Kushner praises Trump for "hostile takeover" of GOP
A shocking audio of Jared Kushner reveals the president's son-in-law—also the top senior advisor to the president—speaking derogatorily about the Republican Party platform and praising Donald Trump for a “hostile takeover” of the GOP.
“You look at the Republican Party platform. It’s a document meant to piss people off, basically, because it’s done by activists. So you have a disproportionality between what issues people are vocal on and what the people, the voters, really care about. And what Trump’s been able to do is he basically did a full hostile takeover of the Republican Party. And I don’t think it’s even as much about the issues. I think it’s about the attitude.”—Jared Kushner interview with Bob Woodward, April 18, 2020 (released October 28, 2020)
The recording was made in April 18, 2020, by Watergate reporter Bob Woodward. Trump had directed Woodward to speak to Kushner on his behalf.
Kushner went on to praise a purge of White House personnel, many of whom are loyal Republicans. In a sign of his role as decision-maker in the White House, Kushner spoke to Woodward of the purge in the plural: “We’ve gotten rid of a lot of the overconfident idiots,” he said, in a veiled reference to national security voices like John Bolton.