Photo: NYMag
I mean... never say never.
By Liza Walter — Written on Jan 12, 2020
Who is Jared Kushner? If you follow politics, you've heard his name, because he current serves as the senior advisor to his father in law, President Donald Trump, despite having zero political experience.
Kushner is married to Ivanka Trump, Trump's eldest daughter, but he's not a trophy husband, despite his clean-cut, groomed appearance. Kushner is also the brother-in-law of Karlie Kloss, as his brother, Josh Kushner, is married to the beauty.
In the last few years since Trump took office, there have been multiple Jared Kushner conspiracy theories swirling.
But before being known as an inexperienced advisor, Kushner was a successful real estate investor, having started his business while studying at Harvard, earning around $20 million by buying and selling properties in Massachusetts. By age 25, he bought the New York Observer, a weekly New York City newspaper that focused on New York culture, real estate, and politics.
A lifelong Democrat, it was only during the 2016 presidential campaign for Donald Trump that Kushner had a change in ideology, leaning toward his Republican father-in-law.
In March 2017, President Trump tapped Kushner to lead the newly created Office of Innovation, which will handle things like overhauling Veterans’ Affairs, improving workforce development and targeting opioid addiction. He's also the key point of contact for several countries.
Trump has hinted that he expects Kushner will solve the middle east crisis, saying on the eve of his election, "If you can't produce Middle East peace, nobody can." And with tensions so high between the Middle East and the United States, it would be a miracle for his businessman son-in-law to solve a decades-old issue.
As with most famous people and politicians, there are tons of theories, speculation and, in between, some facts around the internet if you go digging.
Here are the most interesting Jared Kushner conspiracy theories, questions, and facts we all should read about since it's pretty clear he's had quite an influence over the president.
1. Did Jared Kushner help Donald Trump win the presidential election?
Right after the 2016 election, in an interview, Jared Kushner said, "I helped facilitate a lot of relationships that wouldn't have happened otherwise... People were being told in Washington that if they did any work for the Trump campaign, they would never be able to work in Republican politics again. I hired a great tax-policy expert who joined under two conditions: We couldn't tell anybody he worked for the campaign, and he was going to charge us double."
This past election cycle was different than any other all because of one change in our society: Social media. Hillary Clinton used traditional campaigning methods, while Donald Trump had Kushner by his side utilizing platforms to win him the states that are generally Democrat.
Kushner said, "I called some of my friends from Silicon Valley, some of the best digital marketers in the world, and asked how you scale this stuff. They gave me their subcontractors. I called somebody who works for one of the technology companies that I work with, and I had them give me a tutorial on how to use Facebook micro-targeting.”
What does that mean? Kushner wanted to test the power of social media influence, so he started small by using Trump merchandise. With Kushner's vision, the Trump campaign made 10 times the revenue by selling hats and other Trump-related merchandise.
How often did you see someone wearing the red cap with "Make America Great Again" on television? It's all marketing — and it worked.
"We weren't afraid to make changes. We weren't afraid to fail. We tried to do things very cheaply, very quickly. And if it wasn't working, we would kill it quickly. It meant making quick decisions, fixing things that were broken and scaling things that worked," he added.
Google billionaire Eric Schmidt had this to say: "Jared understood the online world in a way the traditional media folks didn't. He managed to assemble a presidential campaign on a shoestring using new technology and won. That's a big deal. Remember all those articles about how they had no money, no people, organizational structure? Well, they won, and Jared ran it."
2. What's Jared Kushner's connection with George Soros?
George Soros, mostly hated by the alt-right movement and conservatives for his extreme liberal leanings, funded Kushner's start-up company Cadre by giving him $250 million. The irony is that Trump basically ran a smear campaign against George Soros, during which time Kushner aided in Trump's campaign for the presidency.
In January of 2017, Soros said this of Trump:
"I personally am convinced that he is going to fail... not because of people like me who would like him to fail, but because his ideas that guide him are inherently self-contradictory and the contradictions are already embodied by his advisors... I have described him as an impostor and a con man and a would-be dictator... But he's only a would-be dictator because I'm confident that the Constitution and the institutions of the United States are strong enough... He would be a dictator if he could get away with it, but he won't be able to."
So why exactly would Soros give that kind of backing to one of the "advisors" to Trump (Kushner) that he so openly called out?
3. Jared Kushner bought 666 5th Avenue property for 3 times its previous worth
I'm not an extreme conspiracy theorist, but I do love me some weird stories. And this one goes deep, so try and keep up.
In 2007, Kushner bought a building located at 666 5th Avenue in New York City for $1.8 billion, which was 3 times what the asking price was only a decade earlier. It's obvious this building meant something to Kushner to lay out that kind of money.
Lucent Technologies (no affiliation to Kushner) occupied the 6th floor of the building. Lucent Technologies logo appears to be a general circle design, but according to their Wikipedia page: "One source inside Lucent says that the logo is actually a Zen Buddhist symbol for 'eternal truth,' the Enso, turned 90 degrees and modified. Another source says it represents the mythic ouroboros, a snake holding its tail in its mouth. Lucent's logo also has been said to represent constant re-creating and re-thinking. Carly Fiorina picked the logo because her mother was a painter and she rejected the sterile geometric logos of most high tech companies."
OK. Let's talk about this.
Carly Fiorina, if you recall, was a candidate in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. She strictly opposed Donald Trump even after his nomination. However, since Lucent Technologies has nothing to do with Jared Kushner except for the fact that they had an office in the building he owned, I don't see much of a connection.
There are rumors that cannot be confirmed that the symbolic ouroboros has a cult connection. With that said, there are plenty of online forums that have declared Jared Kushner the antichrist.
This video implies the Antichrist will use and implement technology, which Kushner is apparently involved in. Is Jared Kushner the Anti-Christ? No, but conspiracy theorists disagree.
4. Jared Kushner has ties to Chabad, which believes its leader will rise again after World War 3.
Jared Kushner donated $342,500 to Chabad organizations over a 10-year period.
One of the principles of Jewish faith enumerated by Maimonides is that one day there will arise a dynamic Jewish leader, a direct descendant of the Davidic dynasty, who will rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, and gather Jews from all over the world and bring them back to the Land of Israel.
All the nations of the world will recognize Moshiach [Moshiach is the Hebrew word for “messiah.”] to be a world leader, and will accept his dominion. In the messianic era there will be world peace, no more wars nor famine, and, in general, a high standard of living.
The Talmud describes the period immediately prior to the advent of Moshiach as one of great travail and turmoil. There will be a world recession, and governments will be controlled by despots. It is in this troubled setting that Moshiach will arrive.
It is said that Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who passed away in 1994, will rise again after World War 3.
With so much talk about President Donald Trump's confrontational leadership style and his tensions with other world leaders, the possibility of WWIII sooner rather than later seems possible. And following the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, it's not out of the question.
5. Did Jared Kushner get Chris Christie fired from Trump's administration?
In 2005, Charles Kushner, Jared's father, was charged and convicted on 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign donations. As a result of the convictions, he was disbarred from several states.
The witness tampering is actually quite bizarre. According to the official Wikipedia page for Charles Kushner, "The witness-tampering charge arose from Kushner's act of retaliation against William Schulder, his sister Esther's husband, who was cooperating with federal investigators; Kushner hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, arranged to record an encounter between the two, and had the tape sent to his sister."
Guess who the prosecutor was? None other than New Jersey Governor and former possible Cabinet pick for Trump's administration, Chris Christie! So was Christie bumped for revenge? According to Kushner, no.
When Kushner was intereviewed back in November 2016, he said, "Six months ago Governor Christie and I decided this election was much bigger than any differences we may have had in the past, and we worked very well together... The media has speculated on a lot of different things, and since I don't talk to the press, they go as they go, but I was not behind pushing out him or his people."
But Christie is out and Kushner is in, so who really knows what happened behind the scenes?
6. Kushner's real-estate properties are not popular with its tenants.
In 2014, Kushner was pushing residents out of his East Village building to make room for more elite clientele. Tenants who had been living month-to-month were given 60 days to vacate, while others with leases had been told they would not renew.
In November of 2016, his Greenwich Village property was reported as a death trap citing one retail tenant (a grilled cheese chain called Meltkraft) leaving due to sewer leakage and concerns over an illegal electrical connection. There were also concerns of rat infestations.
Though Kushner is not directly named in the lawsuit brought my the owner of Meltkraft, the suit claimed, “Feces were everywhere, forcing now-disgruntled employees to clean the space... The situation turned nightmarish when ‘waste-feeding insects infested the space beneath the floorboards and no amount of extermination would rid the space of them.’”
But it doesn't end there. Mary Ann Siwek, a tenant who has lived at the East side building for more than 30 years, told The Village Voice how upset she was that Kushner had been placed in Trump's administration.
"It’s disgusting. It’s insane. It’s ludicrous... I don’t know how to tell you how despicable this man is... We were breathing in dust and fumes. There was plaster everywhere. My ceiling collapsed a couple times. For six months we had to live like this,” she said.
7. Did you know Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner appeared on Gossip Girl?
Gawker (Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and the cast of Gossip Girl)
In a 2010 episode of the popular CW show Gossip Girl titled "Easy J," Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner appeared as themselves at a swanky party for the New York Observer. Of course, the pair would show up at a party for the publication that Kushner owned but the cameo was quick and anti-climactic.
Now, this doesn't quite fit into the realm of conspiracy theories, just a reminder that Ivanka and Jared ran in upper class circles the likes of which Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen could never fathom.
8. Jared Kushner tapped The Purge: Election Year publicist to run PR for The White House.
Remember Trump's 2020 slogan for his presidential campaign? "Keep America Great." If that sounds familiar, maybe it's because that was the slogan for the horror film, The Purge: Election Year.
Josh Raffel who ran public relations for such horror films as Paranormal Activity, Get Out and The Purge led the newly created White House Office of American Innovation.
Let's go over that one more time: A HORROR movie publicist is now doing PR for The White House.
The President of the United States is using the same slogan as a horror film based on killing people during an election year! Chew on that for a while.
Liza Walters is a writer who covers astrology, pop culture, and relationship topics.