Jared Kushner Claims Trump Could Have Prevented Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine

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Topline

Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if Donald Trump were still in office, the former president’s son-in-law and former senior advisor Jared Kushner claimed Friday while promoting his new book, marking Kushner’s first public comments on the ongoing war.

Jared Kushner appears on “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday.

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Key Facts

“What’s happening now with Russia and Ukraine [was] totally avoidable,” Kushner said in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt published Friday, adding that Trump had “no problems” with Russia during his presidency.

Kushner went further in a Friday morning interview with Newsmax, saying there’s a “zero percent” chance there would be a war in Ukraine if Trump were still president.

Kushner also boasted about the Trump Administration’s policy toward China, telling Hewitt “we had them on their back foot the whole time” and claiming that China’s recent provocation with Taiwan and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine didn’t happen under Trump because “he was strong.”

The 41-year-old’s re-emergence on the right-wing media circuit comes following Tuesday’s release of his memoir Breaking History recapping his time in the White House.

Crucial Quote

Kushner called model and activist Chrissy Teigen a “nasty” troll in the same interview with Hewitt. Teigen, an outspoken critic of Kushner’s wife Ivanka Trump, is among the “nasty trolls who would just say the most awful, horrible things” about Trump, Kushner said.

Key Background

A majority of Americans agree with Kushner’s assessment regarding Trump and the invasion: Some 62% of Americans said Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have moved in on Ukraine if Donald Trump were still president in a February poll by Harvard University’s Center for American Political Studies and Harris Insight and Analytics. Kushner, who has distanced himself from Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election, has since pivoted to the private sector. Shortly after leaving office, Kushner launched a private equity fund, securing a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The nature of the investment is under investigation by the House Oversight Committee.

Chief Critic

New York Times book critic Dwight Garner eviscerated Kushner’s memoir in a recent review, calling the book “soulless” and saying Kushner looks and writes like a “mannequin” and glosses over the “chaos” of Trump’s presidency. Kushner said this week he found the Times review “hysterical” and attributed the criticism to the Times not wanting a positive portrayal of Trump in office to succeed.