Jared Kushner has emerged as a top target of criticism for members of the “MAGA” base who blame President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser for what they see as the administration’s failure to live up to the populist vision of the 2016 campaign.
These activist Trump supporters worry that Kushner’s advice so dilutes the president’s message on immigration, foreign policy, crime, and controlling the riots that have broken out since George Floyd’s death that it could endanger his reelection in November.
“It’s build the wall, not build your resume,” said an activist close to the White House, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “But you can’t criticize the boy king.”
Tensions that have simmered beneath the surface for much of Trump’s presidency burst into the open when Fox News host Tucker Carlson excoriated Kushner in a monologue on his prime-time show, saying the 39-year-old husband of Ivanka Trump was among the advisers who failed to appreciate “the gravity of the moment.”
“‘No matter what,’ they’ll tell you: ‘Our voters aren’t going anywhere. The trailer parks are rock-solid. What choice do they have? They’ve got to vote for us,'” Carlson said. “Jared Kushner, for one, has made that point out loud. No one has more contempt for Donald Trump’s voters than Jared Kushner does, and no one expresses it more frequently.”
Carlson blamed Kushner for some of the discrepancies between candidate Trump’s campaign rhetoric and his record as president. “In 2016, Trump ran as a ‘law and order’ candidate because he meant it, and his views remain fundamentally unchanged today,” he said. “But the president’s famously sharp instincts, the ones that won him the presidency almost four years ago, have been since subverted at every level by Jared Kushner.”
Kushner played a role in the Trump administration’s criminal justice reform push, which led to the president signing the First Step Act. The campaign frequently contrasts this record with that of presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s support for the 1994 crime bill, which critics say promoted the mass incarceration of minorities, and hopes to make inroads with black men in November.
“In stark contrast to Biden, President Trump has an inclusive agenda that puts every American first,” said Steve Guest, the Republican National Committee’s rapid response director, in a statement on Wednesday.
But Carlson has been critical of this approach. “At times, [Trump] seems aware that he’s being led in the wrong direction and often derides Kushner as a liberal. And that’s correct, Kushner is, but he’s convinced the president that throwing open the prisons is the key to winning African American votes in the fall, and that those votes are essential to his reelection.”
Immigration hawks were dismayed when Trump added the issue to Kushner’s portfolio, alongside Middle East peace. The Kushner plan does pursue their objective of shifting from family-based to employment-based immigration but does not seek to reduce overall numbers, like a similar piece of legislation by Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia that Trump once endorsed. Kushner is said to view immigration restrictionists warily, though he is close to Stephen Miller, one of the president’s top advisers on the issue.
When Trump took office, he didn’t have deep connections in Washington or with the Republican Party’s governing class. The party establishment had mostly opposed him during the primaries and remained cool toward him until his surprise November victory. Trump staffed his administration with a combination of populists in the Steve Bannon mold, who thought discarding some conventional Republican ideology in favor of a more nationalist version of conservatism was key to their victory, and GOP regulars with experience on the Hill or George W. Bush’s administration. Ivanka Trump and Kushner were added as people personally loyal to the president.
But unlike Donald Trump Jr., Kushner and his wife were originally not even Republicans, much less conservatives. Populists called them and allies such as former National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn the “New York Democrats.”
“Ivanka was there to protect the family brand,” said a Republican strategist who requested anonymity to speak about them. “Jared has become a player.”
“Trump won his presidency by appealing to socially conservative and economically moderate voters that cast their ballot for Obama or hadn’t voted in years,” said Ryan Girdusky, co-author with Trump campaign advisory board member Harlan Hill of They’re Not Listening: How the Elites Created the Nationalist Populist Revolution. “Kushner despises those kinds of voters. Kushner has filled the administration with people who undercut Trump and his voters at every turn.”
When politicians disappoint their true believers, advisers often get the blame. Jeff Weaver played this role for Bernie Sanders, Michael Deaver for Ronald Reagan, Bay Buchanan for Pat Buchanan, Jesse Benton for Ron Paul — and Kushner for Trump.
“If Trump loses his reelection,” Girdusky said, “it [will be] because he relied too much on Jared Kushner.”
