Jared Kushner has not impressed New York Times book critic Dwight Garner with his new release, “Breaking History: A White House Memoir.”
But Kushner’s literary failure has unintentionally given us one truly delightful read, in the form of Garner’s review of the nearly 500-page tome.
It is a brutal summation of Kushner’s legacy as the White House’s very own Slenderman — the guy who appeared when you least wanted to see him, at the blurry edges of photos, or in a meeting on foreign relations. Dimpled yet somehow emotionless, eyes dead like a shark.
Kushner, of course, is the grossly privileged husband of former first daughter Ivanka Trump who was part of President Donald Trump’s administration for four whole years before vanishing in a puff of fine white smoke that rematerialized in South Florida in the violent wake of the 2020 election. His father-in-law had ensured he was given a top security clearance, over the apparent objections of intelligence officials, so that Kushner could get his equal turn stirring the cookie batter.
“Breaking History” is Kushner’s attempt to reflect on that experience as an adviser to the president.
“He betrays little cognizance,” Garner writes, “that he was in demand because, as a landslide of other reporting has demonstrated, he was in over his head, unable to curb his avarice, a cocky young real estate heir who happened to unwrap a lot of Big Macs beside his father-in-law, the erratic and misinformed and similarly mercenary leader of the free world.”
In the next paragraph, Garner delivers an even spicier take: “Kushner looks like a mannequin, and he writes like one.”
Then the killer: “Reading this book reminded me of watching a cat lick a dog’s eye goo.”
For the full review ― including a bizarre anecdote about that time Bono hosted Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Billy Joel, and Rupert and Wendi Murdoch ― head to The New York Times.
