{"id":920,"date":"2026-08-24T14:08:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T14:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=920"},"modified":"2026-08-24T14:08:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T14:08:58","slug":"how-jared-kushner-snookered-hakeem-jeffries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=920","title":{"rendered":"How Jared Kushner Snookered Hakeem Jeffries"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

On Sunday, The New York Times <\/em>reported that \u201cRepresentative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, met privately in recent weeks with Jared Kushner, President Trump\u2019s son-in-law and top outside adviser, and discussed potential areas of common ground.\u201d On one level, the meeting was clearly good news for Jeffries. The midterm elections will be held just 71 days from now, and there is every possibility that the Democrats could take control of the House and make Jeffries the next House Speaker. The fact that Kushner, who holds no official position but functions as the president\u2019s consigliere, met with Jeffries is a sign that the White House is seriously contemplating such a defeat.<\/p>\n

Read more Welcome to the Fight<\/a><\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, congressional Republicans are unhappy. Current House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to pooh-pooh the meeting and minimize Kushner\u2019s importance, telling Fox News, \u201cI don\u2019t know what that\u2019s about. I know Jared has interest in lots of other things going on.\u201d Johnson added that Kushner \u201chedges bets\u201d and \u201che\u2019s not really directly involved in the admin, at least in the day-to-day in the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard not to be delighted by Johnson\u2019s discomfort. But the meeting also raised red flags for those who worried that Jeffries was helping whitewash one of Trump\u2019s most corrupt cronies. Tommy Vietor, the former Obama adviser who co-hosts the Pod Save America<\/em> podcast, noted, \u201cJared Kushner has no actual government job he just uses his family connections to get money from gulf autocrats and fund corrupt deals. The only way [Jeffries] should work with him is with demands for documents and subpoenas.\u201d Mehdi Hasan, the CEO of Zeteo, echoed Vietor, writing, \u201cThe only meeting Hakeem Jeffries should be having with Jared Kushner is to tell him he\u2019ll be subpoenaed by the House for a corruption investigation on day one of Democratic control of the House. This is just pathetic stuff from the House Dem leader.\u201d Erstwhile neo-con turned anti-Trumper William Kristol posted, \u201cReally? Or, as the kids say, AYFKM?\u201d (The acronym stands for \u201care you fucking kidding me.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Between them, the progressive Hasan, the Obama liberal Vietor, and the former neo-conservative Kristol represent very different wings of the Democratic coalition. But they were all united in their alarm over the Kushner-Jeffries sit-down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, the House Democratic leader found his defenders among the centrist establishment, with Neera Tanden, CEO of the Center for American Progress, predictably emerging as the congressional leader\u2019s most forceful defender on social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Responding to a Jeffries critic, Tanden wrote, \u201cAsk Mike Johnson how he feels about Trump White House admitting Dems are going to win the House before everyone loses it on this website.\u201d Tanden also compared the Jeffries-Kushner private meeting with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s public meeting with Donald Trump last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But this is a spurious parallel. As journalist Brian Beutler, who writes at the Off Message Substack, notes,<\/p>\n

\n

Mamdani\u2019s goal is to reduce harm to NYC. Jeffries is about to lead a coequal branch of the federal government under hostile occupation. I had mixed feelings about the Mamdani meeting (much as I enjoyed the pictures). This is worse\u2026. Mamdani has almost no power over Trump; Jeffries will have a great deal over Trump, but not if he\u2019s working cooperatively with him (as opposed to adversarially) on the issues he and Kushner reportedly discussed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Strangely, Tanden undercut her own support for Jeffries by re-tweeting a poor defense from an anonymous account on X.com called \u201cScary Lawyerguy\u201d that noted The New York Times<\/em> report was co-written by Maggie Haberman, famed for her extensive access to Trumpworld. This post speculated, \u201cTrump\u2019s son-in-law leaked to Maggie that he met privately with Jeffries as a means of stoking intra-party discord among Democrats.\u201d Although meant to exonerate Jeffries, this theory makes him look bad, as someone who was successfully played by Kushner.<\/p>\n

Leaving aside the murky matter of whether Kushner leaked the news of the meeting, the president\u2019s son-in-law clearly outfoxed Jeffries. If he becomes Speaker of the House, Jeffries will have to tackle the issue of Trump\u2019s corruption. As my Nation <\/em>colleague Chris Lehmann has cogently argued, House Democrats have been maddeningly reluctant to make the president\u2019s crookedness a top political priority, preferring vague rhetoric about kitchen sink issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Fidel Castro, 1926\u20132016<\/a><\/p>\n

This myopia on corruption is especially frustrating because it has fueled Trump\u2019s sense of invulnerability. The penny-ante pelf of his first term has been replaced by world-historical grifting, with the president and his family enriching themselves with billions of dollars in business deals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No one in Trump\u2019s inner circle embodies this naked venality more than Jared Kushner, who acts as an ambassador without portfolio, negotiating with countries in the Middle East, while also being enriched by deals with autocrats in the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2021, Kushner founded the investment firm Affinity Partners, which has received $2 billion in funding from the Saudi state as well as another $1.5 from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Writing in The Atlantic<\/em>, Andrea Bernstein noted that Kushner\u2019s has been given a unique post that evades transparency:<\/p>\n

\n

While carrying out public business for his father-in-law, he has continued to pursue his private interests and declined to disclose any information about them. There\u2019s a carve-out designation in ethics laws known as the \u201cspecial government employee,\u201d which allows businesspeople to perform work for the government. Elon Musk was a special government employee, and so was Corey Lewandowski. But Kushner has not been designated one. He is both outside and inside government\u2014a \u201cvolunteer,\u201d the White House calls him. And he is vaulting over strictures that were put in place to defend the mechanisms of government from becoming tools of foreign or private interests\u2026.<\/p>\n

[Kushner] has a direct line to the president. But his political dealings are ineluctably intertwined with his businesses. Kushner is related by marriage to the president, one who smiles on those who do business with his family, and the 2021 Saudi investment in Affinity Partners was made despite the Saudi fund\u2019s own finding that the company\u2019s operations were \u201cunsatisfactory in all aspects.\u201d Kushner has\u00a0defended the deal, saying that the Saudi fund \u201cis one of the most prestigious investors in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If the Democrats win the House, Kushner\u2019s many conflicts of interest should be a major focus of investigation. Unfortunately, Jeffries\u2019 meeting with Kushner indicates that this is unlikely to happen, since Jeffries seems to think the president\u2019s son-in-law is someone worth negotiating with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Worryingly, Jeffries seems to have been motivated by positive memories of working with Kushner during Trump\u2019s first term. As The New York Times<\/em> reports, \u201cThe private get-together was described by one of the people as a catch-up for Mr. Kushner and Mr. Jeffries. The two men have stayed in touch since they worked together on a criminal justice bill midway through Mr. Trump\u2019s first term.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an argument to be made \u2014 although one that requires an extraordinary generosity of spirit \u2014 that Kushner was a moderating influence on Trump\u2019s first term. In truth, this claim rests more on PR spin than actual policy outcomes. But in Trump\u2019s current term, Kushner is something different: an avatar of the president\u2019s epic lawlessness. The fact that Hakeem Jeffries can\u2019t see that is disqualifying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Democrats need a fighter as their House leader. Instead they have a collaborator, one who is beholden to dreams of comity even at the expense of tolerating corruption. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Oxford and Cambridge Have Always Been Racist<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Jared Kushner Snookered Hakeem Jeffries - Atlas Living Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=920\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Jared Kushner Snookered Hakeem Jeffries - Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Nation Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=920\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-24T14:08:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=920#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=920\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f6233854b1f92a6d21147fe5d5e58abc\"},\"headline\":\"How Jared Kushner Snookered Hakeem Jeffries\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-24T14:08:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=920\"},\"wordCount\":1276,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=920#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/1afde2c70fff6dba51fa48b4e07da1f5.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=920#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=920\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=920\",\"name\":\"How Jared Kushner Snookered Hakeem Jeffries - 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