Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is applauding Jared Kushner’s work in the early days of his father-in-law’s presidency, but warning that he has taken a “daunting role flying close to the sun.”
“As part of the Trump family, Jared is familiar with the intangibles of the President,” Kissinger, who served as President Richard Nixon’s secretary of state, wrote in Time’s list of “The 100 Most Influential People.” “As a graduate of Harvard and NYU, he has a broad education; as a businessman, a knowledge of administration.”
“All this should help him make a success of his daunting role flying close to the sun,” he added.
{mosads}Kushner, who is married to Trump’s elder daughter, Ivanka, has become one of the president’s most influential advisers and is said to have his father-in-law’s ear on a number of issues.
Trump has charged him with heading up a sweeping number of initiatives, ranging from criminal justice reform to Middle East peace efforts to evaluating how government can be run more like a business.
Kissinger praised Kushner, however, for helping Trump navigate his first months in office, crediting the president’s senior adviser for helping to smooth the rocky transition of power in Washington.
“An incoming President is likely to be less familiar with formal structures, and the greater that gap, the heavier the responsibility of those advisers who are asked to fill it,” Kissinger wrote. “This space has been traversed for nearly four months by Jared Kushner.”