A new book by former Trump aide Peter Navarro claims that the former president was supportive of an attempt to remove his son-in-law Jared Kushner from having control over his 2020 campaign and replace him with Stephen Bannon.
Navarro in the book, obtained by The Guardian, describes the plan as a “coup d’état,” but the change never occurred because Kushner refused.
“And that was that. And the rest is a catastrophic strategic failure history,” Navarro wrote, according to The Guardian.
Navarro, a critic of Kushner, will later this month release the book, titled “Taking Back Trump’s America: Why We Lost the White House and How We’ll Win It Back.”
Trump, while supportive of the move, feared “family troubles if [he] himself had to deliver the bad news to … the father of his grandchildren,” so he did not bring up the subject with Kushner.
Instead, the president asked Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus, a prominent GOP donor, to tell Kushner.
Kushner at first skipped a call from Marcus and then later told him, “things were fine with the campaign, there was no way he was stepping down and, in effect, Bernie Marcus and his big moneybags could go pound sand,” according to Navarro’s account.
The Hill has reached out to a Trump spokesperson for comment.
Navarro has lashed out at Kushner in the past. After Kushner revealed in his book that he was treated for thyroid cancer while serving in the White House, Navarro said during a Newsmax interview that the revelation “came out of nowhere” and accused Kushner of trying to get “sympathy to try to sell his book.”
Navarro has also come under scrutiny in recent months over his defiance of subpoenas issued by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
A federal grand jury indicted Navarro this summer on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress. In court following his arrest, Navarro lashed out at Congress and federal law enforcement.
Earlier that week, the former Trump trade adviser filed a civil complaint challenging the House panel’s authority, also revealing he received a grand jury subpoena as part of the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 investigation.