Kushner Approves Of Bannon Declaring War On GOP Incumbents
Jared Kushner (R) and Steve Bannon, two of President Trump’s top advisers, listen as the president speaks during a meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, June 12, 2017. Image by Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images
By Aiden Pink October 11, 2017
Jared Kushner sent a text message to Steve Bannon approving of Bannon’s combative Fox News appearance on Monday, in which the former White House chief strategist claimed he is recruiting primary challengers for nearly every Republican senator up for reelection next year.
Bannon received the message at a steakhouse across the street from Fox News’s New York studios, multiple sources told Politico.
“Corker, McConnell, the entire clique – establishment, globalist clique – on Capitol Hill have to go,” Bannon told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Politico reporter Annie Karni wrote that Kushner’s declaration of support surprised Bannon’s dining companions because Bannon’s strategy “undercuts the very members of Congress the White House needs as partners if Trump wants to pass any part of his domestic agenda, including tax reform.”
Indeed, while Bannon, the head of Breitbart News, has long been dismissive of conservative politicians making compromises, Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump have been hosting bipartisan dinners in their home to discuss issues of shared concern like criminal justice reform.
Kushner’s show of support is also surprising given how often the two were at loggerheads during Bannon’s time in the White House, with Bannon reportedly promising to “go to war” against White House “globalists” like Kushner after he resigned.
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
