If they can pull themselves away from discerning a deeper meaning in Kanye West’s weird performance at the Oval Office, it’s a good time for conservative media to vet outgoing United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley’s claim this week that White House adviser Jared Kushner is a “secret genius.”
Despite holding a senior, and by most accounts, influential position close to President Trump, Kushner goes almost entirely ignored (outside of the Daily Mail, which routinely publishes photo after photo of Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump, also a White House adviser, looking cute in gym clothes).
But by my count, here’s a comprehensive list of all the things Kushner can claim credit for: a pending renegotiated trade deal with Canada and Mexico — and that’s it. Unless you count him supposedly helping bring the 2026 World Cup to the U.S., and I don’t watch soccer, so I don’t.
There are, however, plenty of examples of Kushner guiding the White House straight to hell, most recently by pushing the administration to take a friendlier approach with Saudi Arabia, the government of which reciprocated by ordering the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Kushner “championed [Saudi] Prince Mohammed, 33, when the prince was jockeying to be his father’s heir; had dinner with him in Washington and Riyadh, the Saudi capital; promoted a $110 billion weapons sale to his military; and once even hoped that the future king would put a Saudi stamp of approval on his Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.”
There were no accolades for Kushner for his attempt, as more experienced diplomats have tried for decades at solving the Jerusalem thing, but evidence suggests Mohammed did order the abduction of a Washington Post columnist.
You haven’t heard a peep about it from conservatives in the media who otherwise show tender care for everything about the Trump administration.
What about the firing last year of then-FBI Director James Comey? The Wall Street Journal reported in November that Kushner championed that chess play with the cringeworthy reasoning that “FBI agents unhappy with Mr. Comey would applaud the move and that Democrats would cheer because they were angry about Mr. Comey’s handling of the Clinton email investigation.”
Democrats didn’t cheer one bit, but as a result of the firing, Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel to investigate anything and everything about the Trump family, bogging down the administration’s agenda for more than a year at this point.
On the day that the Journal’s story published, Fox News host Sean Hannity’s 12-minute “opening monologue” touched on liberals embroiled in sexual harassment controversies. That’s important, but there was apparently not one minute to spare to go over the White House adviser who gave the country Robert Mueller.
If you recall Anthony Scaramucci filling in as White House communications director for 10 days before he was fired, Kushner is to thank for those golden memories, too.
“Perhaps nowhere, however, has their influence been more subtle, and ultimately, more effective, than in the strange case of Anthony Scaramucci,” read a Vanity Fair article in July last year. “The Mooch, as he is known, came on board as the White House’s communications director 10 days ago, with the full backing of [Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.]”
Scaramucci barely had one little foot in the door before he was fired by new chief of staff John Kelly for, among other things, telling a reporter, “I’m not trying to suck my own cock.”
Subsequent reports said Scaramucci was brought in by Kushner and Ivanka solely for the purpose of firing former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, but why would that have taken a whole new hire? Why would Scaramucci’s say have had more influence on the president than, say, his daughter’s or son-in-law’s?
This is the “secret genius” at work, who apparently is meant to stay secret.
The conservative media might want to ask a few questions about him.