Jared Kushner, the son-in-law and senior adviser of President Donald Trump, privately bragged to journalist Bob Woodward in April about the president’s decision to shun the advice and opinions of health experts, just as the death rate from the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. was reaching peak levels.
“It was almost like Trump getting the country back from the doctors. Right?” Kushner said in recorded conversations with Woodward. “In the sense that what he now did was, you know, he’s going to own the open-up.”
“Trump’s now back in charge,” Kushner also said. “It’s not the doctors.”
Kushner claimed that the U.S. was moving through the “panic” and “pain” phases of the pandemic, and experiencing the “beginning of the comeback phase” by reopening — a direction that was widely criticized at the time.
As Kushner made these comments, the seven-day average of daily deaths related to COVID-19 was above 2,200 per day. There were 754,037 coronavirus cases documented at the time, a figure that would double a month later and triple by mid-June.
As of Thursday morning, the U.S. has counted more than 9.1 million cases of coronavirus, and 233,137 Americans have perished from the virus so far. Most of those deaths (more than 193,000 of them) occurred in the months after Kushner spoke to Woodward, contradicting his assertion that the nation was moving out of the “pain” phase more than six months ago.
Woodward’s tapes also show that Kushner reviled some aspects of the Republican Party, which he described as a “collection of a bunch of tribes.” Kushner also dismissed the party platform as “a document meant to, like, piss people off, basically.”
Kushner also justified Trump’s decision to distance himself from those who dared to disagree with him. “The most dangerous people around the President are over-confident idiots,” Kushner said. Trump replaced those individuals with “people who kind of know their place,” he added.
The recordings also show Trump’s presidential adviser to be more concerned with the potential political fallout from a recession related to the pandemic than he was with protecting the health of the American people, reinforcing what previous reports have indicated about the administration’s self-interested approach to the COVID crisis.
That approach has largely backfired for the president, as Trump’s approval ratings on his handling of the coronavirus (and in general) have soured significantly in the months since Kushner spoke to Woodward. Kushner’s comments are unlikely to help Trump’s reelection chances in the final week of the 2020 presidential campaign, as several states’ polls show the president trailing against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.
And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.
In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
We urgently need your help to prepare. As you know, our December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we’ll be able to do in 2025. We’ve set two goals: to raise $120,000 in one-time donations and to add 1383 new monthly donors by midnight on December 31.
Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.
If you have the means to make a substantial gift, please dig deep during this critical time!
With gratitude and resolve,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy