Offering unique insight into the family and former President Donald Trump's White House, Jared Kushner told Newsmax the Trump administration had to reject the forces of the establishment to get things done, even if things went "haywire."
"So the amazing thing about government is that nobody can accomplish anything by themselves," Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, told Thursday's "Rob Schmitt Tonight." "So what it is, is it's a group of people coming together, agreeing on a common objective, formulating a plan to accomplish that objective, and then all rowing in the same direction in order to accomplish it.
"And so what you find is when you have people who either misaligned or have different objectives, things can go haywire."
Kushner's book, "Breaking History: A White House Memoir," was released Tuesday and hailed by his father-in-law, but Ivanka Trump's husband told Schmitt that Trump's circle had to do things their way and not conform to what Democrats, the media, or even Republicans were pushing him to do — all while attacking him.
"He didn't adapt to Washington to play by their rules and follow their processes, and he was an existential threat to their power, but a lot of those leaders in Washington were generals with no army," Kushner said. "And, I think, Trump and I never saw it as like right versus left.
''We saw it as a function of outside versus inside, and he was really fighting for the forgotten men and women of this country, who the career political class had basically sent their children to wars, had sent their jobs overseas to China and Mexico with these awful trade deals. And Trump saw it, and he stuck to his guns, and I really respect that."
Trump knew he would have to go against the establishment grain, because no scenarios would have made everyone happy.
"What we saw very quickly is that trying to play by their rules wasn't going to work, and so we just said, 'Forget about it, let's do what we came here to do,'" Kushner said.
Kushner marveled at Trump's ability to take on Washington, the media and investigations — all while getting things done.
"There's really two crosscurrents in this book: You know, one is the vicious attacks from the deep state and whether it's the Russia investigation or the phony impeachment over Trump trying to investigate corruption in Ukraine," Kushner said, calling those "the waves."
"But then under the waves, in the calm water, it was how Trump got all of his policies done."
Kushner told Schmitt, as he wrote in the book, his own successes in getting jail reform done immediately led to Trump assigning him to build the wall, which he acknowledged he did not sign up for.
Trump's border policies were at least effective, even if they were never going to be popular, Kushner said, noting the conditions at the border after President Joe Biden unwound them.
"Trump's policy was a humanitarian policy, and what he did was common sense," Kushner said. "It was supported by the Border Patrol and something I was very proud that we were able to do.
"And I think that what the Biden administration has done to reverse those policies on the border has been a absolute humanitarian disaster."
Kushner also denounced the Trump administration critics on the border, using a phrase Melania Trump once had on the back of a jacket: They really did not care.
"I don't even think that those virtue signalers actually care about the issues," Kushner concluded. "They were criticizing Trump every day on the border policy, but then — when you have children dying, and then people coming in and being sold into human slavery — silence."
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