Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said the “more rational” influence of President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner during the president’s first term kept him in line.
“I think the spirit animal for ‘Trump 2’ from the family is Don Jr.,” Scaramucci told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace on a Monday episode of her “The Best People” podcast, referencing one of the president’s sons. “The spirit animal from ‘Trump 1’ from the family was Jared Kushner. So, whatever you think of Jared, Jared was a safer pair of hands, he was a lot more rational.”
“We used to call him the goaltender, meaning he would block the insane shots on net from Donald Trump, and a lot of the policies that we’re seeing right now, Nicolle, were blocked by Jared or Gary Cohn or Steven Mnuchin or John Kelly in ‘Trump 1,’” he added.
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Kushner’s Trump administration presence was more prominent in his father-in-law’s first term, when he served as a White House senior adviser.
In 2023, Kushner said he was supporting Trump for another term due to how the then-former president assisted the Middle East when previously in the White House. The president’s son-in-law led Middle East policy during Trump’s first term, specifically policy on peace in Israeli-Palestinian relations.
“I do think that the job [Trump] did as a foreign policy president was tremendous. Now, more and more people are beginning to recognize that,” Kushner said in a 2023 interview.
During Trump’s second term, he has taken faster and more aggressive action toward political opponents and causes he disagrees with than he did in his first, drastically reshaping the federal government and using its powers in unprecedented ways.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.