The Week in Washington: Jared Kushner Is a Hidden Genius
“There's a lot at stake, a lot at stake... And maybe especially so, because this man was a reporter… So we're going to have to see. We're going to get to the bottom of it and there will be severe punishment,” President Trump promised in remarks released yesterday, in advance of his interview on 60 Minutes tonight. On October 2nd, the reporter Trump was referring to, Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, walked into the Saudi Arabian embassy in Istanbul and has never been seen again. The Turkish government alleges that he was murdered inside the building at the behest of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman; the Saudi government denies any involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance. “They deny it every way you can imagine,” Trump said in the interview. “In the not too distant future I think we'll know an answer."
In response to the journalist’s probable murder, a number of congressmen are urging immediate sanctions on Saudi Arabia. And participants in an upcoming business conference in Riyadh, including Uber, Virgin, and the New York Times, have announced that they will boycott the gathering, so lavish it has been nicknamed “Davos in the Desert.” But as of this writing, and despite Trump’s tough talk, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is still planning to attend.
As the details of the Khashoggi story emerge, and fingers point at the Saudi Crown Prince, one can only wonder at the reaction of Jared Kushner, who is best buddies with the sovereign. According to the New York Times, Kushner “championed 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.”
If you have any doubt that the first son-in-law is a mental giant, take it from Nikki Haley, the UN ambassador who surprised everyone by announcing her resignation on Tuesday. At a White House meeting discussing her departure, where she was almost foaming at the mouth in praise of the Trump clan, she offered, “I can’t say enough good things about Jared and Ivanka,” and called Kushner “a hidden genius that no one understands... We’re a better country because they’re in this administration.” (Why Haley quit representing this better country is a matter of intense speculation—is she broke and needs to make money in the private sector? Is her eye on the senate seat that might become vacant if Lindsey Graham achieves his dream of replacing beleaguered Jeff Sessions as attorney general? Is she, despite her demurrals, licking her chops for a presidential run?)
And looks who’s talking! Why, it’s another member of the family, Melania Trump, in a rare interview on ABC broadcast Friday night. Maddeningly opaque when asked about her husband’s infidelities and her feelings about the #MeToo movement, she was crystal clear when it came to that infamous jacket she wore when she visited immigrant children at the border. She told reporter Tom Lamas that the coat, which had “I really don’t care, do you?” scrawled on its back, was intended “for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me. And I want to show them that I don’t care.” This stands in direct contradiction to the explanation previously proffered by the first lady’s communications director, Stephanie Grisham, who said, “It’s a jacket, there was no hidden message. I hope the media isn’t going to choose to focus on her wardrobe.” (Showing remarkable restraint, Lamas did not focus on the pith helmet Mrs. Trump wore in Kenya.)
In other news, the president is hitting the campaign trail with a vengeance, ping-ponging from rally to rally, ostensibly to support local candidates for the midterms but in reality leading chants of “lock her up” and “build the wall” and peppering these stale chestnuts with fresh insights: in Ohio on Friday night, he lauded confederate general Robert E Lee. Alas, the vitriolic Trump-on-the-Stump is hardly a rating bonanza, and even Fox is now declining to broadcast these events in their entirely. Which may be why on Thursday, even as the stock market plummeted, and Hurricane Michael raged, and concern about the fate of Khashoggi mounted, Trump invited cameras and Kanye West into the Oval Office. West, who appeared to be in fragile mental health, embarked on a lengthy soliloquy, the highlights of which included his disavowal of the concept of time, his take on the 13th amendment, his desire to be compared to a fine wine, how he feels like Superman when he wears his MAGA hat, and how much he loves Donald Trump. Even the president, for once, was stunned into silence.
