Veteran investigative journalist Carl Bernstein said President Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, played a key role in convincing the commander in chief to take more serious steps in combating the coronavirus.
The Watergate sleuth told CNN colleague Chris Cuomo on Friday that Kushner, who is leading a coronavirus task force, helped sway the president in March to get serious about the pandemic, along with Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, as the number of cases and deaths shot up.
Citing people in the White House, Bernstein said he was told Kushner “had to convince” Trump “to stop being delusional and in denial.”
Bernstein also said Kushner stressed to Trump the importance of ramping up testing before encouraging the reopening of the country, advice that the president apparently failed to heed.
Journalist Carl Bernstein says President Trump’s “liberate” tweets are playing “to his base as well as to cover-up his own malfeasance and misfeasance throughout this terrible episode in our history.” https://t.co/1Yhg9GVK19 pic.twitter.com/ICEOcXdF2I
— Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) April 18, 2020
Last week, Trump told states led by Democratic governors to “liberate” themselves from strict social distancing measures and reopen their economies. This happened as he unveiled a plan to encourage governors in states that have not been hit very hard by the coronavirus to start reopening by May 1.
Bernstein said Trump’s tweets encouraging states to “liberate” themselves amounted to “insurrection” and served as a play “to his base, as well as to cover up his own malfeasance and misfeasance throughout this terrible episode in our history.”
