Mexico, the free-market wing of the Republican Party rocked back in horror. His feud with Nordstrom represents another example of Trump using the presidency to attempt to dictate to a private company how it runs itself.