Tag: Jared Kushner

Kushner ‘de facto president’ during COVID-19 crisis, WH sources said to claim

Vanity Fair report paints Trump’s son-in-law as go-to deputy making the critical calls over country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, and beyond

Earlier this month, after Bernie Sanders dropped out of the presidential race, JTA made a list of 10 others who could one day become the nation’s first Jewish president. But according to a new report in Vanity Fair, Jared Kushner has already beat them all to it.

“Jared is running everything. He’s the de facto president of the United States,” a former White House official told Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman, a political reporter who wrote a bestselling biography of the late Fox News president Roger Ailes.

The article, full of anonymous insider accounts about US President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, paints a picture of Kushner as Trump’s go-to deputy on every big issue — the pandemic included. According to the story, Kushner warned his father-in-law against taking steps that could chill the stock market, and even after Vice President Mike Pence was named the head of the coronavirus task force, Kushner formed his own team to tackle the disease’s spread. Continue reading.

Kushner calls the coronavirus response in US ‘a great success story’

WASHINGTON – White House senior adviser Jared Kushner called the federal government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak “a great success story” on Wednesday as cases topped 1 million and the death toll passed 60,000 in the United States.

Kushner, the president’s son-in-law who has been serving on the White House coronavirus task force, doesn’t often make public appearances.

During an interview on Fox News on Wednesday morning, Kushner said, “I think that we’ve achieved all the different milestones that are needed. So the government, federal government, rose to the challenge and this is a great success story. I think that’s really what needs to be told.” Continue reading.

Hope Hicks Is Apparently Behind Trump’s Rambling, Egotistical Press Conferences

NOTE: This article is provided free by Vanity Fair.

The “let Trump be Trump” strategy is flaming out, with the president’s poll numbers dropping amid criticism of his daily grievance fests.

As the number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. skyrockets, and the economy plummets, Donald Trump has continued to use the White House’s daily coronavirus press briefings to boast about how well he believes he’s handling the crisis, and take pot shots at his enemies. This “let Trump be Trump” strategy—the administration’s go-to, considering Trump has fired anyone who might preempt it—was applied to the pandemic just as one of the president’s most trusted aides officially returned to the fold. While Hope Hicks now holds a nebulous White House title, the communications strategy she has crafted for Trump’s emergency messaging is perfectly clear: let him address the nation in his own words while taking the briefing room’s centerstage on a near daily basis.

At first, this proved to be effective. Despite the president’s personal role in downplaying the dangers of the coronavirus, and the White House’s severely delayed mitigation efforts, Trump saw a sizable favorability boost in March. Forty-nine percent of Americans voiced their approval of his leadership at the time, which marked just the second time his presidency has enjoyed such ratings in Gallup’s national survey. But as the pandemic and its economic devastation have dragged on, the president has also used his position to brag about the ratings of his pressers beating out ABC’s The Bachelor and riff about his past sexual encounters with “models.” His approval bump has proved to be temporary, as an April 14 Gallup poll found a six-point drop. Continue reading “Hope Hicks Is Apparently Behind Trump’s Rambling, Egotistical Press Conferences”

Kushner’s Coronavirus ‘Task Force’ Awash In Potential Conflicts

areWhite House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner has been operating a “shadow” White House coronavirus task force which, journalist Pema Levy examines this week in Mother Jones.

The “shadow task force,” Levy notes, has been “convened by Jared Kushner to help run the Trump Administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.” And being an expert on public health is not a requirement.

“When Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, assembled the group, he did not turn to experts in crisis management or public health,” Levy explains. “Instead, he enlisted people with experience in the business of health care — not necessarily medical experts, but particularly, those who worked on (the) finance side and were adept at making money off the health care industry.” Continue reading.

‘Chaos’: Kushner-commandeered supply chain task force operates in the dark — and turned government into arm of big business

AlterNet logoJared Kushner is best known for his failures, and his decision to commandeer the supply chain task force and turn it into an arm of Big Business may be his greatest.

The supply chain task force, a part of the larger coronavirus task force, should be helping the federal government procure desperately-needed personal protective equipment (PPE) including face masks and shields, along with life-saving medical equipment like ventilators, at a lower cost, and distributing it to the areas that need it the most.

But under Kushner’s manipulation, the supply chain task force has “virtually no accountability,” NBC News reports. It has “operated almost entirely in the dark, releasing few details of their arrangements with the big companies; created a new and convoluted emergency response system; and sown confusion and distrust in the states and among the people who need medical supplies.” Continue reading.

Democrats question Kushner about health surveillance privacy during pandemic

Lawmakers want to know about White House contacts with technology companies

Lawmakers are raising new questions about the role of senior White House adviser Jared Kushner in the response to the coronavirus, particularly when it comes to the government’s work with big tech companies.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, led a Friday letter to Kushner with fellow Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. Eshoo is the chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee.

The three Democrats are expressing concerns about relationships between public health surveillance efforts and companies like Verily, with is owned by Google’s parent company. Continue reading.

He Went to Jared

New York Times logoHeaven help us, we’re at the mercy of the Slim Suit crowd.

A few years ago, when some photos by Times photographers adorning our office walls were swapped out for others, I found one headed for the dumpster.

It captured the scene when Andy Card came over to whisper to George W. Bush, as he read “The Pet Goat” to schoolchildren in Sarasota, that a second plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

It was such a pivotal moment in this country’s history, it seemed too important to toss. So I hung it in my office. Continue reading.

Is Kushner’s Covid-19 ‘Team’ Profiting From The Crisis?

Hot off of singlehandedly ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, America’s Son-In-Law-In-Chief has put himself in charge of handling half of the White House response to the coronavirus crisis.

Didn’t you know that? No? Oh, well, it seems the White House just decided that, ah, the people didn’t need to hear about this. Oh, and FYI, most of his team are from the private sector. That’s not a problem, Congressional Democrats, is it?

Thanks to some thorough reporting by Politico, we now know that Jared Kushner is running a shadow COVID-19 response team alongside the official task force led by Mike Pence. Pence once characterized his group as an “all-of-government response,” but Kushner’s team is an “all-of-private-sector response” full of private equity executives and health care profiteers. That “all-of-private-sector” line isn’t me being snide: it’s how some of the anonymous White House officials in the report characterized their own colleagues. Continue reading.

Kushner company stands to benefit from freeze on federal mortgage payments

With more than $800 million in federally backed properties, Kushner Companies could reduce its payments to zero under provisions of the recovery bill.

Jared Kushner’s family business could be a prime beneficiary of a provision in the federal recovery bill that allows owners of apartment buildings to freeze federal mortgage payments on low- and moderate-income properties.

Kushner Companies, the real estate firm started in 1985 by Kushner’s father, Charles, controls thousands of low- and moderate-housing units across the country, some of which are funded through an $800 million federally backed loan the firm received in 2019.

The option for owners to temporarily freeze mortgage payments on low- and moderate-income housing developments, in exchange for promising not to evict tenants who can’t pay their rent, was one of the economic provisions approved by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump last week. It is considered a way to keep lower-income apartment dwellers in their homes, but also shifted the burden of housing them from their landlords to the federal government and taxpayers. Continue reading.

Kushner Puts Himself in Middle of White House’s Chaotic Coronavirus Response

New York Times logoPresident Trump’s son-in-law has become a central player in the administration’s effort to curb the pandemic. But critics say he is part of the problem.

WASHINGTON — Peter T. Gaynor, the federal government’s top emergency manager, was about to go on television last week to announce that he would use wartime production powers to ensure the manufacture of about 60,000 desperately needed coronavirus test kits.

With minutes until the camera went live, though, he still had to let the White House know. The person he hurriedly called: Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, who endorsed an announcement that surprised many officials. Among those unaware that Mr. Kushner had agreed to the use of the special powers? President Trump.

At one of the most perilous moments in modern American history, Mr. Kushner is trying in a disjointed White House to marshal the forces of government for the war his father-in-law says he is waging. A real estate developer with none of the medical expertise of a public health official nor the mobilization experience of a general, Mr. Kushner has nonetheless become a key player in the response to the pandemic. Continue reading.