Widely blasted as a nepotism hire due to his marriage to Ivanka Trump,
Jared Kushner has made some controversial moves as Senior Advisor to the President.
Here's a look at the shady side of Jared Kushner.
During an October 2020 interview with Fox & Friends, Jared Kushner had some thoughts on
the protests that erupted after the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
"It intensified after the George Floyd situation, and, uh, you know,
you saw a lot of people who were just virtue signaling."
He explained,
"They'd go on Instagram and cry or they would put a slogan on their jersey or write something
on a basketball court. And quite frankly, that was doing more to polarize the country
than it was to bring people forward. You solve problems with solutions."
This diatribe came while Kushner was speaking about what President
Trump has supposedly done for the Black community.
"One thing we've seen in a lot of the Black community, which is mostly Democrat, is that
President Trump's policies are the policies that can help
people break out of the problems that they're complaining about."
What Kushner said next, dubbed a "racist stereotype" in a New York Times headline,
set off a firestorm.
"But he can't want them to be successful more than they want to be successful."
Attorney Ben Crump, who represented the families of Floyd and Breonna Taylor,
had some words for Trump's adviser, tweeting:
"Jared Kushner speaks as if Black people are lazy complainers who don't want to be successful.
This blatant DISRESPECT shows he has NO understanding of the Black community and its
challenges that have spanned centuries. You can't 'fix' these problems from this level of ego."
After yet another shooting of an unarmed Black man at the hands of police - this time of Kenosha,
Wisconsin's Jacob Blake - the Milwaukee Bucks decided to not play their Game 5
playoff matchup against the Orlando Magic. The team said in a statement, quote, "We
are calling for justice for Jacob Blake and demand the officers be held accountable."
On CNBC's Squawk Box, Jared Kushner weighed in on the strike, saying,
"Look, I think that the NBA players are very fortunate
that they have the financial position where they're able to take a night
off from work without having to have the consequences to themselves financially."
"So they have that luxury, which is great."
He went on to remark that "there's a lot of activism" in the league, but believes the
"slogans" should be turned into, quote, "actual action that's going to solve the problem."
Milwaukee Bucks assistant coach Vin Baker told Politico there was "a level
of ignorance" to Kushner's comments, and the team's senior vice president
Alex Lasry said the remarks were a "little ironic, coming from him,"
citing the Trump administration's response to the pandemic. Lasry said,
"Kushner hits our guys for boycotting one game,
and the people in Washington aren't really showing up for work for any of their days."
Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many in Donald Trump's
orbit believed his 2020 re-election chances were a foregone conclusion.
Trump adviser Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation told the Financial Times,
"The economy was just steaming along, the stock market was firing on all cylinders and that jobs
report was fantastic. Nobody expected this virus. It hit us like a meteor or a terrorist attack."
But while other countries were doing mass testing to mitigate
the spread of the deadly virus when the outbreak started, the White House called
for less. And according to an unnamed Trump confidant, the blame for that allegedly lies
directly on Jared Kushner's shoulders. The anonymous source told the Financial Times,
"Jared had been arguing that testing too many people, or ordering too many ventilators,
would spook the markets and so we just shouldn't do it."
Apparently, that advice worked better on Trump than the advice he was getting from scientists
because, as the insider said, quote, "he thinks they always exaggerate." However, the stock market
crashed anyway, with an historic 36 million people filing for unemployment by May 2020.
During a taped interview with famed investigative journalist Bob Woodward on April 18,
Jared Kushner bragged about President Donald Trump ignoring doctors and the
warnings about the coronavirus pandemic. He told Woodward,
"It was almost like Trump getting the country back from the doctors.
Right? In the sense that what he now did was, you know, he's going to own the open-up."
The "open-up" in this case would be a full reopening of the economy that Kushner thought
would be a winning message. Kushner went on to say that Trump was "very smart politically" to
fight with governors who wanted a shut down because, quote, "the opening is going to be
very popular." He also suggested that if the governors were forced to reopen and cases spiked,
the Trump administration would blame them. Kushner continued,
"But if it opens in the wrong way, the question will be,
did the governors follow the guidelines we set out or not?"
During a second interview, Kushner told Woodward that they wanted to
downplay the warnings of the coronavirus having a resurgence during the winter.
"So if you basically say this is coming back in the fall, don't gear up, then people won't rehire,
people will stay unemployed. And if you're planning for the worst-case scenario,
that will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. One of the things that the President's great
at is he's a cheerleader. He's trying to make people feel good about the outcome."
While the pandemic was raging across America in the spring of 2020, doctors, nurses, and other
healthcare workers were facing mask and personal protection equipment shortages. But instead of
relying on doctors with manufacturing contacts overseas, according to a report in the New York
Times, Jared Kushner reportedly was adamant the private sector would provide. It did not.
The report states that when doctors and medical personnel reached out for help,
instead of being met with seasoned FEMA officials, they were, quote, "diverted to
a team of roughly a dozen young volunteers, recruited by the president's son-in-law,
Jared Kushner." Part of Trump's supply chain task force, the outlet continued,
"had little to no experience with government procurement procedures or medical equipment"
and left many of the calls and inquiries unanswered. A volunteer told the publication,
"The nature and scale of the response seemed grossly
inadequate. It was bureaucratic cycles of chaos."
In one instance, when an electrical engineer in Silicon Valley promised he could manufacture
and deliver ICU ventilators, Kushner's team recommended him to federal officials without
verifying his claim. New York immediately awarded him a $69 million government contract.
He didn't deliver a single ventilator. Tim Manning, a former FEMA official, told the Times,
"There's an old saying in emergency management - disaster is the wrong time to exchange
business cards. And it's absolutely the wrong time to make up new procedures."
Before Jared Kushner became an adviser to President Trump, he was the CEO of the real
estate holding firm, Kushner Companies. Although he owned many rental properties,
most of these were located in Baltimore County, Maryland. And those properties?
Not good. According to the Washington Post, apartment complexes owned by Kushner companies
were responsible for more than 200 code violations in 2017 alone. Rebecca Tan reported for the Post,
"Repairs were made only after the county threatened fines, local officials said, and even
after warnings, violations on nine properties were not addressed, resulting in monetary sanctions."
Tenants routinely reported mouse infestations, mold problems and maggots, and a private
investigator called Kushner's property management company "slumlords." According to ProPublica,
the nine complexes in the Baltimore area that are owned by his company have earned the nickname
"Kushnerville." The report states that although the property is in disrepair, Kushner Companies
imposes aggressive debt-collection tactics and court filings to tenants who fall behind on rent.
The Baltimore Sun reported that during the period between 2013 and 2017,
Kushner affiliates "sought the civil arrest of 105 former tenants." As the outlet noted,
that is more than any other landlord in the state over that time period.
Another report by the Sun found that during the same period, Kushner "filed at least
1,250 legal actions" against tenants that resulted in "garnishment of tenants' wages and property."
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