Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, has apparently been calling for the White House to adopt a more aggressive approach in response to the Russia scandal.
Kushner wanted them [the communications team] to complain about chyrons on cable news, call reporters to update stories with White House statements, and unleash surrogates immediately. He was angry that there were no talking points offered to surrogates, the source said. One senior administration official suggested that two aides from the communications shop be dedicated to updating chyrons.
One outside adviser also told Politico that Kushner "wanted to get surrogates, he wanted an op-ed in The [Wall Street] Journal and The [New York] Times, and we said, ‘Wait, we have to talk through how that will play out. Who is going to say it, who is going to put their name on the op-ed and what baggage do they have?’"
Not surprisingly, the White House is denying that Kushner has objected to the way that they are defending themselves against the Russia scandal.
"These conversations simply did not happen and Jared did not raise a single one of these points besides saying thank you to everyone for their continued hard work," said the White House in a statement attributed to a number of its personnel, including press secretary Sean Spicer and deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
This news about Kushner is coming out even as reports indicate Trump's lawyers want to create distance between the president and his son-in-law. The recent emails detailing Donald Trump Jr.'s interactions with a lawyer associated with the Russian government do mention Kushner and have raised questions about his role in potential collusion between the Trump campaign and the Putin regime.
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