Kushner bragged that ‘Trump’s back in charge, not the doctors’ in early days of COVID-19 pandemic: Woodward
Jared Kushner wanted to declare victory over coronavirus way back in April — when the death toll was 40,000 and rising.
The presidential son-in-law and top adviser boasted to journalist Bob Woodward that President Trump had decided to roll back public health restrictions because the pandemic had been effectively defeated.
"Trump’s now back in charge. It’s not the doctors,” Kushner said in an April 19 interview for Woodward’s book “Rage” that was revealed by CNN Wednesday.
Kushner claimed that the U.S. had put the worst of the COVID-19 crisis behind it as Trump started urging states to rapidly reopen their economies, regardless of the public health consequences.
“There were three phases. There’s the panic phase, the pain phase and then the comeback phase,” Kushner told Woodward. “I do believe (we’re at) the beginning of the comeback phase.”
In a candid admission, Kushner conceded that Trump’s strategy for dealing with the pandemic focused on taking credit for good news — while blaming any missteps on medical experts or governors of hard-hit states.
“(Trump) is very smart politically ... to basically say, ‘No, no, no, no, I own the opening,’” Kushner said. “Because again, the opening is going to be very popular. People want this country open.”
He derided making contingency plans for public health, saying “if you’re planning for the worst-case scenario, that will become a self-fulfilling prophecy."
“One of the things that the president’s great at is, he’s a cheerleader,” Kushner said. "He’s trying to make people feel good about the outcome.”
Kushner’s remarks flesh out Trump’s remarkable shift in the early days of the pandemic away from tough public health restrictions.
They also lay out the roots of the president’s feud with Dr. Anthony Fauci and other public health experts, who have waged a mostly losing battle to get Trump and other leaders to embrace measures to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Kushner spoke to Woodward by telephone twice for the Watergate scribe’s book.
Trump himself admitted to Woodward that he “always tried to downplay” the danger of the virus even though he knew it was a massive threat to the American people.
More than 40,000 Americans had died of coronavirus when Kushner was basically declaring “mission accomplished” on behalf of his father-in-law, a number that has since soared to over 220,000 and counting.
