Donald Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner is expected to end up with an influential White House role, and pundit Mike Allen's new Axios newsletter says lawyers have figured out a way around nepotism rules that will result in a title as "senior adviser." The latest cover of New York magazine has a different title: "President In-Law." The story provides perhaps the most in-depth look so far at Ivanka Trump's 35-year-old husband, and it throws a bit of cold water on the notion that Kushner will act as a "force for moderation" on the new president's most controversial ideas. While Kushner has become one of Trump's most trusted advisers, "there’s little evidence that anyone can moderate Trump, other than Trump himself, and there is little doubt where Kushner’s ultimate loyalties lie," writes Andrew Rice. As Kushner himself has put it: "family first."
The story details what seems to have been a profound change in Kushner over the past year, as he surprised those in New York's elite circles who knew him, or thought they knew him, by embracing his father-in-law's campaign so strongly. "Some of the same Manhattan liberals who ostracized [Kushner] during the campaign were rattled afterward, and they sent him emails, trying to offer healing words of congratulations and conciliation," writes Rice. "These went right in the trash." And while Kushner is described as soft-spoken, that is true only in the most literal sense: His voice is, in fact, soft, but Kushner himself is described as aggressive and driven. In fact, he "is more like father-in-law than anyone imagines," declares the piece. Read it in full here. (More Jared Kushner stories.)