Rachel Maddow Drops Bomb: Trump Sold U.S. Foreign Policy To Help Jared Kushner’s Business

Rachel Maddow blew the lid off another major new scandal on Thursday, reporting that it appears the Trump administration sold U.S. foreign policy to Qatar to get them to bail out Jared Kushner’s family business.

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Maddow explained that sudden shifts in U.S. policy toward Qatar paint a pretty clear picture that the administration was essentially bribing the country into helping the president’s son-in-law’s failing business.

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Maddow connected the dots:

So who says big city real estate has to be a complicated, or foreign policy for that matter? Qatar tells the Kushner family real estate company, “No we’re not going to give you hundreds of millions of dollars to bail you out of your failing skyscraper in midtown.” U.S. policy toward Qatar almost immediately turns suddenly and radically hostile against Qatar. Qatar freaks out a little bit, scrambles a little bit. Qatar decides, okay, we’ll take another look at the Kushner family real estate company’s skyscraper and they decide, actually, on second thought, maybe we really do want to invest. Open checkbooks, swivel wrist, here’s your money. …. Even if this isn’t the selling of U.S. foreign policy, even if this isn’t the blatant shakedown and extortion of a U.S. ally, shaking down a country for payments to the family of a government official under the threat of that country losing its favored status with the U.S. government … even if this duet of private money and public policy is just a coincidence and this definitely isn’t bribery and quid pro quo. Well, the problem is, it certainly looks like it is. And for the nation of Qatar, their dealings with the U.S. government and with the Kushner real estate company have certainly made them think that it is.

Trump is selling U.S. foreign policy

Maddow connected the dots from an earlier story in The New York Times, which reported, “The company controlled by the family of the White House adviser Jared Kushner is close to receiving a bailout of its troubled flagship building by a company with financial ties to the government of Qatar, according to executives briefed on the deal.”

As Maddow pointed out, this comes after Qatar had originally said they wouldn’t bail out Kushner’s family business. What caused the sudden change of heart from Qatar? Apparently, Trump administration policy did.

It certainly looks like there was, at least in this case, a direct link between how the Trump administration was treating Qatar and how Qatar decided to treat the business of a U.S. government official.

In any other administration at any point in U.S. history, this would be a major scandal. But under this corrupt and scandal-ridden president, it gets buried at the bottom of the pile.

Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.