Will Jared Kushner Be Donald Trump’s White House Chief of Staff?
Palace intrigue has set in at the Donald Trump camp, as the Republican president-elect’s campaign aides and surrogates scramble for position in the next administration. Among the chatter is the rumor that son-in-law Jared Kushner could be the new White House chief of staff.
According to Politico, while Trump met with Barack Obama in the Oval Office, the president’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, was spotted chatting and walking with Kushner on the South Lawn of the White House.
Kushner, married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, has loomed as an eminence grise over the Republican leader’s campaign, pushing his father-in-law to run a more disciplined operation and to dismiss some advisers.
He is the son of wealthy real estate developer Charles Kushner and the owner of the New York Observer. He and his wife have three children, and the family keeps shomer shabbos. Throughout the campaign, some have criticized him for being so closely associated with a candidate who has indulged in anti-Semitic rhetorical tropes.
Other possible choices for chief of staff include Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus and Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway.
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO