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I've Read Nearly All the Books by Former Trump Officials. Now We Have the Worst.
Breaking History is the “Look, Daddy!” account of a child born on third and desperate to prove he got there on his own.
In her memoir of her stint as press secretary during the Trump administration, Stephanie Grisham revealed that the White House staff had a nickname for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump: “the interns.” Kushner in particular, she wrote, had a propensity for poking his nose into other, more qualified officials’ bailiwicks, wreaking havoc with the chain of command while knowing that his status as the president’s son-in-law would protect him from the consequences. “Javanka,” as Grisham referred to the couple, were also regarded in the office as “obnoxious, entitled know-it-alls” who sought the spotlight on ceremonial occasions, even when protocol dictated that they be excluded—most famously when, barred from Trump’s meeting with Queen Elizabeth II, they had themselves photographed overlooking the occasion from a window of Buckingham Palace, an inadvertently creepy image that inspired comparisons to horror movies, haunted dolls, and VC Andrews novels.
The nickname seems a bit unfair to interns, but Kushner’s new memoir, Breaking History, does read like one long résumé. Kushner has a way of assuring the reader of his accomplishments that makes you doubt everything he says. Grisham (who, like her former boss, has a knack for nicknames), also called him “the Slim Reaper,” for his adeptness at eluding responsibility for the messes he made, as well as for his penchant for scooping up the credit for any successes. He wants readers to know that during the campaign, he turned MAGA hats into a profit center and introduced daily Facebook videos, for which he was given “a budget of $400,000, but only spent $160,000.” Good job, Jared!
As Trump administration memoirs go—and I’ve read a ton of them—this one is pretty dull, with dashes of the obligatory score-settling and self-justification but precious little color. Kushner gets his digs in when covering such fallen rivals as Steve Bannon, John Kelly, and Rex Tillerson (who understandably complained that there should only be one secretary of state). But he has no eye for character or flair for dish, and his whole schtick was that when the going got crazy, he was off in Dubai, or sucking up to Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi prince who according to the CIA ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi (and this spring invested $2 billion in Kushner’s fledgling private equity firm, a deal currently under investigation by the House Oversight Committee).
Kushner’s dilemma is the same as Trump’s. Both are sons of rich, unprincipled self-made men and are desperate to prove what can never be proven: that they, too, would have made successes of themselves even without Daddy’s help. Kushner’s marriage to Ivanka Trump compounded his problem. Obviously, he would never have had a shot at Mideast diplomacy and negotiating trade agreements if he hadn’t been Trump’s son-in-law. He was entirely unqualified to do any of it. The purpose of Breaking History is to argue that it was nevertheless America’s good luck that such a can-do fellow happened into the position to solve so many of the nation’s problems. Like Trump, Kushner is a businessman—although a businessman who started out with the massive advantage of his father’s money and connections. Like Trump, he claimed that his expertise at business brought much needed know-how and hard-headedness to government, a notion that mulishly ignores the fact that government is not a business and by necessity has a different set of norms and goals.
https://slate.com/culture/2022/08/jared-kushner-breaking-history-trump-book-review.html
In her memoir of her stint as press secretary during the Trump administration, Stephanie Grisham revealed that the White House staff had a nickname for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump: “the interns.” Kushner in particular, she wrote, had a propensity for poking his nose into other, more qualified officials’ bailiwicks, wreaking havoc with the chain of command while knowing that his status as the president’s son-in-law would protect him from the consequences. “Javanka,” as Grisham referred to the couple, were also regarded in the office as “obnoxious, entitled know-it-alls” who sought the spotlight on ceremonial occasions, even when protocol dictated that they be excluded—most famously when, barred from Trump’s meeting with Queen Elizabeth II, they had themselves photographed overlooking the occasion from a window of Buckingham Palace, an inadvertently creepy image that inspired comparisons to horror movies, haunted dolls, and VC Andrews novels.
The nickname seems a bit unfair to interns, but Kushner’s new memoir, Breaking History, does read like one long résumé. Kushner has a way of assuring the reader of his accomplishments that makes you doubt everything he says. Grisham (who, like her former boss, has a knack for nicknames), also called him “the Slim Reaper,” for his adeptness at eluding responsibility for the messes he made, as well as for his penchant for scooping up the credit for any successes. He wants readers to know that during the campaign, he turned MAGA hats into a profit center and introduced daily Facebook videos, for which he was given “a budget of $400,000, but only spent $160,000.” Good job, Jared!
As Trump administration memoirs go—and I’ve read a ton of them—this one is pretty dull, with dashes of the obligatory score-settling and self-justification but precious little color. Kushner gets his digs in when covering such fallen rivals as Steve Bannon, John Kelly, and Rex Tillerson (who understandably complained that there should only be one secretary of state). But he has no eye for character or flair for dish, and his whole schtick was that when the going got crazy, he was off in Dubai, or sucking up to Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi prince who according to the CIA ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi (and this spring invested $2 billion in Kushner’s fledgling private equity firm, a deal currently under investigation by the House Oversight Committee).
Kushner’s dilemma is the same as Trump’s. Both are sons of rich, unprincipled self-made men and are desperate to prove what can never be proven: that they, too, would have made successes of themselves even without Daddy’s help. Kushner’s marriage to Ivanka Trump compounded his problem. Obviously, he would never have had a shot at Mideast diplomacy and negotiating trade agreements if he hadn’t been Trump’s son-in-law. He was entirely unqualified to do any of it. The purpose of Breaking History is to argue that it was nevertheless America’s good luck that such a can-do fellow happened into the position to solve so many of the nation’s problems. Like Trump, Kushner is a businessman—although a businessman who started out with the massive advantage of his father’s money and connections. Like Trump, he claimed that his expertise at business brought much needed know-how and hard-headedness to government, a notion that mulishly ignores the fact that government is not a business and by necessity has a different set of norms and goals.
https://slate.com/culture/2022/08/jared-kushner-breaking-history-trump-book-review.html
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