Jared Kushner appears to have had no clue about NATO’s purpose and structure as recently as 2017, an upcoming book by a pair of Daily Beast journalists claims.
According to The Guardian, which has seen an advance copy of the book, entitled ‘Sinking in the Swamp: How Trump’s Minions and Misfits Poisoned Washington’, Kushner did not appear to understand the meaning of Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which commits bloc members to consider an armed attack against one member to be an attack against all, during a background briefing with reporters in 2017 ahead of Trump's trip to a NATO summit in Brussels.
As Kushner “went deeper and deeper into discussing the intricacies of NATO and what his father-in-law’s administration meant” for it, “senior officials in the room started wondering what the hell [he] was talking about,” an excerpt from the book read.
“It was a word salad reminiscent of the president’s own rambling when it came to issues and minutiae with which he couldn’t be bothered,” the excerpt continued.
According to the book, after the briefing, Michael Anton, Trump’s former National Security Council spokesman, followed Kushner out of the briefing room and “respectfully asked” about the “muddled” presentation, asking a question about Article 5. “Oh, Article 5. What’s that again?” Kushner supposedly responded.
The new book is one of dozens of publications about Trump’s presidency to come out in recent years. It’s not clear what sources, if any, it cites. The president has previously dismissed similar ‘tell-all’ style books from his officials as lies and slander. Former National Security Advisor John Bolton, who offered to testify at the impeachment trial before it collapsed this week, plans to release his own book about his time at the Trump White House next month, with the 528-page book titled 'The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.' Bolton received the $2 million book deal just weeks after being fired by the president.
