During an extensive interview with National Public Radio (NPR), Chris Christie, who wrote a memoir entitled “Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics”, weighed in on reports that Ivanka Trump’s beloved husband Jared Kushner is de facto operating as White House chief of staff.
“I don’t know if it’s true. But let me say this: There is simply no one more influential in the White House on the president than Jared Kushner. He’s not the only person who he listens to, but I don’t think anyone as more influence than Jared has”, he said.
Christie alleged that Kushner has held a grudge on him since he served as a federal attorney, and prosecuted a case against Jared’s father for tax evasion and witness tampering.
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In the interview, he made a reference to the chapter, “Jared’s Meltdown”, in which he described an unwanted interaction with POTUS’s son-in-law after Trump asked him to be chairman of the transition:
“Jared came into the meeting, uninvited, between me, Mr Trump and [former campaign manager] Corey Lewandowski and began to make the argument as to why that decision should be held in abeyance – even though there’s a federal law that says they needed to have a person in charge of the transition by that time”.
According to Christie, when then-candidate Trump hit back at Kushner with counter-arguments, saying that he was to stick to the law, Jared had his own explanation:
Trump allegedly argued, saying that Christie was doing his job: “He was doing what he was supposed to be doing, your father pled guilty. I don’t know why you’re trying to get in the way of this. But I’ve made my decision. And Chris is going to be in charge of the transition”.
While Jared has yet to comment on the claims, the former adviser to Trump also alleged that ex-White House chief Strategist Steve Bannon had told him that Kushner “got me fired from that job”.
“And Jared has denied that that’s what happened. But, you know, the fact is that I’ve heard from enough people to become convinced in my own mind that there’s been no other plausible explanation put forward”, he told NPR.