In late June, Donald Trump arrived at a factory in Monessen, Pennsylvania, and stood before a wall of crushed cans to discuss one of his favorite topics: trade. The setting befit the oration. This particular factory, after all, had once employed hundreds of aluminum workers; these days, however, it relied on about 35, who largely prepare the metal for recycling. Standing beside his Great Wall of Cans, Trump bashed NATO and globalization, among other organizations and inexorable forces, before honing in on his quixotic plan to single-handedly revive Monessen’s fortunes. Trump would simply utilize his experience in the real-estate business to turn around the moribund American steel industry. The return of the steel business, he promised, would send a new generation of skyscrapers “soaring, soaring” into the sky.
Trump, who has often been flanked at larger campaign rallies by his wife and extended family, was alone. And rather than speaking extemporaneously, as is his custom, he was reading prepared remarks from a teleprompter. The initial draft of his speech, rather notably, had only one word in its file name: Jared, seemingly a reference to Jared Kushner, the presumptive nominee’s increasingly influential son-in-law, who reportedly had lent a hand in writing this speech.
Kushner, through a publicist, declined to comment on the incident, and for this story. But the 35-year-old real-estate scion has recently emerged, alongside his wife, Ivanka Trump, as one of Trump’s key advisers. Earlier this week, The New York Times called him a de facto campaign manager, a position he assumed after he, along with Ivanka, reportedly urged the ouster of Trump’s impetuous manager Corey Lewandowski. And it was Kushner, according to someone with direct knowledge of the conversation, who was on the phone with Rupert Murdoch and Fox News C.E.O. Roger Ailes “down to the wire” in the days preceding the controversial Fox News debate, in January, attempting to broker a peace deal between his father-in-law and the network. (In the end, his efforts were unsuccessful and Trump skipped the debate.)
In March, Senator Jeff Sessions credited Kushner with arranging a discussion between Trump and Republican lawmakers. Kushner, with the assistance of New York Observer editor Ken Kurson, according to Reuters, also crafted Trump’s well-received speech to AIPAC, one of his early experiments with a teleprompter. “Trump is in the process of making a new Republican Party, and Jared will be part of it,” Myers Mermel, a fellow real-estate executive told me. “And it’ll be a much different Republican Party than we had in the past.”
On some level, the specter of Kushner campaigning beside his infamous father-in-law seems rather improbable. Outside of their involvement in the real-estate business, Kushner and Trump appear to be opposites. Trump has run a campaign based, in part, on racial undertones; Kushner, on the other hand, is an observant Jew. Trump is the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee for president; Kushner comes from a well-known Democratic family (in fact, his own father’s former tormentor in New Jersey, Chris Christie, is now essentially his father-in-law’s right hand).
Furthermore, Trump’s style could be characterized as a steroidal version of Las Vegas, as designed by Uday Hussein. Contrastingly, visitors to Kushner’s office on the top floor of 666 Fifth Avenue, which his family purchased for $1.8 billion in 2007, pass under a Noguchi-designed wave-like ceiling in the building’s lobby. Kushner’s floor is serene, and features a bubbling fountain. He and Ivanka Trump are the epitome of well-bred understatement. Their apartment, recently profiled in Elle Décor, features Christian Liaigre upholstery and midcentury chic. “Besides being devastatingly handsome, he is well mannered, well bred, and so well turned out,” notes the inimitable Peggy Siegal, who has organized several events for The New York Observer, which Kushner purchased a decade ago for what was reported to be nearly $10 million.
But Kushner and his famous father-in-law now seem to have a deep pact forged, perhaps, in mutual ambition and determination—qualities that many have long overlooked in the relatively soft-spoken, well-mannered Kushner. Soon after Trump deleted a tweet featuring Hillary Clinton’s face beside the words “most corrupt candidate ever” appearing inside what looked like a Star of David—a meme sourced to an anti-Semitic message board—Kushner came right to his father’s defense. “My father in law is an incredibly loving and tolerant person,” Kushner noted in a statement. He continued: “The suggestion that he may be intolerant is not reflective of the Donald Trump I know.” Days later, Dana Schwartz, an Observer reporter, wrote an open letter to Kushner in the Observer, calling his support of his father-in-law into question. The next day, Kushner fired back with his own essay, which at times appeared to borrow the lingua franca of Trump, himself. “My father-in-law is not an anti-Semite,” the piece began. “It’s that simple, really.”
In many ways, Kushner has become as polarizing as the father-in-law he now serves. One friend, Reed Cordish, who runs a Baltimore-based real-estate firm, described Kushner as “brilliant” and “a hard worker,” with “a unique mind.” But another Manhattan peer described Kushner less favorably. “He’s very polite and put together and business-like,” this person said. “And he’s like a robot.”
Like his father-in-law, Kushner was also born into wealth and appears, at times, to abide by his own set of rules. His father, Charles Kushner, founded the family real-estate company and was a mainstay of Democratic politics in New Jersey until he pled guilty to 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering, and offering illegal campaign donations—not to mention hiring a prostitute to sleep with his brother-in-law, tape the incident, and send said tape to his sister. The elder Kushner served one year of a two-year sentence.
Charlie Kushner’s imprisonment had a profound effect on his son. It forced Jared, who is the eldest son in his family, to take over the business at age 27, in 2008, and shoulder responsibility beyond his years. “I think a lot of what motivates Jared is trying to rebuild the family name from the damage that his father has done,” one former friend told me.
But soon after purchasing the Observer, in 2006, Kushner seemed prepared to exert his influence. One former Observer editor told me that Kushner attempted to order takedown pieces on people who had crossed his family in their business dealings. (A person close to Kushner vehemently denies this.) At the Observer, Kushner established a relationship with the paper’s legendary editor, Peter Kaplan. The two attended a Yankees game together and sat in the rain, sharing beers. His relationship with the *Observer’*s reporters, however, was less cozy, particularly early in his tenure. One former Observer editor described Kushner as a young man who would promise raises to reporters and then cancel them. (The person close to Kushner notes that, as the owner of the paper, he didn’t pay attention to line-item raises for reporters. Besides, this person added, “he makes good on every deal he makes.”)
Another former Observer editor told me that it was “a poorly kept secret in the bullpen that Jared ordered a hit piece on Richard Mack”—the co-founder of Mack Real Estate Group—“pushing a tip that was shaky at best.” The two real-estate executives had fallen out over a bad deal, and three reporters were assigned to the Mack investigation. “The tip—which was about Mack’s business dealings—didn’t check out in the slightest,” someone with knowledge of the assignment told me. “It was a joke. Totally made up.”
Kushner eventually met with the source, the three reporters, and then editor in chief Elizabeth Spiers to discuss the story. (After this story was published, Spiers posted her own recollection of the meeting here.) The piece became a running joke in the newsroom: if any of the reporters were ever behind on a filing or deadline, many joked that it was because they were working on “the big Dick Mack story.” This went on for months. Finally, Kushner set up a meeting with his source and the reporters involved, the person says. The reporters grilled the source, the story fell apart, and, eventually, even Kushner agreed the story should be killed. (A person close to Kushner disputes this account and told me that Kushner has never done business with Mack, stipulating that it was a former business partner of Mack’s who presented the tip to Kushner, who in turn passed it on to Spiers. In this version of events, the source subsequently refused to meet with the Observer editors unless Kushner was present, which explains his presence at the meeting.)
Kushner, however, didn’t advocate aggressive coverage when it came to his allies. The Observer’s list of the 100 most powerful people in real estate, for instance, “was a total Jared project,” one former editor told me, designed to reward his friends and, crucially, place his father-in-law in the right spot on the list. (A person close to Kushner told me that reporters sometimes called him about the list, on account of his involvement in the industry, but that he didn’t meddle with it.) Meanwhile, Ivanka and Kushner’s mother, Seryl Kushner, stopped by the *Observer’*s office to discuss office furnishings, rugs, and “who was going to sit where,” the former editor told me.
To his staff, Kushner remained a forceful boss. Back then, Kushner “was frustrated that [the Observer] wasn’t a stronger digital player,” as this former editor recalled, and often expressed impatience that the print journalists didn’t want to write more for the Web site. He urged another former editor to give the journalists byline quotas to fulfill their digital contributions. Kushner’s Observer has lost virtually all of its cultural currency among New York’s elite, but the paper is now profitable and reporting traffic growth. A source close to Kushner notes that the Observer boasts 6 million unique visitors per month, up from 1.3 million in January 2013.
Donald Trump may be an unusual leader of a populist uprising, but Kushner nevertheless appears an unusual wingman. Kushner, who has been remarkably successful in helping to guide his family’s business, particularly its latest expedition into Brooklyn, travels mostly in black cars and aboard private planes. If he has to work through lunch, he often orders catered sandwiches from Balthazar. (A person close to Kushner denies this.) As one former editor at the Observer told me, “he is so far removed from average people; this is a guy who never came anywhere near a subway.” (This person close to Kushner asserts that he is a regular subway rider.)
Like Christie, Kushner may signal a moderating influence on Trump to his detractors within the Republican establishment, which remains wary of the candidate. Certainly, Trump would do well to rely on political analysis from other, more seasoned sources. Days after this Monessen speech, for instance, the Times noted that many residents of the Pennsylvania town had long conceded that steel jobs would not be returning. Many, in fact, were more interested in high-tech alternatives that offered a brighter future.
But just as much as Trump’s candidacy has been widely interpreted as a self-advancing business maneuver itself—as I reported last month, Kushner has been part of conversations about monetizing Trump’s audience via a new media platform—some have wondered if Kushner is also out for his own good. Despite the renegade nature of Trump’s run, one former business associate described Kushner’s involvement as the ultimate résumé-boosting exercise. “There aren’t many people who are in the position of their father-in-law becoming the nominee of a major political party,” this person told me. The chance to be involved in a major presidential campaign provides social and business opportunities, the former associate added. “Why would he not take that?,” a former friend added: “And he thought buying The New York Observer would give him political clout!”
But others wonder whether something deeper is at play. Kushner, who was just coming of age as an adult when his father was imprisoned, has exhibited a tendency to seek the friendships of older people—often moguls as old as twice his age. He runs in a rarified circle that includes Murdoch and Robert Thomson, the chief executive of News Corp. (The friendship with Murdoch grew partly out of Ivanka’s friendship with Murdoch’s ex-wife, Wendi Deng.) Is his relationship with Trump more than simply the demonstration of familiar fealty?
Either way, Kushner’s commitment to the Trump campaign, whether personally ambitious or simply altruistic, could produce more headaches for a family that has known plenty of them. Should Kushner indeed help his father-in-law achieve a spot in the Oval Office, it could pose a previously unforeseen threat to an emerging wing of the Kushner empire. After all, Kushner’s younger brother, Josh Kushner, is the co-founder of Oscar Health, a burgeoning healthcare start-up valued in the billions. Oscar, as BuzzFeed noted, is “the first health insurance company created for consumers in the new world of the Affordable Care Act.” That is a law, of course, that Trump has continuously threatened to repeal if elected.
