Jared Kushner

About

Jared Kushner is an American businessman is currently a senior adviser to President Donald Trump. He is formerly the owner of real-estate company Kushner Companies and Observer Media, publisher of the New York Observer. He is married to President Trump's daughter, Ivanka.

History

Jared Kushner was born in 1981 in Livingston, New Jersey, and grew up in a Modern Orthodox Jewish home.^[1] He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Harvard University in 2003, and graduated NYU with a Masters in Business Administration in 2007. In 2008, he assumed the role of CEO of Kushner Companies in 2008. He married Ivanka Trump, daughter of businessman and future President Donald Trump, in 2009.

In 2006, Kushner purchased the New York Observer, a weekly New York City newspaper, increasing its online presence and expanding the Observer Media Group. According to Vanity Fair,^[2] under Kushner, The Observer "lost virtually all of its cultural currency among New York's elite, but the paper is now profitable and reporting traffic growth." The Observer was one of the few national newspapers to endorse Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican Presidential Primary, though it did not endorse any candidate in the 2016 presidential election.

Political Activity

Though Kushner had been a lifelong Democrat, he underwent an "ideological conversion" and supported Trumps' 2015-2016 presidential campaign. He was extremely influential in the campaign, serving as the de facto campaign manager after the firing of Corey Lewandowski in June of 2016. After the election, Kushner was closely involved in the Trump transition team, and on January 9th, 2017, was named Senior Advisor to the President, and was officially sworn in on January 22nd. Kushner is in charge of brokering peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and leading the "White House Office of American Innovation."

Steve Bannon Feud

On April 6th, 2017, The Daily Beast^[3] reported that anonymous sources in the Trump administration claimed Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon called Trump's senior advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner a cuck and "globalist" during a White House feud. That day, Twitter posted a Moments^[4] page titled "Infighting between Kushner and Bannon has devolved into alt-right's name-calling." Meanwhile, Redditor themessias1001 submitted The Daily Beast article to /r/politics,^[5] where it received more than 5,500 votes (95% upvoted) and 1,200 comments within four hours.

Russiagate Involvement

Kushner has been at the center of Russiagate, the controversy surrounding Russia's involvement in the 2016 United States Presidential Election. On April 6th, The New York Times revealed that Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, did not disclose meetings with Russian leaders in December 2016, including a meeting with Sergey Kislyak.^[6] He was also an advocate for the Dismissal of FBI Director James Comey. On May 25th, it was reported that Kushner was under investigation by the FBI for his involvement in Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential Election due to the unknown extent and nature of the meetings Kushner had with Kislyak and Sergei Gorkov.

WhatsApp Messages

On March 21st, Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland disclosed in a letter^[8] that both Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are being investigated for using WhatsApp and personal email to communicate with foreign leaders and other government business. Cummings accuses the White House of withholding information which was requesting in 2017. The letter requests additional information from the White House. The situation's similarity to the Hillary Clinton Email Controversy has led to democrats calling the new findings "ironic."^[9]

That night, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ^[7] tweeted "But his WhatsApp" mocking the "But her emails" mantra used against Hillary Clinton during her run for president. Her tweet gained 15,000 retweets and 89,000 likes in a day. Hillary Clinton tweeted "tell me about it" in response which accumulated 14,000 retweets and 108,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Related Memes

#KushnerAtWar

#KushnerAtWar is a hashtag referring to a series of photographs of Kushner visiting Iraq. The pictures depicting Kushner in a suit and bulletproof vest are generally accompanied by jokes about Kushner's wealth in juxtaposition to war. On April 2nd, 2017, Jared Kushner landed in Iraq to meet with military officials regarding their fight against ISIS. Two days later, while visiting Qayyarh West Airfield in Iraq, Kushner was photographed wearing sunglasses and a bulletproof vest while wearing a blazer, button-up shirt, and khakis. Many online found the dichotomy between Kushner's physical appearance and his surroundings a reflection of his inexperience regarding military situations, despite being an adviser on such matters.

Search Interest

External References