How Jared Kushner Got His Revenge On Chris Christie
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and presidential adviser Jared Kushner look on during a White House meeting about opioid and drug abuse, March 29, 2017. Image by Getty Images
By Aiden Pink October 16, 2017
There has been bad blood between New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and presidential adviser/son-in-law Jared Kushner ever since Christie, then a U.S. attorney, helped put Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, in prison in 2005. Eleven years later, Jared Kushner was able to get his revenge. A new article in The New Yorker explains how.
The piece, a profile of Vice President Mike Pence, features intriguing information about the vice presidential selection process. Then-candidate Donald Trump had called Christie in July to discuss the position, with Trump saying: “I’m making the decision tomorrow. Stay by your phone.”
But Trump did not call back for three days, leaving Christie to suspect that Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, were behind it. Opponents of a Christie vice presidency made the case that the New Jersey governor was rendered politically toxic by the Bridgegate scandal. “I wouldn’t say Trump was pushed into it,” a top Trump campaign aide told reporter Jane Meyer. “He was led into it. Pence was made the most palatable choice by those around him.”
Nonetheless, Christie was picked to chair the presidential transition team upon Trump’s victory — but was again stymied. During one meeting, November 11, retired general Michael Flynn strolled in uninvited by Christie — at the behest of Ivanka Trump, a transition team member. Despite Christie’s objections, Trump reportedly praised Flynn and said to him, “General, what job do you want?”
“It was like Princess Ivanka had laid the sword on Flynn’s shoulders and said, ‘Rise and go forth,’” one meeting participant said.
A few hours later, Christie was fired as the transition team chair and replaced by Pence. “Kushner, [Christie] felt, had humiliated him a second time,” Meyer wrote. “Bannon, who was given the job of dismissing him, admitted to Christie that Kushner had been against him all along, for personal reasons.”
Contact Aiden Pink at pink@forward.com or on Twitter, @aidenpink
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
