Jared Kushner On Criticisms And His Roles In The White House

Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and most influential adviser, recently spoke about his role in the White House and how he deals with criticisms. Kushner has been a de facto chief of staff since 2016 and has been a key architect of Trump’s foreign policy.

Without any political experience prior to his appointment, Jared Kushner has spearheaded various initiatives by the U.S. government, including the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the map of the Mideast Peace, criminal justice reform, the coronavirus task force, and Trump’s re-election campaign. Critics say he is not even basically qualified for the sensitive position he is holding on the White House payroll, but Kushner could only care less. More than a political animal, he sees himself as a pragmatist who takes pride in simply being able to get things done.

Kushner’s style as Senior Adviser to the President is different from that of his predecessors. May it be on issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the COVID-19 pandemic, Kushner is a utility player, speaking to experts, studying previous efforts, and doing something different.

“I can give Trump a point of view on the severity of a given problem, I can give him some diagnoses and a prescription,” he said. “The thing that guided me was, I didn’t want to do what had failed in the past. The president’s very good at eliminating the status quo,” he added.

A quick look at Kushner’s track record reveals how he has handled his high-profile assignments in the White House. While there have been failures, there have also been a few successes. He believes his role in the coronavirus task force lies somewhere in between.

When Trump asked Kushner to drop everything to work with Vice President Pence on the task force, he did all he could to fulfill his role. But while his status as a family member irked senior administration officials, the controversy somewhat receded due to the magnitude of the crisis.

“The gap was quite great between what we needed to do versus what we were doing. I attribute it to the fact that the virus outbreak was unprecedented. It was as if we were standing on a beach watching a tsunami coming. There were some very, very dark and daunting days. I didn’t always feel necessarily that we would meet the challenge,” he said.

In recent weeks, Kushner has been more actively involved in the re-election campaign than his role in the coronavirus task force. Following Trump’s poorly attended rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 20, he conferred with campaign manager Brad Parscale and got Trump to focus more consistently on the campaign than on America’s fight against COVID-19.

For many, it is clear that Kushner has failed to overcome the hardening perception that Trump’s administration has failed to handle the pandemic. Neither him nor anyone close to the president has been able to undo the damage from the administration’s disorganized response to the virus, but Kushner insists criticisms don’t bother him at all.