Report: Kushner bringing Hollywood PR exec to White House

Jared Kushner is bringing on a top Hollywood public relations executive to run communications for a new White House innovation office, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Kushner will reportedly name Josh Raffel, the top public relations executive for Hollywood producer Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions, to the position.

Raffel will run communications for the White House Office of American Innovation, which is intended to help fix the federal bureaucracy.

{mosads}Raffel had formerly worked for a PR shop based in New York, and his clients included Kushner’s family business. He also previously worked with Trump aide Hope Hicks.

The idea of the new Office of American Innovation is to help meet some of the goals Trump pledged to accomplish during his campaign, such as improving veteran care and fighting opioid addiction. It will report directly to the president.

The new office is working with tech giants such as Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.

It is expected to pull ideas from the business world and may consider privatizing some government functions. The team will include former business executives.

“We should have excellence in government,” Kushner told the Washington Post last month. “The government should be run like a great American company. Our hope is that we can achieve successes and efficiencies for our customers, who are the citizens.”