Interview Axios by Jared Kushner: Clowns show.

The second season of Axios The first took place on Sunday night on HBO. It began with an interview with Senior Advisor to US President Jared Kushner. To quote a phrase from a senior advisor to the President of the United States, "a clown show". Axios journalist Jonathan Swan rebuffed some of Kushner's most ridiculous statements, and in response, Kushner fell flat on his stomach. quickly, he seemed to be suffering from a kind of localized anomaly in the gravitational field of the Earth. It turns out that the president's son-in-law has been reluctant to press for reasons that become painfully clear over the course of the interview: he knows nothing and believes even less. Here are three of his most spectacular facial plants.

On the abortion

Kushner initially had problems when Swan pushed him against Donald Trump's extremely late conversion to the anti-abortion movement. For naive observers, it might seem that political agents must work to achieve the political goals they believe in, but as Kushner explained, there is nothing wrong with "enforcing" policies that hurt other people even if you do not support them yourself:

Kushner: … I think [Trump] respect people who want to be honest with him. When I disagree, you will never read about it in the press and I will not say it publicly. But I will say that there are many more things on which I agree than disagree.

Swan: So you agree with him on the economy, on foreign policy. Where do you stand on abortion?

Kushner: Again, I was not the person who was elected.

Swan: So you agree with the president's position?

Kushner: I am here to strengthen his positions. This is his job as a member of the White House staff, we will work to lobby.

So, if you do not like Jared Kushner's current work to "strengthen" his father-in-law's anti-abortion positions, do not blame him for Jared Kushner: he does not really believe it. Maybe he can then work for a pro-choice administration and repair some of the damage!

Whether the Palestinians can govern themselves or not

Kushner's next blunder comes from a tactic that more and more interviewers should use when dealing with the Trump administration: ask an open question allowing the interviewee to juggle until they reveal how out of their depth they are. In this case, Swan asks if the Palestinians are "able to govern themselves". Let's see if Kushner recognizes the racism inherent in treating this issue as an open question, or whether he tries to get running while giving what he thinks, seems like a wise decision. reply:

Swan: Do you believe that Palestinians are able to govern themselves without Israeli intervention?

Kushner: I think it's a very good question. I think this is a problem we will have to see. The hope is that they can, over time, become able to govern …

SwanThey are Palestinians.

Kushner: The Palestinians. I think that the current Palestinian government has done some things well and that it is lacking in others. And I think that for the sector to be investable, for investors to come in and want to invest in different sectors and infrastructure and to create jobs, you need to have a fair judicial system, freedom of the press, freedom of expression, tolerance for all religions, and so …

Swan: Can they be freed from any Israeli government or military interference?

Kushner: I think it's a high bar.

Well, it did not go well. Kushner is not willing to talk about the details of his long-standing plan for the Middle East, but if the goal is to make the area "investable" while we all wait for Jared Kushner to decide that the Palestinians can be treated like adults, this does not seem like good news for Palestinians. It's also a pleasure to see Kushner throwing himself into vague phrases verified by polls every time he asks a concrete question, like his hi-memorization greeting memorized above. There is also this exchange, in which Kushner asserts that the Palestinians are too focused on the issues of bread and butter to worry about something as abstract as sovereignty; he could have a bright future in courting for the Democratic Party:

Swan: Do you believe that the Palestinian people deserve their own independent sovereign state with a capital in East Jerusalem?

Kushner: There is a difference between technocrats and there is a difference between people. The technocrats focus on very technocratic things and when I talk to the Palestinians, what they want is that they want to have the opportunity to live a better life. They want to have the opportunity to pay their mortgage, to have …

Swan: Do not you think they want their own state, liberated from the Israeli government and the army?

Kushner: I think they want an opportunity.

Damn, these technocrats, always focused on the bad things!

Did Donald Trump ever commit a racist act or not?

This is probably the most eloquent exchange of the interview and it is interesting to know how well Swan is making his shot. First, he lets Kushner talk all the time about how Donald Trump is not a racist. Then he asks him questions about the specific racist actions Trump has undertaken recently, letting Kushner explain why his birtérism and his promise to ban Muslim immigration were neither racist nor fanatical. (He does not even enter Central Park Five.) You can see Kushner trying to end the traditional Republican approach of wondering whether Trump is "racist" or not, while Swan continues to focus on his racist actions rather than the content of it. his heart.

Swan: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she calls, she called President Trump a racist. Have you ever seen him say or do anything you would call racist or fanatic?

Kushner: So the answer is no. Absolutely not. You can not be racist until you're 69, then run for president and be racist. What I will say is that when many Democrats make the racist a president, I think they do not serve those who suffer because of the real racism in this country.

Swan: Was berythism racist?

Kushner: Uh, listen, I was not really involved in that.

Swan: I know you were not! Was it racist?

Kushner: As I said, I was not involved in that.

Swan: I know you were not! Was it racist?

Kushner: Uh, listen, I know who the president is and I did not see anything racist in him. So, again, I was not involved in that.

Swan: Did you wish he did not do that?

Kushner: As I said, I was not involved in that. It was a very long time ago.

SwanThe other problem often mentioned in this conversation is that he campaigned to ban Muslims. Would you describe it as sectarian?

Kushner: Listen, I think the president did his campaign as he did, and I think …

Swan: He did! But do you wish he did not do it? Would you like him not to have said that?

Kushner: Uh, I think he's here today and he's doing a lot of good things for the country, and that's what I'm proud of.

"I think the president did his campaign as he did" is an astonishing statement from a man who said a few seconds earlier never to have seen Donald Trump do a racist thing. Kushner goes perfectly well with white supremacists for tactical reasons, and seems bored that anyone would ask him if Trump was sincere about it. Kushner's answer seems to be, essentially, that of course Donald Trump's belief in white supremacy is not sincere, which is why it is acceptable to work for him. (Similarly, Kushner is offended by the fact that people might presume that he is personally against abortion simply because he is helping a president reverse the situation. Roe v. Wade: It's a pure mercenary.) But no one would care what Donald Trump thought if he was a brain in a jar: that's what he Is that people object to. And as ridiculous as Kushner's interview with Axios, that's what Jared Kushner did, which is what he said in this embarrassing appearance on television. However, it is difficult to say if talking to Axios will help or hurt Kushner in the long run. On the one hand, it was revealed and the administration that hired it was even more dangerously incompetent than what the nation had previously imagined. On the other hand, he will sneak up and hide his way through clumsy explanations of his time working for the Trump administration for the rest of his days. It does not hurt to train a bit.