Tag: Jared Kushner

Here are the 4 most stunning revelations about Jared Kushner’s ever-growing role in Trump’s coronavirus response

AlterNet logoAs the worldwide death toll from the coronavirus pandemic surges past 48,500 (according to figures reported by John Hopkins University in Baltimore early Thursday morning, April 2) and the United States becomes #3 in deaths from COVID-19 (behind only Italy and Spain), President Donald Trump is trying to give the impression that he is being as proactive as possible. Gone are the days when Trump irresponsibly described the pandemic as a “hoax” and made the ludicrous claim that Democrats and Never Trump conservatives were exaggerating its dangers. And Trump’s efforts to appear proactive are asserting themselves not only with his coronavirus task force (which includes medical experts Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx), but also, with a separate coronavirus team led by White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner (the president’s son-in-law).

Kushner’s activities during the pandemic are the focus of an in-depth articlewritten by journalists Adam Cancryn and Dan Diamond and published in Politico this week. According to Cancryn and Diamond, “What started two-and-a-half weeks ago as an effort to utilize the private sector to fix early testing failures has become an all-encompassing portfolio for Kushner, who…. has taken charge of the most important challenges facing the federal government: expanding test access, ramping up industry production of needed medical supplies, and figuring out how to get those supplies to key locations.”

Here are some of the most important points from Politico and other media outlets about Kushner’s role in the Trump Administration’s response to coronavirus: Continue reading.

 

Jared Kushner has ‘thrown out the established government plan’ on pandemics — and has been swarmed by corporate execs

AlterNet logoPresident Trump has refused to use a wartime law to require major manufacturers to make vital equipment to combat the new coronavirus, reportedly after corporations successfully lobbied his top adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Last week, Trump signed the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era law that allows the federal government to force American companies to ensure the availability of crucial equipment. But the president has refused to invoke the law even as governors across the country and lawmakers in Washington have warned that time is running out to stop the exponential spread of coronavirus infections.

Trump falsely compared the law to nationalizing businesses during a White House briefing on Sunday. Continue reading.

Jared Kushner behind plan to turn over pandemic crisis management to department with little medical experience: report

AlterNet logoBuried deep in an article describing the rift between the Trump administration and U.S. companies awaiting instructions on what the government requires of them to slow down the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the New York Times reports that White House adviser Jared Kushner was behind a move to transfer responsibility for dealing with health crisis to FEMA although the agency lacks deep experience in dealing with health-related crises. Read the post here.

 

Kushner coronavirus team sparks confusion, plaudits inside White House response efforts

Washington Post logoJared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and a senior adviser, has created his own team of government allies and private industry representatives to work alongside the administration’s official coronavirus task force, adding another layer of confusion and conflicting signals within the White House’s disjointed response to the crisis.

Kushner, who joined the administration’s coronavirus efforts last week, is primarily focused on attempting to set up drive-through testing sites with the help of technology and retail executives, as well as experts in health-care delivery. The goal, officials familiar with the work said, is to have limited testing in a handful of cities running by Friday and to expand the project from there.

But Kushner’s team is causing confusion among many officials involved in the response, who say they are unsure who is in charge given Kushner’s dual role as senior adviser and Trump family member. Some have privately dubbed his team a “shadow task force” whose requests they interpret as orders they must balance with regular response efforts.
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Jared Kushner once controlled the health insurance company that has launched a coronavirus testing website

AlterNet logoOne of the major complaints about President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been the shortage of testing in the United States. Aggressive testing throughout the U.S., critics assert, should have been carried out weeks ago. But now, a new website owned by the company Oscar Health Insurance is pointing Americans in the direction of places where they can be tested for coronavirus — and according to Mother Jones’ Washington, D.C. bureau chief, David Dorn, Oscar was once co-owned by White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner.

Oscar Health Insurance, reporter Jerry Lambe notes in Law & Crime, has “held itself out” as being founded by Kushner’s brother, Joshua Kushner. In 2015, an article by journalist Andrew Khouri for the Los Angeles Times’ described Oscar as a “Silicone Valley-backed startup” that had been founded by “three young Harvard Business School graduates” in 2012: Joshua Kushner, Mario Schlosser and Kevin Nazemi. But according to Corn, Jared Kushner played a major role in the company.

Corn reports that “several years ago,” Jared Kushner “controlled a family business” that owned Oscar — which, Corn explains, “has often been described in media accounts as co-founded by Jared’s brother, Joshua. But New York State records reviewed by Mother Jones show that in 2013, the year the business was incorporated, Jared with his brother controlled the holding company that owned Oscar.” Continue reading.

How the Kushner family is cashing in on COVID-19

AlterNet logoThe Kushner family is trying to cash in on the pandemic that could kill millions of us.

Oscar Health, the health insurance company co-founded by Jared Kushner’s younger brother, announced Friday it has launched a testing center locator for COVID-19. It shows where more than 100 centers are in the United States. The company is also offering a risk assessment survey and means to talk to a doctor online.

The coronavirus is predicted to kill anywhere from almost 500,000 Americans in the next year to more than 5 million. At least 62 people in the United States had died by Sunday; 3,130 have tested positive. Continue reading.

Jared Kushner revealed as brains behind Donald Trump’s “half-baked” coronavirus response

“Haphazard and helter-skelter”: The president’s son-in-law inserted himself into the tumult this week

The president’s son-in-law and senior advisor was the focus of a hard-hitting Washington Post deep-dive titled, “Infighting, missteps and a son-in-law hungry for action: Inside the Trump administration’s troubled coronavirus response.”

“The economy was grinding to a halt. Stocks were in free fall. Schools were closing. Public events were being canceled. New cases of the novel coronavirus were popping up across the country,” the newspaper reported. “And then, on Wednesday, the day the World Health Organization designated the coronavirus a pandemic, Jared Kushner joined the tumult.”

“President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser — who has zero expertise in infectious diseases and little experience marshaling the full bureaucracy behind a cause — saw the administration floundering and inserted himself at the helm, believing he could break the logjam of internal dysfunction,” The Post reported. Continue reading.

Ten minutes at the teleprompter: Inside Trump’s failed attempt to calm coronavirus fears

Washington Post logoIn the most scripted of presidential settings, a prime-time televised address to the nation, President Trump decided to ad-lib — and his errors triggered a market meltdown, panicked travelers overseas and crystallized for his critics just how dangerously he has fumbled his management of the coronavirus.

Even Trump — a man practically allergic to admitting mistakes — knew he’d screwed up by declaring Wednesday night that his ban on travel from Europe would include cargo and trade, and acknowledged as much to aides in the Oval Office as soon as he’d finished speaking, according to one senior administration official and a second person, both with knowledge of the episode.

Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser who has seized control over some aspects of the government’s coronavirus response, reassured Trump that aides would correct his misstatement, four administration officials said, and they scrambled to do just that. The president also told staffers to make sure other countries did not believe trade would be affected, and even sent a cleanup tweet of his own: “The restriction stops people not goods,” he wrote. Continue reading.

New report reveals the bewildering reason Trump is ‘reluctant’ to declare an emergency over coronavirus

AlterNet logoThe latest news out of the White House is incomprehensibly dire. Politico is reporting that Donald Trump is “reluctant” to give the COVID-19 pandemic an emergency designation, which would provide emergency funding to states and allow a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) response in affected areas, because Trump believes calling it an “emergency” would go against his prior insistence that the coronavirus outbreak was no worse than the yearly flu.

He doesn’t want to declare the emergency, said a “Republican who speaks to Trump,” because it “contradicts his message.” Worse, still, is this news: The coronavirus task force now led by Vice President Mike Pence will be holding off on its own recommendation on whether to declare a national emergency. The reason? They’re waiting on Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.

According to a person “familiar” with the situation, the task force “will not give Trump its final verdict until Jared Kushner, the president’s senior adviser and husband to his daughter Ivanka, finishes his research and comes to a conclusion himself,” Politico reports. Continue reading.

‘A tier-one predator’: New doc details how ‘slumlord’ Jared Kushner allegedly exploited his White House position

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner will be the newest villain on the upcoming Netflix docuseries “Dirty Money.”

The show, which focuses on the “untold stories of scandal, financial malfeasance and corruption,” will devote an episode to Kushner’s time as the head of Kushner Companies in its new season premiering on March 11. The show previously looked at Trump’s business dealings in an episode titled “The Confidence Man.”

Kushner, who is described in the trailer for the show as a “tier-one predator,” will be featured on the episode “Slumlord Millionaire.” The episode will detail Kushner Companies’ shady business tactics. Kushner took control of the company after his father, Charles, went to prison for trying to obstruct an investigation by blackmailing his sister with a video of his brother-in-law having sex with a prostitute. The probe was led by then-prosecutor Chris Christie. Continue reading.