Jared Kushner Is Back—Just Before Trump’s Middle East Trip

Jared Kushner is back to advising Donald Trump, ahead of the president’s trip to the Middle East.

Kushner is reportedly advising administration officials in negotiations with Arab leaders, CNN reports, citing sources in the White House and people close to the president’s son-in-law. While Kushner isn’t expected to travel with Trump, he has been talking to foreign leaders, including Saudi Arabia’s, about normalizing relations with Israel.

While Trump’s stated priority for the trip is to make trade deals with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, Kushner and others in the White House are trying to use the trip to expand the Abraham Accords, which Kushner negotiated during Trump’s first term. The accords led to the normalization of relations between Israel and several Arab countries, including Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, and Sudan.

Kushner has specifically been advising Trump officials on how to approach Saudi Arabia regarding normalizing relations with Israel, with the administration hoping for progress on that front. They don’t expect a deal to come from the trip, though.

“We fully expect other countries to sign (agreements) first before Saudi,” a senior Trump administration official told CNN, adding that there are discussions with a “wide range of countries.”

“When it comes to the Middle East, Jared is an expert,” another administration official said. “He knows all the players and is one of the few people who has the ear of the Arab leaders, as well as the Israelis.”

Like his father-in-law, Kushner has extensive business dealings in the Middle East, raising ethical concerns. He is pocketing billions from Saudi Arabia and reportedly speaking with the country’s crown prince every week. Also like Trump, Kushner has praised Gaza’s waterfront beachfront property as “very valuable,” a troubling sign given Israel’s vote this week to occupy the territory.

It’s anyone’s guess as to what Kushner’s actual agenda is in advising the Trump administration. It could be to line his own pockets or to further a real estate development project in Gaza. Either way, it presents a host of ethical issues.

The messages Donald Trump is sending about a proposal to increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans aren’t just mixed; they’re actually inscrutable.

In a post on Truth Social Friday, the president appeared torn about whether he planned to actually follow through on his proposal to hike taxes on the superrich.

“The problem with even a ‘TINY’ tax increase for the RICH, which I and all others would graciously accept in order to help the lower and middle income workers, is that the Radical Left Democrat Lunatics would go around screaming, ‘Read my lips,’ the fabled Quote by George Bush the Elder that is said to have cost him the Election. NO, Ross Perot cost him the Election! In any event, Republicans should probably not do it, but I’m OK if they do!!!” Trump wrote.

Trump was referring to President George H.W. Bush’s famous campaign promise, “Read my lips: no new taxes.” Ultimately, Bush left income tax alone but raised other levies on oil and chemicals, increased fees on international travel, and moved up the collection dates for certain taxes. Trump seemed unwilling to break his campaign promises to lower taxes for Americans.

But it was Trump who reportedly pitched House Speaker Mike Johnson Wednesday on creating a new 39.6 percent tax bracket for individuals earning at least $2.5 million, or couples making $5 million, people familiar with the discussions told Bloomberg. Trump has been adamant that his sweeping reciprocal tariffs will replace the federal funding lost by eliminating the income tax.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg Television’s Balance of Power
Thursday that higher taxes for the rich could help offset other tax cuts.

During his first term, Trump slashed rates “from 39.6 to 37. So, if he just goes back to what he did last time, I’m in favor of that,” Lutnick said. “I think it’s smart, as long as it is a redistribution to his priorities of no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security.”

The Trump administration’s tariff scheme appears less and less likely to bring manufacturing jobs back to U.S. shores.

Businesses across the country are crunching the numbers and realizing that, despite Donald Trump’s insistence, they can’t balance out his tariff hikes across the supply chain.

“Some manufacturers who had plans to open factories in the country say the new duties are only adding to the significant obstacles they already faced,” Bloomberg reported Friday.

That’s because the supply chain to produce those goods in the United States simply isn’t there, requiring companies to import raw materials and factory equipment—which Trump’s tariffs have made unaffordable—from abroad.

And Trump’s unpredictable approach to announcing and enacting or even retracting his tariffs has added confusion and significant volatility to the market, making businesses less likely to invest in large, long-term projects such as factory development.

Nora Orozco, the owner of footwear company Evolutions Brands, wants to open a Texas factory that would create 200 jobs. But the nitty-gritty of Trump’s so-called “manufacturing renaissance” just doesn’t work, according to the small-business owner.

“I like the idea of onshoring, but this makes it impossible for us,” Orozco told Bloomberg.

Reinvigorating American manufacturing has been a tall order for both political parties since the country offshored and automated the bulk of those jobs decades ago. But 2022 did see a spike in job announcements for reshored manufacturing gigs, according to the Reshoring Initiative, a U.S. manufacturing advocacy nonprofit.

That was thanks to President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which passed with zero Republican support at the time, and his CHIPS and Science Act. Biden’s landmark legislative victory is currently on the chopping block as conservative lawmakers look to make room in the federal budget for an extension to Trump’s tax plan.

Trump thinks providing poor and rural Americans with high-speed internet is “racist” and “woke.” 

The president has decided to end the Digital Equity Act, Biden-era legislation that aims to expand high-speed internet across the country. 

“I have spoken with my wonderful Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, and we agree that the Biden/Harris so-called ‘Digital Equity Act’ is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday. “No more woke handouts based on race! The Digital Equity Program is a RACIST and ILLEGAL $2.5 BILLION DOLLAR giveaway. I am ending this IMMEDIATELY, and saving Taxpayers BILLIONS OF DOLLARS!”

The Act does not explicitly mention race. All it says is that people can’t be blocked from using the Act “on the basis of actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or disability.”  This language is straight from the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

The law provided many red states with grants to create and implement plans to make internet access more accessible. These plans have already been approved in conservative states like Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, and Kansas.

Internet access is a massive barrier to education, opportunity, and upward mobility. This legislation attempted to remedy that for people everywhere, especially in regions that went heavily for Trump. How is that a racist, woke handout?

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers faced a crowd of opposition while attempting to arrest a mother clinging to her baby on the streets of Worcester, Massachusetts, Thursday morning.

The brazen arrest, in which ICE agents were swarmed by close to 25 onlookers demanding a warrant and identification, was captured on video. Agents attempted to control the crowd as they formed a “human ring” around the ICE vehicle holding the detained woman. Local police were called to the scene amid the chaos.

“The crowd was unruly,” police said in a statement. They claimed that some individuals “put their hands on federal agents and Worcester officers.”

The woman’s daughter, a 16-year-old, was left holding her baby sister and stood in front of the agents’ car at one point, trying to block it. She allegedly kicked the car after handing the baby to someone else, and now faces four criminal charges, including reckless endangerment of a child, disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest.

Also arrested was a Worcester School Committee candidate, Ashley Spring, who allegedly threw an unknown liquid substance on police officers and pushed them while they tried to arrest the 16-year-old.

Worcester City Councilor Etel Haxhiaj was among the residents who protested the arrest.

“As an elected official, it is my obligation to stand up for my constituents,” Haxhiaj said in a statement. “The way immigrants in Worcester and across the Commonwealth are being targeted and terrorized by this federal administration for deportation is absolutely unconstitutional.”

It’s only the latest brazen action from immigration agents attempting a deportation arrest. The Trump administration’s immigration officers have tried to detain other immigrants in the street without warning, identification, or the production of a warrant. Last month, in another Massachusetts arrest, ICE agents smashed a car window to detain an immigrant with no criminal record.