In Softball Interview, Kushner Says Facts First, Then We 'Determine What We Want to Believe' About Khashoggi Murder
After kicking off a rare public appearance on Monday by answering a series of laughable softball questions from CNN‘s Van Jones—”How did you get this job? You have like the dopest job in the world”—President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner admitted that the facts of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder are separate from “what we want to believe” and argued that whatever the administration’s “fact-finding phase” reveals, the U.S. must stick with its brutal ally to counter Iran.
“We’re getting facts in from multiple places,” Kushner said during Citizen by CNN, a day-long political forum in New York City. “Once those facts come in, the secretary of state will work with our national security team to help us determine what we want to believe… We have our eyes wide open.”
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Critics immediately recognized that Kushner’s remarks were “probably more accurate” than he intended, as they suggest that the Trump administration is picking and choosing what evidence to accept rather than letting the facts of Khashoggi’s murder—and the Saudi kingdom’s role—speak for themselves.
