Jared Kushner‘s new book has been ruthlessly eviscerated in a brutal review by The New York Times. Like all things Trump, Kushner’s tome, Breaking History: A White House Memoir, appears to be shamelessly opportunistic and devoid of substance. Granted, those are our words, and not Times writer Dwight Garner’s, who went to town on the former president’s son-in-law “soulless and earnest” book way more eloquently than we ever could.
“Kushner writes as if he believes foreign dignitaries (and less-than dignitaries) prized him in the White House because he was the fresh ideas guy, the starting point guard, the dimpled go-getter,” Garner wrote. “He betrays little cognizance that he was in demand because, as a landslide of other reporting has demonstrated, he was in over his head.”
As Garner continues, he slams the book for Kushner’s selective recollection of the January 6 attack (he didn’t hear about until later in the day). He also calls out Kushner’s smug satisfaction with his Secret Service codename (“mechanic”), which Kushner clearly doesn’t realize was a jab at his nepotistic presence in the White House where he didn’t fix much of anything. Via The New York Times:
“Breaking History” is an earnest and soulless — Kushner looks like a mannequin, and he writes like one — and peculiarly selective appraisal of Donald J. Trump’s term in office. Kushner almost entirely ignores the chaos, the alienation of allies, the breaking of laws and norms, the flirtations with dictators, the comprehensive loss of America’s moral leadership, and so on, ad infinitum, to speak about his boyish tinkering (the “mechanic”) with issues he was interested in.
Garner goes on to criticize Kushner’s memoir for its “college admissions essay” tone before twisting the knife: “This book is like a tour of a once majestic 18th-century wooden house, now burned to its foundations, that focuses solely on, and rejoices in, what’s left amid the ashes: the two singed bathtubs, the gravel driveway and the mailbox. Kushner’s fealty to Trump remains absolute. Reading this book reminded me of watching a cat lick a dog’s eye goo.” Ouch.
(Via The New York Times)