Will Jared Kushner Be Donald Trump’s White House Chief of Staff?

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By Daniel J. Solomon November 10, 2016

Palace intrigue has set in at the Donald Trump camp, as the Republican president-elect’s campaign aides and surrogates scramble for position in the next administration. Among the chatter is the rumor that son-in-law Jared Kushner could be the new White House chief of staff.

According to Politico, while Trump met with Barack Obama in the Oval Office, the president’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, was spotted chatting and walking with Kushner on the South Lawn of the White House.

Kushner, married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, has loomed as an eminence grise over the Republican leader’s campaign, pushing his father-in-law to run a more disciplined operation and to dismiss some advisers.

He is the son of wealthy real estate developer Charles Kushner and the owner of the New York Observer. He and his wife have three children, and the family keeps shomer shabbos. Throughout the campaign, some have criticized him for being so closely associated with a candidate who has indulged in anti-Semitic rhetorical tropes.

Other possible choices for chief of staff include Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus and Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.