In a rare interview, Jared Kushner describes the infamous Trump Tower meeting with the Russians as a "clown show"

The son-in-law and chief advisor to President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, said in a rare interview that the meeting he had with his brother-in-law and the direction of his campaign in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer was a "show" of clown ".

Speaking to Jonathan Swan of Axios, Kushner was asked about the meeting of Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort in search of "dirt" on Hillary Clinton's Russian lawyer Natalia V. Veselnitskaya .

"We are at a place where players play Monday-quarter Monday morning and they are so pious.Let me put you in my place at that time: OK, I run three companies, I help run I receive an e-mail informing me that we were going to see us at 4, instead of 3, at a meeting I was told earlier that I did not know what it was "Kushner told Swan.

Swan pushed Kushner's answer back. "Russia was in the line of object," Swan said in the interview. Kushner responded by pointing out that he was overwhelmed by e-mails during the campaign. Veselnitskaya has since been charged with obstructing justice in a separate case. She did not introduce a plea.

Swan told ABC News on Monday that he thought Kushner remained a resilient force in the White House.

"I think he's in a very, very strong position," said Swan in the latest episode of "The Investigation." "He is the most powerful family member of a president since Bobby Kennedy, I do not think you can mount an intellectual argument, an intellectually honest argument, to counter that."

The conversation between ABC News and Swan comes after his interview with Kushner, which aired on HBO Sunday.

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The Swan interview on HBO covered a wide range of topics, including Kushner's financial relations. Kushner was targeted last year after Citigroup granted a $ 325 million loan to the Kushner company just one month after Citigroup chairman Michael Corbat met with the company. White House.

"Listen, I would not have gone into the government if there had been anything salacious and harmful that worried me." At this point, I've been fully approved and I think that people see things that way, "Kushner told Swan.

In his conversation with ABC, Swan said that Kushner was "very sincere" when he said that. "He absolutely believes it, and it's not the first time he's saying it," said Swan.

In response to a letter sent by lawmakers to Corbat in March 2018, which called into question the loan, Citigroup told congressional Democratic leaders that "the Kushner family has been a Citi customer for decades" and downplayed the timing of the loan. ready and meeting Corbat with Kushner.

"I think the way he responded showed that he was not doing it again, he would not do it anymore," Swan told ABC News. "He did not say that, but it seemed like it was a meeting, he realized that the optics were not excellent. I mean, it's a huge loan they've agreed to, and he's met the CEO at the White House. "

Kushner told Swan during his interview that "can understand the appearance" of a conflict of interest, but that he did not know that Citigroup was discussing business with the Kushner company during the meeting. "I met a lot of executives when we got here," Kushner said.

During the interview, Swan also asked Kushner whether Trump's tremorism movement, which sought to discredit President Barack Obama's citizenship, was racist. Kushner told Swan several times that "I was not involved," also saying, "I know who the president is, and I did not see anything racist in him. I did not participate. "

Swan told ABC News that he thought "that people understand a little Jared Kushner" and that Kushner's political stances are not as far from those of the president as some people think.

"People who know him well and who work with him," said Swan in a podcast, "say that he really agrees with Donald Trump on a lot more than he does not have. disagrees with him. "