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TRANSCRIPT
Jane Coaston: It’s Tuesday, April 28th, I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show saluting an Alabama woman found not guilty of all misdemeanor charges after she was arrested at an October No Kings protest while wearing an inflatable penis costume and holding a sign reading No dick tater. She had been charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, as well as giving a false name to law enforcement because she told police her name was quote, Aunt Tifa. Give it a second, you’ll get it. [music break] On today’s show, the man accused of attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump is charged, and King Charles visits Washington, D.C. The closest Trump will ever get to royalty, except for the Saudis. But let’s start with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and maybe special envoy for peace. Kushner was supposed to be heading to Islamabad with Special Envoy Steve Witkoff this week to negotiate an end to the Iran War, but as we mentioned on the show yesterday, those plans were canceled. So instead, Iran’s foreign minister was in Moscow Monday to discuss the war with Russian president Vladimir Putin, and the US was reviewing a proposal from Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But hang on a second, why is Ivanka Trump’s husband part of these talks? I’m guessing you may not know much about Jared Kushner. He’s never run for office, but he served as a senior White House advisor in Trump’s first term. Then in 2021 Kushner left politics behind. Forming an investment firm and raising a lot of money in the Middle East, and he seemed happy with that. In February 2024, he said he wasn’t planning to get involved in politics again, no matter what happened with his father-in-law’s campaign. Here he is speaking at Axios BFD Miami to Dan Premack.
[clip of Jared Kushner] Both my wife and myself are working in the White House, which is a 24/7 high-stakes job. And so we’ve both um uh really enjoyed the opportunity to be down here in Florida with the kids. And so right now that’s really where where my commitment is, is to my investors, to my firm, to employees, to my partners, and that’s what I’m planning to do.
[clip of Dan Premack] So is that a no? If he calls you on November or whatever and says, I’d like you to come back to DC, you say, thanks, but I’m good?
[clip of Jared Kushner] Yes.
Jane Coaston: And yet, here we are, April 2026, and Kushner is busy trying to end Trump’s war in Iran. But the White House told the Atlantic that Kushner is just acting as a, quote, “private citizen.” So I don’t know what to tell you. At the same time, Kushner has also been soliciting funds from governments in the Middle East for his investment firm, which sure sounds like a conflict of interest to me. So again, why the hell is this guy negotiating an end to the Iran war? For more, I spoke to Judd Legum. He’s the author of Popular Information, an independent newsletter dedicated to accountability journalism. Judd, welcome to What a Day.
Judd Legum: Thanks for having me.
Jane Coaston: At the same time that Kushner has been acting as the so-called special envoy for peace, I’m using air quotes for people listening, or a private citizen, again, air quotes, he’s been running his investment firm, Affinity Partners, which does a lot of business in the Middle East. Can you tell me about Affinity Partners? Like when did it start? Where did it come from? And what did it look like in between administrations? And what does it look now?
Judd Legum: Affinity Partners was started almost immediately after Kushner left the White House in 2021 at the end of Trump’s first term. He raised money, over 99% of it, from foreign governments, from their sovereign wealth funds. The big bulk of that money, $2 billion, came from the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund, known as PIF. Um. And he has then been using that money to get involved in various investments, real estate deals, um and he makes tens of millions of dollars, cumulatively hundreds of millions of dollars just in fees for managing this money because he’s got about $5 to $6 billion under management at this point.
Jane Coaston: Do we know if he was doing anything similar, attempting to profit from the Trump administration or from his positions when he was, for instance, negotiating the Solomon Accords during the first Trump administration?
Judd Legum: I think now looking back, you can see that he has leveraged the connections that he made during that first term to start Affinity Partners. I mean, one of the things that he did after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, he befriended uh you know the Saudi Arabian government and ensured that this didn’t have severe consequences for the country. Maybe it wasn’t so hard to convince President Trump of that, but he’s definitely used that to cement those relationships, then went in and cashed in in the second term. So that’s the way that I kind of think about it is that he wasn’t he didn’t have this infrastructure in place to literally collect money, but he was establishing the relationships that allowed him to collect it pretty much immediately after the first administration uh ended.
Jane Coaston: Khashoggi was the journalist and Washington Post contributor who was, as far as we know, murdered by Saudi Arabia.
Judd Legum: Yep, that’s been the conclusion of the entire US intelligence apparatus. And Kushner still to this day, occasionally is asked about it because he has such a close relationship with the Saudis and always dismisses it says, are we still even talking about this? Um. And I think that among other things is something that um the Saudi government has come to appreciate and is why they’ve invested so much money. When Saudi Arabia was initially pitched by Jared Kushner for the two billion dollars The committee that they have set up to evaluate investment said this is a bad idea He has no experience, the fees are excessive. The risk is too high and it was only when the leaders went in and overruled that committee that he got this money.
Jane Coaston: At any point did he say he’d step back from that business, from managing all that money when his father-in-law became president again?
Judd Legum: No, it was kind of the opposite. What he said was he’s taking a step back from the White House, that he’s not going to get involved in foreign policy issues, because obviously it’s a massive conflict to be involved in foreign-policy issues while you are effectively on the payroll of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, various other countries managing their money. So that’s what he said he would do. He also said that he wasn’t going to raise any additional, even though he wasn t going to be involved in the White House at all, that he wasn’t going to raised any additional funds because that would be a conflict. That’s another thing that he is now actively doing. As he is involved in the Iran negotiations, he is also simultaneously re-soliciting Saudi Arabia and all of these foreign governments for more money because he is in another fundraise.
Jane Coaston: I know that this seems like kind of an obvious question, but can we just talk about those conflicts of interest? I mean, you mentioned like, yes, he’s making these negotiations, but can go through them? Like, for example, let’s start with New Gaza. That’s a big one. What is his involvement with New Gaza and the Board of Peace, and what are the conflicts there?
Judd Legum: Well, he is on the board of peace. It’s a formal position that he’s been given there, unlike this negotiating position. They have this whole plan to redevelop Gaza, turn into some kind of luxury resort. And the conflict is that’s exactly the business that he is in. He’s in that area of the world, going in and financing these redevelopment projects. And so he is in the position to profit all those he’s from those. He’s also um heavily invested in an Israeli insurance company, uh which would also presumably be involved in insuring a redeveloped Gaza as well. So there’s just a host of conflicts, and it’s just conveniently set up. The whole plan is really geared not around sort of a peace plan or something that would meet the needs of the people who used to be living there, but it does seem to be very specifically geared towards benefiting someone who has a lot of money to invest in expensive real estate projects. So we can sort of see this playing out um to his benefit.
Jane Coaston: You wrote a piece about how Kushner’s corruption seems to be flying under the radar. A ton of publications haven’t even mentioned it. And they treat Kushner doing these negotiations as kind of just a normal event when it’s not. But why do you think this is so important for people to understand and be aware of?
Judd Legum: I think we’re trying to we’re all struggling to figure out what’s going on, for example, in Iran. Why are we there, and more specifically, why can’t there be an end to this war? President Trump seems to want to end it. And one of the things that people need to understand when we’re trying to wrap our heads around this question is that one of the two chief negotiators, Jared Kushner, is very deeply financially enmeshed with Saudi Arabia. A country which, according to multiple reports, one, encouraged Trump to start the war, said that he should go in and initiate the attack, and secondly, has been encouraging him not to end the war until regime change is achieved. So, you have someone who’s supposed to be representing presumably American interests sitting at the table, speaking to the Pakistanis who are then communicating that message to the Iranians and back and forth, but he has a whole another set of interests that we know in many cases don’t appear to be aligned with the interests of the United States.
Jane Coaston: Do we know how much money Jared Kushner has made while also representing the U.S. Government?
Judd Legum: He gets about a 1.25% fee on the money under management. This is multiple billions of dollars that he’s now been managing for since 2021. Uh. And then obviously that number increases every year. So this is not trivial amounts of money. And it’s definitely something where if you go back in history and look at the negotiators for every major U.S. conflict, there’s never been anything like this. You’ve never had someone really with any kind of income from a foreign government, much less tens and hundreds of millions of dollars.
Jane Coaston: Right. This kind of mixing of government business and personal business is pretty unprecedented. If Kushner has no official role in the government, and I’ve been struck by how the Trump administration keeps describing him as like a helpful private citizen, but he is representing the US government, is there any way to hold him accountable for this alleged corruption?
Judd Legum: Well, I think that’s the big issue, right? Is if he were considered even a temporary government employee, which Elon Musk was considered, and interestingly enough, Steve Witkoff, his co-negotiator, that’s his position too. He is considered a government employee. Then there would be all sorts of um requirements requiring him to disclose his financial interests. And you know all the conflict of interest laws that don’t necessarily apply to the president but do apply to people working for the president would kick in. I think that the issue is it’s unclear who has the standing to bring that kind of challenge, there have certainly been groups like crew and others who have been saying hey you’re an official government employee now pointing to his position in the board of peace. You need to now file your financial disclosure form. You need to comply with all of these rules about conflict of interest. And the response has basically just been to ignore it. So that’s that’s the situation we’re we’re in now.
Jane Coaston: Judd, thank you so much for joining me.
Judd Legum: Thanks so much for having me.
Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Judd Legum, author of Popular Information on Substack. We’ll link to his piece in the show notes. I am not going to end the Iran War, but I also didn’t start the Iran war. If you’re okay with that, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]
[AD BREAK]
Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today.
[sung] Headlines.
Jane Coaston: Joining me is Crooked’s Washington correspondent Matt Berg to talk about the big stories. Hey Matt!
Matt Berg: Hello Jane.
Jane Coaston: So after Saturday’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, it feels like to me everyone I know is asking the same question. How did someone with a gun get so close to the president again? Now, Matt, unfortunately, Kash Patel is director of the FBI, and he offered absolutely no answers on Fox News Monday, but he did give a lot of, um, how best to put this, self-aggrandizement.
[clip of Kash Patel] First and foremost, I want to remind your audience of President Trump’s leadership, literally courage under fire that evening at the press conference to announce the world and be as transparent as possible. He’s assembled the greatest law enforcement team um that I’ve ever seen. This was a matter that needs to be heavily scrutinized because it almost took the lives of dozens, if not hundreds of people and but for the quick reaction of our law enforcement and we’re going to be able to present to the world in less than 36 hours almost exactly what happened, this individual’s entire background, entire background who he knew, where he lived, who he was talking to, everything about the firearms, everything about the ballistics. I mean just remind everyone this was almost the entirety of the president’s cabinet, the president and vice president himself, and 2,000 members of the media. This is something the movies don’t even write about. We’re going to be talking about how we improve the security, not just for this event, but for all events going forward. We’re gonna learn from this one.
Jane Coaston: I think I’ve seen a couple of movies about this very subject. Like, I think that this has this has been covered in movies. Kash Patel, maybe watch more movies.
Matt Berg: Yeah. So Jane, there’s a lot of talk right now about what to do going forward and how to improve security. And very conveniently, one of the solutions that Trump and his allies are pitching is building the giant ballroom. The Trump administration and Republican lawmakers have latched on this idea that building the $400 million addition to the White House with bulletproof glass is the best way to keep him safe.
Jane Coaston: Which doesn’t make any sense because the White House Correspondents Dinner is not a White House event and would not take place in the ballroom, but I digress. In other news, the man who was accused of opening fire at the dinner was charged Monday with attempting to assassinate the president. He has been remanded into custody and another hearing will take place May 11th. Matt, with the ballroom stuff, with the kind of blame game being played that I know that you’ve seen. It feels like this is another one of those incidents that’s going to just become partisan chum.
Matt Berg: Yeah, that’s putting it lightly. I think that the partisan chum is already upon us, to say the least. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday blamed Democrats for calling Trump a fascist. Democrats say they’re just criticizing his policies and not necessarily him as a person, but you know that’s not how Republicans are twisting this. They think that Democrats are coming at him personally, and Trump you know has made a lot of very direct threats against Democrats and in the past–
Jane Coaston: Yeah, like, we know this. Speaking of partisan chum, the Florida legislature will meet today to consider new voting maps proposed by Governor Ron DeSantis on Monday. And Matt, because subtext is dead. The map DeSantis released color codes districts by political party. The Florida constitution says you can’t draw maps by party, but like, the Florida GOP does not care. And here’s DeSantis last weekend, focusing on his real enemy, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
[clip of Ron DeSantis] You know we got this guy, Hakeem Jeffries. Have you guys heard of him? I don’t know that he’d do very well in Chipley if he ran for office, but he’s threatening Florida, oh you can’t do, you do the redistrict, we’re going to come down, we are going to get you guys, all this stuff. Go ahead, make my day. Bring it on, sure.
Matt Berg: Jeffries gets a lot of hate from Democrats for not doing enough on some issues, but on this issue he has been bringing it on. Democrats have been fighting back ever since Trump and Texas launched this redistricting war last year, and they’ve been super successful in many states and could even flip more seats because of redistricting than Republicans.
Jane Coaston: Sometimes, Matt, I think about how there was a lot of speculation in 2023 that DeSantis wears lifts in his shoes. No reason. Just–
Matt Berg: No reason at all.
Jane Coaston: Thinking about it. Anyway, this comes after Virginians approved new voting maps last week, maps that could be at risk as the Virginia Supreme Court held a hearing Monday to determine whether or not the legislature complied with the law when it sent the maps to voters.
Matt Berg: Right, the court didn’t issue a ruling, but if justices agree that the law was broken, that could essentially nullify last week’s vote. And you know speaking of democracy, King Charles and Queen Camilla touched down in DC on Monday to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, but that’s not all this trip is really about. The Wall Street Journal described it as, quote, “a diplomatic Hail Mary,” intended to you know lighten the mood between the U.S. and Britain. Things have been tense for, uh you know, some reasons, which all include Trump and to convince Trump that, you know it’s good to have allies around the world and the mood is definitely being lightened. The first day of the trip involved having tea at the White House. I didn’t know that Trump drank tea, but I guess he does. Um. And they also were taken on a beehive tour with Trump and Melania who recently installed a third beehive on the White House grounds.
Jane Coaston: Speaking of things I also didn’t know, I did not know they had bees. I hope Trump wears the beekeeper costume and has the little steamer thing. I just wanna see that.
Matt Berg: Maybe he’ll hold a cup of tea with his beehive costume. That’s that’ll be an image.
Jane Coaston: I I long to see it. Charles is scheduled to address Congress today. It will be the first address to Congress from a sitting British monarch since Queen Elizabeth II did so in 1991. Um. But Matt, like, I know that the strategy of all of these dignitaries is to come to the US and be super, super, super nice to Trump. I don’t think that’s going to work given that Trump gets mad about things so easily and so quickly. Like he will drink some tea and he’ll look at some bees and then he’s going to post something in three days about how we should, I don’t know, go to war with the Falkland islands against the United Kingdom. I don’t know.
Matt Berg: Yeah, I think that one thing we’ve learned is that we have absolutely no idea what’s even gonna happen tomorrow. I have no clue how Trump is ever going to react to anything nowadays, and so I have just given up on guessing forever.
Jane Coaston: I think that’s a really good strategy. As always, thank you so much, Matt.
Matt Berg: Thanks for having me.
Jane Coaston: And that’s the news. [music break]
[AD BREAK]
Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, contemplate a very confusing crime, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how a former University of Alabama football player pleaded guilty Monday for defrauding investors by pretending to be various NFL players they thought they were doing business with, like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston, and reportedly, the man used wigs, makeup and other disguises to portray several NFL players on video calls. Video call quality really is a problem. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. Our show is produced by Caitlin Plummer, Emily Fohr, Erica Morrison, and Adriene Hill. Our team includes Hayley Jones, Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Joseph Dutra, Johanna Case, and Desmond Taylor. Our music is by Kyle Murdock and Jordan Cantor. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]
