Trump’s chief of staff has clipped Kushner’s wings
WASHINGTON: Jared Kushner had come to be called the Secretary of Everything as US President Donald Trump dumped everything from the West Asia peace process to fixing the government on his table. Kushner was the allpowerful, trusted son-in-law and senior adviser to the president. But his influence and role has shrunk lately.
So has his wife Ivanka Trump’s, according to The New York Times, which said in a report that the power couple is in the cross-hairs of Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly, a retired marine corps general who has sought to bring discipline and order to a chaotic White House.
White House watchers around the world will take note as they struggle to understand an administration that has seemed unpredictable with shifting power centres.
Kelly has denied he wants to oust Kushner and Ivanka Trump but, according to aides cited in multiple news reports, he at least wants Kushner to find a place in the chain of command in the White House and report to him. That was the condition he had put forward for accepting the job, said the reports.
Kushner is seen and heard a lot less, which his allies say is in line with his natural inclination to stay in the background and not seek the limelight, according to The Washington Post.
For a time in the early days of the Trump presidency, Kush- ner’s expanding role in the administration had earned him the snarky sobriquet “Secretary of Everything”.
Also, as someone close to Trump, he was instrumental in decoding the unpredictable and mercurial president for aides, and, in later months, took on the White House group led by the then chief strategist Steve Bannon that was pushing the president towards hardline isolationist policies.
But his role has also come under scrutiny in relation to the ongoing Russia investigations. Though he has not been interviewed by the FBI probe being conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller, Kushner has been questioned in congressional hearings.
But he is not going anywhere, for now. He told the Washington Post that when he and his wife reassessed their situation past July, they reached a decision: “We’re here to stay”.
He added: “My wife asked me the other day if we should be looking at new houses, so that’s a good sign.”