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Jared Kushner is a man with a delusional sense of confidence. We say this based on the fact that, in addition to thinking he’ll solve the opioid crisis and convince Nancy Pelosi to build the Wall, the first son-in-law believes he is going to be the guy to bring peace to the Middle East. Yes him, the Boy Prince of New Jersey whose prior professional experience entailed working as a not-very-good newspaper publisher and what a top Palestinian negotiator called a “glorified real-estate agent.” Yes him, the guy who couldn’t get top-secret security clearance without his wife’s father demanding it. Yes him, the guy whose briefings are reportedly “often woefully short on detail,” who “presents his political inexperience as an asset,” and who, when speaking publicly about his big proposal, says things like, “There’s a difference between the technocrats and…the people. The technocrats are focused on very technocratic things.”

Still, for all his overconfidence, you might have thought Kushner would’ve at least understood that consulting people with actual knowledge and years of experience would be wise, and that looping the State Department in on his escapades would be good idea. But apparently, not so much!

According to newly disclosed testimony that former secretary of state Rex Tillerson gave the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Kushner apparently believed he had all the foreign policy know-how he needed, and could dispense with protocol that said he should bring the department in charge of the country’s foreign policy up to speed:

On several occasions, Tillerson said he was blindsided by Kushner’s discussions with world leaders. In one instance, Tillerson said he learned that Kushner was meeting with Mexico’s foreign secretary because he happened to be in the same Washington restaurant while the two men hashed out a “fairly comprehensive plan of action” that Tillerson didn’t know about.

“The owner of the restaurant…came around and said: “Oh, Mr. Secretary, you might be interested to know the Foreign Secretary of Mexico is seated at a table near the back in case you want to go by and say hello to him,” Tillerson said. “And so I did.” Tillerson said he saw the “color go out of the face” of the foreign secretary as he walked into the room. “I said: Welcome to Washington…. Give me a call next time you’re coming to town.”

In another instance, Tillerson explained in detail being stunned by the 2017 Persian Gulf crisis in which key Arab allies severed ties with Qatar, another key U.S. ally. He said he was in Australia at the time with then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, and both were caught off guard. “I was surprised,” Tillerson said. He also said he was not aware of meetings that had been occurring between Arab leaders and Kushner, including a private huddle on May 20, 2017, between Kushner, Trump’s then-senior adviser Stephen K. Bannon and the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

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