Jared Kushner refuses to say whether Trump's birtherism was racist

In an interview with Axios on HBO, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law, refused to say if he thought that Trump questioning Obama's nationality was racist.

During a deeply awkward interview, Axios reporter Jonathan Swan pressed Kushner on Trump's involvement in spearheading the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama wasn't born in the US, and was in fact born in Kenya.

The exchange began when Swan asked Kushner how he felt about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's assertion that Trump was a racist.

Speaking to Kushner, Swan said:

Have you ever seen [Trump] say or do anything you would describe as racist or bigoted?

In response, Kushner said:

The answer is no, absolutely not.

You can’t not be a racist for 69 years then run for president and be a racist... when a lot of the Democrats call the president a racist I think they’re doing a disservice to people who suffer because of real racism in this country.

Then, Swan pressed him again, asking if 'birtherism' was racist. Birtherism was Trump's first foray into US party politics, and it refers to a conspiracy theory that claimed that Obama wasn't a natural-born U.S citizen, thus implying that he is an ineligible president.

In the first question, Swan said:

Was birtherism racist?

With a slightly pained expression on his face, Kushner said:

Um, look, I wasn’t really involved in that.

Swan presses his point:

I know you weren’t. Was it racist?

Kushner:

Like I said, I wasn’t involved in that.

Swan:

I know you weren’t. Was it racist?

Kushner:

I know who the president is and I have not seen anything in him that is racist.

In the interview, Kushner, who has been tasked with brokering peace in the Middle East, also cast doubt on Palestinian's ability to self govern, and when he was asked if he understood why Palestinians may not trust him, he said:

I’m not here to be trusted.

He also dodged a question about whether Saudi Arabia and crown prince Mohamed Bin Salman should be held responsible for the death of Jamal Khashoggi, as well as a question on why the United States is currently taking a record low amount of refugees.

Comes across as a really great guy, doesn't he?

HT Splinter News

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