Jared Kushner Dodges Saudi Murder Questions In Softball CNN Interview
Jared Kushner reiterated claims that the White House is still gathering details into the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in an interview with CNN on Monday morning, which heavily focused on his personal life.
The president’s son-in-law and White House senior adviser sat down with CNN political commentator Van Jone to kick off “Citizen by CNN,” an all-day forum discussing the polarizing issues at the center of the midterm elections.
Jones led a rather informal interview, according to live tweets by the New York Times’s Maggie Haberman. He began with: “You have like the dopest job in the world, the secretary of everything…how did you wind up in this position?” Kushner responded that he didn’t plan this — he was thrust into politics when Trump announced his candidacy.
They spoke about Kushner’s focus on prison reform before Jones moved to the topic on everyone’s minds: The murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Washington Post columnist and critic of the Saudi government, in Istanbul’s Saudi consulate. Kushner said the administration is still in the “fact-finding phase.”
Phil Mattingly of CNN reported that Kushner said he told the Saudi crown prince, who has been accused of being behind the murder, “to be transparent. To be fully transparent. The world is watching.”
When Jones brought up critics’s response to Kushner’s friendship with the crown prince, he said he only listens to criticism from those he respects, Haberman reported.
Soon, they moved on to lighter topics — Kushner’s “power couple” status with Ivanka Trump and the president’s mark as a grandfather.
Jared Kushner says President Trump is a “really great grandfather” to his kids: “He has a little candy drawer where he knows how to make sure they get stuff their mom wouldn’t let them have. He really loves his family and he gets a lot of pleasure out of that” #CITIZENCNN pic.twitter.com/61HvaYgOTE
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 22, 2018
Jones: “Are you having fun?”
Kushner: “I wouldn’t say fun … I’d say more invigorated by it. I think that it’s obviously the challenge of a lifetime” #CITIZENCNN https://t.co/BNhvJfv4sp pic.twitter.com/lmbJmKEdcH
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 22, 2018
Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher
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