THE ULTIMATE DEAL
Blair schmoozes his way into the White House to land...
TONY Blair has attended a secret meeting at the White House to discuss working for Donald Trump, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The former British prime minister held talks with Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner on Wednesday with a view to becoming a Middle East peace envoy for Trump. This newspaper has learned that Blair and Kushner have met three times in secret since September, including their three-hour summit in the West Wing last week.
If Trump gives Blair the new role, it would mark an astonishing international comeback for the man whose reputation was left in tatters after the Iraq War.
And it would be a major setback to Theresa May’s hopes of forging her own ‘special relationship’ with Trump, especially as former Ukip leader Nigel Farage is already a close confidant of the US president.
Blair’s wooing of the Trump family is also likely to reopen speculation about his close friendship with Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife Wendi Deng, who is a friend of Kushner’s wife Ivanka, Trump’s daughter.
Blair and Deng were both present at a gathering of media and political powerbrokers in
Meeting at €175-a-head New York restaurant
Aspen, Colorado, in September, where Blair first met Kushner to discuss political issues.
The event was organised by veteran US talk-show host Charlie Rose, who visited Trump at his New York HQ days after his election triumph. Former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne was a speaker at the Aspen event.
Just days after Trump’s election victory in November, Blair and Kushner met again when they dined at the €175-a-head Harry Cipriani restaurant in New York’s SherryNetherland Hotel.
Blair has previously been a Middle East envoy for the so-called ‘Quartet’ of the EU, US, Russia and the United Nations – and his knowledge of the region is said to be attractive to the inexperienced Trump administration.
The bombshell disclosure of his secret White House summit follows Blair’s decision three months ago to wind up his controversial business empire.
Weeks later, he announced a crusade against the wave of ‘new populism’ spreading across the world, but insisted that he had no intention of making a political comeback.
At the time, his speech was seen as an attack on Brexit, though some also saw it as a swipe at the same wave of ‘populism’ that gave Trump the keys to the White House.
Blair has previously been more critical of Trump, saying a year ago: ‘I look at politics today and wonder if I still understand it. I get really anxious when policy is being made by Twitter feed.’
But he was more conciliatory after Trump’s victory. Blair admitted that Trump’s success was the beginning of a new ‘reality’ that politicians in the West had to come to terms with.
Blair and Kushner have discussed a role for him in achieving what Trump has described as ‘the ultimate deal’ – peace in the Middle East. As a British citizen, Blair could not have a formal job in the US Government, but the president could give him a role as an adviser.
Trump’s decision to put Kushner, 36, in charge of in efforts to revive the peace process, which collapsed in 2014, raised eyebrows in Washington as he has no experience of high-leve l diplomacy.
Middle East experts said Kushner was
almost unknown to Israeli business and political figures and had had no dealings whatsoever with Palestinians.
Trump denied that his son-in-law’s appointment broke US anti-nepotism laws, saying Kushner, an Orthodox Jew and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, ‘knows the region, knows the people, knows the players’.
Blair was peace envoy for the ‘Quartet’ from 2007 to 2015. But he made little progress and was dogged by claims that he was ‘too close’ to the Israelis.
When he stepped down, he was said to have been ‘frustrated’ by his limited role in helping the Palestinians.
Blair’s appeal to the Trump administration is believed to be his vastly greater knowledge of the Middle East than Kushner’s.
A well-placed source said Blair’s role could be as Kushner’s senior adviser: ‘Blair has been pitching hard for this job and Trump’s people are taking him very seriously.
A spokesman for Blair said: ‘We do not comment on private meetings.’