24 Things You Need to Know About Jared Kushner

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

From Cosmopolitan

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's 36-year-old son-in-law, is a senior adviser in the Trump administration. Though Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, did not have an official role during Trump's campaign, he was nevertheless seen as a "de facto campaign manager," and he later served as a member of Trump's transition team.

Though Kushner was one of the most influential people in Trump's circle - someone who enjoyed "a Rasputin-like power" with Trump - his influence has reportedly shrunk in the months since Trump took office.

Here's what you need to know about Kushner:

1. His White House transition was reportedly difficult.

Photo credit: Getty
Photo credit: Getty

In the early days of the administration, Kushner appeared to have gotten caught up in some workplace politics. Sources told the Washington Post that observers had "been alarmed by Kushner's efforts to elbow aside anyone he perceives as a possible threat to his role as Trump's chief consigliere."

According to Vanity Fair, Kushner's adjustment to Washington has been tough. "Kushner appears unable to control both his father-in-law and those around him," wrote Emily Jane Fox. A source told Fox that Kushner's influence on Trump "may be flagging." After Kushner successfully negotiated a meeting with Mexico's president, Trump canceled it, leaving Kushner "fucking furious." Not only that, Kushnerisn't looking so great these days, according to Fox's source. "His body language and his demeanor toward Trump had changed, and he had lost a noticeable amount of weight from his already slight frame in just a week."

2. He had no prior experience in government or politics.

Apart from a semester as a member of the Institute of Politics during his freshman year at Harvard, Kushner has not been engaged politically. While visiting the White House after the election, Kushner reportedly asked, "How many of these people stay?" (Answer: Pretty much none.) Though comparatively inexperienced in politics, Kushner has proved to be a quick study. "Honestly, Jared is a very successful real estate person, but I actually think he likes politics more than he likes real estate," Trump said at a rally. "But he's very good at politics."

Photo credit: Getty
Photo credit: Getty

Kushner's personal political leanings are harder to identify. He fully backs his Republican father-in-law and publishes a newspaper that has become more conservative in its leanings since he purchased it. But he has stated in the past that he admires Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, and has a framed photo of John F. Kennedy, another Democrat, by his desk. Trump has said Kushner will help broker a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinans, telling him at a pre-inauguration, "If you can't produce peace in the Middle East, nobody can." He has not yet been successful.

3. He was born into wealth.

Jared's father, Charles "Charlie" Kushner, founded the real estate development organization Kushner Companies in 1985 and built it into a billion-dollar enterprise. Jared had a correspondingly privileged upbringing in New Jersey. According to the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Daniel Golden, Jared benefited from the incredible advantage of being his father's son. Though he did not perform especially well academically, Jared was accepted to Harvard, reportedly after his father gave $2.5 million to the university. While at Harvard, Jared reportedly drove a Range Rover (though he has said that he "didn't have a car" in college). About driving that Range Rover though: "He didn't do it with a sense of humor," a classmate told the New Yorker. "He did it, like, 'I'm fucking rich.'"

4. He is an Orthodox Jew.

Jared Kushner's wife, Ivanka Trump, converted to Judaism from Presbyterianism before the couple's 2009 wedding. Religion - specifically, the Kushner family's objection to the fact that Ivanka wasn't Jewish - was reportedly one of the reasons for their brief breakup in 2008. Now, the couple are shomrei Shabbos. They observe the Sabbath, turning off cell phones and walking instead of driving between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday. Kushner did make an exception in early October, when he joined a team of Trump advisers on a Saturday to deal with the fallout of the Access Hollywood tape. He and Ivanka also received an exemption during Inauguration weekend so that they could participate in the evening celebrations.

Photo credit: Getty
Photo credit: Getty

5. He professes that Donald Trump is not an anti-Semite or a racist.

In July 2016, when Trump tweeted (then deleted) an image from a white supremacist web forum of Hillary Clinton that featured the Star of David and the phrase "most corrupt candidate ever," Kushner defended his father-in-law in his newspaper, the Observer.

"It’s that simple, really," he wrote. "Donald Trump is not anti-Semitic and he’s not a racist." In the piece, Kushner revealed the story of his grandparents, Holocaust survivors from Poland who emigrated to the United States in 1949. His family members called him out on Facebook for it. "That my grandparents have been dragged into this is a shame," wrote Kushner's estranged cousin Jacob Schulder, according to Politico. "Thank you Jared for using something sacred and special to the descendants of Joe and Rae Kushner to validate the sloppy manner in which you've handled this campaign."

Photo credit: Getty
Photo credit: Getty

6. He had to shoulder his family business from a young age.

Photo credit: Getty
Photo credit: Getty

Jared was studying to get a dual MBA and law degree at New York University (father Charles's alma mater and the recipient of another notable donation of $3 million) when his father was sent to prison for tax fraud, witness tampering, and illegal campaign donations. Jared took over Kushner Companies as CEO in 2008 when he was 27 years old, abandoning his legal aspirations. "My dad’s arrest made me realize I didn’t want to be a prosecutor anymore," Jared told The Real Deal in 2014. "Seeing my father’s situation, I felt what happened was obviously unjust in terms of the way they pursued him. I just never wanted to be on the other side of that and cause pain to the families I was doing that to, whether right or wrong. The moral weight of that was probably a bit more than I could carry."

Taking over for his father might have happened sooner than he would have liked, but Jared was fully prepared. Charles had been bringing along Jared and his younger brother Joshua (now a tech entrepreneur and boyfriend of Karlie Kloss; they were both #WithHer) when he was doing business since they were very young children. While at Harvard, Jared had a successful side gig of acquiring buildings in Somerville, Massachusetts, and turning them over for a profit.

7. He remains incredibly close with his father.

Some suspect that Jared is a figurehead and that Charles actually runs Kushner Companies. Regardless, they work on the same floor of 666 Fifth Ave., a building Jared purchased in 2007 for $1.8 billion. At the time, it was the most anyone had paid for a building in New York City.

While his father was serving time in Alabama, Jared visited him on weekends. "He was the best son to his father in jail, the best son to his mother, who suffered terribly, and he was a father to his siblings," Charles told New York magazine in 2009. As a testament to his father, Jared said in the same New York profile, "I speak with my father about everything in my life." Before she married Jared, Ivanka described the father-son relationship as "really beyond beautiful."

8. He has many tangled social and political connections.

This is the part where the story gets even more biblical, so buckle up. Charles had, for many years, been a top political donor, giving large sums to mostly Democratic candidates, including Bill and Hillary Clinton (and Rudolph Giuliani too).

Charles also gave money to former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey (the guy who resigned after admitting that his "truth" was that he was a "gay American"). After winning the 2002 gubernatorial race, McGreevey appointed Charles to the board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Photo credit: Getty
Photo credit: Getty

Charles's older brother Murray and a former Kushner Companies accountant brought separate lawsuits against Charles relating to his political contributions. Enter Chris Christie, then the U.S. Attorney General of New Jersey, who launched a criminal investigation.

Charles believed that his younger sister Esther Schulder was working with authorities, and he tried to blackmail her by setting her husband up with a prostitute and videotaping the sexual encounter that followed. The trap didn't work, and Charles eventually pleaded guilty to the felony charges against him. Christie later became the governor of the state, then a presidential candidate, and finally, a top Trump adviser.

Photo credit: Getty | Katie Buckleitner
Photo credit: Getty | Katie Buckleitner

It's worth noting too that Jared, through his rise as a member of the Manhattan elite, made many friends with the city's most powerful people, including Fox News chairman Rupert Murdoch and his ex-wife Wendi Deng, Chelsea Clinton and her husband Mark Mezvinsky, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and Joel Klein, former New York City schools chancellor.

9. He played a considerable role in the Trump campaign.

Jared Kushner has been credited with masterminding the campaign's social media operation. Along with Ivanka, Eric, and Donald Jr., he persuaded Trump to fire former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and to pick Reince Preibus as his (now former) chief of staff. He has been instrumental in smoothing Trump's relationships with Fox News, the Republican establishment, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

According to a report in Fortune, "One aide recalled having a private phone conversation with Trump when he heard Kushner’s voice unexpectedly. Trump was talking on speaker phone, the aide realized, while Kushner was in the room."

10. But his influence has since dwindled.

Though he once wielded serious influence in the White House, his power has diminished. Though he's still attempting to broker a peace between Israel and the Palestinians, he has yet to find success. And his Office of American Innovation (see point #18 below) is apparently rootless, taking on a haphazard assortment of projects. He has stepped back from public view, and taken on a reduced role in the administration. Rumors have even swirled that he and Ivanka want to leave the White House and go back to New York.

11. He seems to have an appetite for revenge.

Recall Gov. Christie's role in Kushner's father's downfall in 2004. Now, years later, Kushner has avenged his father with a breathtaking forcefulness. It was widely reported that Christie was being considered for the role of running mate; Kushner pushed for the selection of Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana instead. Christie was later put in charge of Trump's transition team; Kushner again was the agent behind Christie's eventual ouster from that role. On Monday, Christie loyalist former Congressman Mike Rogers suddenly resigned from the transition team. It was reported by NBC News to be part of a "Stalinesque purge" of anyone close to Christie.

Photo credit: Getty
Photo credit: Getty

In another example of Kushner's reported ability to hold a grudge, staffers at the Observer have spoken about how Kushner ordered a hit piece on fellow real estate scion Richard Mack after their business relationship soured. For two years, Kushner pushed for the story, but nothing legitimate emerged in the reporting and the piece eventually got killed. Kushner denies these claims.

12. He has shown unvarnished disdain for the press.

A former Observer editor told the New Yorker that Kushner "hates reporters and the press. Viscerally." He blames the New Jersey media for damaging his family's reputation. He even said that he didn't like reading the Observer before he purchased it. "I found the paper unbearable to read, it was like homework," he told New York. Kushner also doesn't think the mainstream media had any bearing on the Trump campaign. One source told Bloomberg Businessweekthat, "One thing Jared always tells Donald is that if the New York Times and cable news mattered, he would be at 1 percent in the polls." Still, he was rumored to want to start a Trump television network after the election.

13. He is intensely private.

Kushner rarely gives interviews and has no social media presence of his own other than a Twitter account that has zero tweets. When he appears on social media, it's through Ivanka's Instagram, and he is usually pictured holding one of their three children.