Jared Kushner exposed as Trump's 'most dangerous enabler' by veteran journalist

Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner is the subject of a lengthy new profile in The Atlantic by veteran journalist Franklin Foer, who describes Kushner as President Donald Trump's "most dangerous enabler."

The profile draws on Kushner's history of growing up under a father who may be even more demanding and irascible than Trump to show how he is both used to managing impulsive people with explosive tempers, and how he has boundless self-confidence in his ability to solve problems.

However, it seems even Kushner felt intimidated when the president asked him to come up with a plan to contain the novel coronavirus pandemic, which was why he called in help from private-sector acquaintances -- and he assured Americans that the economy would be "rocking" again by July.

"[Kushner's allies] had conceived an intricate blueprint for a robust testing and contact-tracing regime—a set of policies that likely would have helped slow the spread of the virus across the nation," writes Foer. "But instead of executing those plans, Kushner appears to have permitted them to wither."

Even worse, writes Foer, was the way that Kushner sat silently as his father-in-law downplayed the threat from the pandemic.

"And as the president claimed the virus would miraculously disappear, politicized the wearing of masks, and held an indoor campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that contravened the administration’s own recommendations, Kushner offered no public words of contradiction or caution," he writes.

Foer believes that his unwillingness to challenge Trump is what will doom him in the eyes of history.

"This is the essence of Jared Kushner’s legacy: the gap between his adamant faith in his own good intentions and the grim reality of the administration he helps run," he writes. "Once again, the imperative to faithfully serve his surrogate father triumphed over any other competing impulse."