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Jared Kushner

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2023-10-11

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2023-10-11

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1. “We put our energy towards finding these advancements that will improve the lives of everyone on this planet instead of figuring out ways to have these tensions between us. That for me is the most optimistic case for what's possible. And the reason why I believe it's possible is because somebody with no experience, somebody who all I really had was the faith of a leader. And I had the courage to try. And I went out there with other people and we took on some of the most hopeless impossible problems and we succeeded. And if we were able to do that, then everyone else should be able to do that as well.”

   2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “Advancement, I think, in medical and science, we're going to have cures for diseases. We have the potential in 10, 20 years from now to enter a dawn for humanity that could be incredible. We could become multiplanetary. We can explore the wonders of the world. We can find things we didn't know. So I think that if we”

   2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “Gives me the most hope is that anything's possible if there's one lesson that I took from my time in government, it's that people coming together to try to make tomorrow different than yesterday can succeed. And if the right people in the right places focus on the right ideas, I think the advancement that we can have for human history and for society can be tremendous. And I think that right now I see we're at a place in society where there's a lot of what I call squabbles between countries, which are really man versus man issues. And those are as old as time, right? You know, we've been fighting about borders or religion or, you know, or who wrongs somebody a hundred or a thousand years ago. And these are what I call more tribal battles. But I do think that as we advance with artificial intelligence, as energy becomes cheaper and it's more readily available, I think we're going to have massive industrialization. I think we're going to have massive.”

   2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “And one of my wishes for society is I leave government. I was living on the upper east side in a very liberal echo chamber. I then traveled the country. I met so many people who I never would have met otherwise on the conservative side, on the independent side, on so many different issues. I think that people benefit if you have such a strong point of view. I would follow the John Stewart Mill marketplace of ideas and find people who disagree with you and don't call them names, don't say they're a bad person, say, I want to understand why you feel the way you do. Let's have conversations in this country. And I think that that's probably going to be our best way to work through the issues that we have currently.”

   2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “Region and instructive how they would use the resource and the power that the US had to solve the problems that were having significant impact on their lives.”

   2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “And he said, Well, the US usually sends one of three different kinds of people to come see me. He says, the first are people who come and they fall asleep in meetings. He said, the second are people who come, and they basically read me notes but have no ability to interact on the message they're there to convey. And then the third have been people who have come to convince me to do things that aren't in my interests. He says, you're the first person who's ever come here and has just asked questions. He says, why have you done that? I said, because I figure, you know, this problem's been going on for a long time. You live here. I'll be gone at some point. You're going to have to live with the consequences of whatever my work is. And the U.S. has a lot of power. And my question is, what would you do if you were me? And how would you approach this and help me think about it? And again, I wasn't going to then take his plan and then execute it, but I thought it'd be very provocative to understand from the people in the...”

   2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “First stage, and then the second stage was just constant iteration and readjusting plan as you continue to get more learning. And one story I tell in the book as well is that on my first trip to the Middle East where I met with Muhammad bin Zayed, who I spoke about earlier, the ruler of UAE, I spent two hours with him asking him questions and really going through the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the Israeli Arab issue. And he said to me at the end of the meeting, he says, Jared, I think you're going to make peace here in the Middle East. And I have a shock because, I mean, first of all, he was, you know, at the time, I think one of the most respected leaders in the region, somebody who I found to be very wise and super thoughtful and experienced. And I said to him, why do you say that? I was flattered, obviously, but not certain why he was saying that, based on the fact that I didn't know what my plan was. I didn't know what I was going to do. And I had no pathway to make peace.”

   2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “Really started with just talking to people. I would try to reach out to people who had been involved in different things and ask them what they did, what they thought of the problem, who they thought was smart on it, what they read that helped them get a better understanding, why they think something had failed. And then I would just read voraciously on every topic. Washington, it was harder to get advice from humans because I found humans had this weird tendency to talk to the media. And so I talked to somebody and I'd ask advice. And then the next thing I know is the Washington Post would call and say, Jared's an idiot doesn't know what he's doing. And he's even going to this person to get advice. I'm like, yeah, I'm asking everyone. So books really became an amazing guide for me. Ivanka, she's an incredible researcher. She's just voracious. And so she gave me some of my best books and some incredible advice as well. But that was really the process. And then I think that was kind of.”

   2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “Something, you just have to go at it. And I think the most important thing I'll say, sorry, I'm kind of thinking my way into this answer is just do the right thing. I think that's also right. And I saw that in my career, be good to people, be honest, do the right thing. And if you do that, I think long term, it does pay off. Maybe not in politics, but in the world at large it does. And my hope is in politics. It will as well.”

   2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “Do it the best you can. One of the lessons I write about in the book from my father was I remember I was going for a job interview and he asked me, he says, well, what time are you leaving to the job interview? Is that nine o'clock? I said, I'll leave at 8 o'clock. He says, well, what if there's traffic? I said, Dad, I've done this drive a thousand times. Like, there's never traffic. I said, what if there's an accident? I said, I can't control that. He said, Jared, the only excuse you ever have for being late is that you didn't leave early enough. And I just think it's something where if you want to accomplish something, you know, a lot of people I hear they complain about what other people do or why it's hard or why it's impossible. And again, I say this as somebody who's been so blessed with so many things in life. But when I've had challenges or things I've wanted to achieve, I just focus and say, what can I do? And I'll read everything I can get my hands on. If I fail at one, the door closes, I'll try the window. If the window closes, I'll try the chimney. If the chimney closes, I'll try to dig a tunnel. It's just, if you want to...”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “Number one is I would say you just have to work hard at everything you do. Number two, I would say never stop learning and always try to say yes more than you should. Go out of your comfort zone. And I think just you got to work hard at everything you do.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “Just gave me more maneuverability in the sense that again, it goes back to trust and people knowing that I wasn't going to try to publicize the things they were telling me, I think it just gave me more ability to operate that way. And I also realized too, like communicating is a very important skill. Luckily in Washington, there's no shortage of amazing communicators. I think there were a lot of people who are much better at me than being communicators. So I was very happy that they were willing to do it because it wasn't something that I had a lot of experience with or necessarily I thought was very I was very good at. And so I kind of just did my job and just focused on getting things done.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “So, anyway, so that was the funny story behind that. And then actually, my brother was at some society event in New York, and he ran into Jimmy Fallon. So the two of them took a selfie together. And Josh writes me, says hanging out with my older brother in New York. I'm trying to explain to him what your voice sounds like. So it was good. So that was a funny one. But I think just being behind the scenes for me.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “Would say slightly. I mean, I was doing real estate like three months ago, you know, now I'm flying over Iraq. And the chairman says, that's Saddam Hussein's palace. And I look down. There's like a big bomb right through the middle. And then you see the area with the two swords in the hands. I'm saying to myself, like, how the hell did I get here? Like, what is happening? So meanwhile, we end up going to the front lines to be with the service, the Iraqi military, which the US military is working closely with. And I had a meeting that night with the president of Iraq. And so I wore, what do you wear to the front lines in a battle zone and also me of the president? So I put a sports jacket on. We land at the front line and they give me a bulletproof vest that says Kushner on it. I tape it. I just put it on. I go out.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “With Dumford. And we land in Iraq. And he looks like G.I. Joe. He's a great general. He's very, very well respected in the military. And we go in and we get on Blackhawk helicopter. They said, you know what, today's a nice day. Let's take the sides off. And so I get on the plane. And there's a guy, you know, military service officer who then takes a machine gun, locks it into a thing, takes the bullets, puts them into the gun, and is sitting there saying, we're ready to go. And then I'm looking out and there's like three other helicopters with guys. One was an osprey with a guy buckled in, also with a machine gun looking out. We take off and we're flying over Baghdad from the airport to the embassy. And as we're going, I'm sitting in an open air helicopter with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, guys with machine guns everywhere.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “Bye. Oh, it's been a pleasure to do this. And thank you for the opportunity to talk about these things. And so that was a really funny skit. And it's funny the thing I got made fun of the most for that was the wardrobe. And that came from after three months in the administration, we were having dinner with all the generals and they were saying, updating us on the war with ISIS and General Dumford said to me after, look, the president can't come to see how we're fighting this war. But I'd like to invite you to come with me to Iraq and come see. And would you come with me? I said, no, that's great. I always learned in business. You can't make decisions from just an ivory tower. You have to go to the front lines and see what's actually happening. So I said, no problem. I'd love to go. Meanwhile, two days before I'm about to go, the doc from the White House stops by my office and says, we need to get your blood types. What do you mean my blood type is? You're going to an active war zone. I'm like, okay, so I guess I'll go to a war zone. I didn't really think this thing fully through. So I get on the plane.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “Panels and to make these electric vehicles China's bought up most of them and a lot of the refining capacities in China. So thinking through strategically how do we create an even playing field so that we're not at the mercy of them and how you can have a rules-based world order, that was really kind of the thought of what we were trying to work towards.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “Level playing field with set rules, then America should be able to outperform. And so that's really what we were trying to do. We were trying to kind of get rid of some of their state subsidies, get rid of, make them follow some of these international rules of trade, and not allowing them to do predatory investments that then undercut different industries that we had so that they can have global market dominance or monopolies on different industries and then have pricing power, but also geopolitical power. So like one of the examples that people talk about now is China for the last 20 years was very advanced on seeing this electrification trend. They went, they subsidized solar panels. A lot of the American solar panel players were put out of business. So now I think it's like 90 plus percent of solar panels in the world are manufactured in China. Then all the rare earths that you need in order to make these solar”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “What's going to happen here? And I do think that Trump's perspective, and this is my interpretation, because everything was always tactical day-to-day. And he was unpredictable to the Chinese, which they couldn't deal with, and he was unpredictable even to his team sometimes because he was playing it day by day and issue by issue and always changing and adjusting, which is how an entrepreneur thinks. He respected the job they did by building their country. They moved 300 million people out of poverty into the middle class. They did it at the expense of a lot of other countries throughout the world, especially America. But Trump says, look, stupid politicians made deals. I respect China for doing what they did. But what I want to do is I want to change the paradigm so that for the next 20 years, we can maintain our advantage over them. We can maintain our competitive dynamic. And, you know, his general view was that America is the best private sector in the world. We have a lot of the best mines in the world. And if we can just have a”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “Term plan that they were doing. And by raising awareness, by putting the tariffs, Trump slowed them down a lot. The real question is if they actually did achieve this full objective of becoming the world dominant country, what they would have done with it, whether they would have been nefarious or not, I think from my perspective, even with some of the divisions and issues we have now in America, I still would rather an American-led world order than a Chinese-led world order. But the notion was that they were playing a very zero-sum game and really going to be the dominant leader in this new world order. So that really framed the perspective. And it wasn't necessarily, you know, people ask me, and the Chinese were always fearing, is Trump trying to stop our rise, right? And you have a great book also by Graham.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “Borrowing the US know how from our university systems, from our medical, from our science, from our research, and the whole notion that was the conventional thinking of American leaders was that the more we help China advance, the more they would become a free market economy. And it was a great market. The only difference was that they weren't allowing us access. They were making our companies basically give them all of their technical knowledge. They were stealing our intellectual property. They were doing espionage to steal a lot of the patents. They were just ignoring our patents. And they weren't following any of the rules of international trade. Then they started becoming the world's manufacturing hub. They basically became the world's factory. And then they started this whole initiative called the Belt and Road Initiative in order to start locking in their lines of traits. They were buying up all the ports everywhere. They were building railways, thinking, how do we lock in our distribution so that we can maintain the dominance as the world's global factory. And so it was a brilliant long.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “The Industrial Revolution, and basically, no, we're fine. We're the great Chinese Empire. We don't need any of these things. We're better than that. And by rejecting that, the rest of the world got stronger. China remained weaker. Then you had the opium wars, the Chinese had big opium problems through all the trade back and forth. And then China from about 1840 to the 1940 had 100 years where they really, after all these treaties, were really a second class country. And so then you have the People's Revolution that comes in. And he talks about how China very strategically has a very, very poor country would fight their way back and build brick by brick. And, you know, he proffers in the book that Nixon didn't go to China and open China. It was China that actually went to Nixon and was able to use Nixon in order to open up. And then they talk about how under Carter they were able to get the US to contribute to a lot of their, they were able to kind of start.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “So it's a very, very big book, and I think it's a book definitely worth reading. Michael is tremendous. He speaks fluent Mandarin, and so he spent a lot of time researching to do the book. So I highly recommend it to everyone. And it was considered more of a fringe perspective in 2016, but it really, I think, came to represent the underpinning of what the collective thought was of the Trump administration. And maybe you could argue that it was even more cynical. The whole thesis of the book was that China from 1949 to 2049 was working to reclaim their position as the global leader, right? So you had the Chinese Empire. One of the things, I don't know if it's from this book or a different book that I read that spoke about how in the late 1700s, basically the Emperor of China was offered some of the industrial capability from England, which was basically now becoming an industrial.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “Understood the threat of China and then putting in place the beginning of a regime to try and rebalance the world so that we could have more economic parity”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “Have been difficult. And what Trump did was instead of backing down, he took some of the revenue from the tariffs, gave it to the farmers, and said, I know that this is going to hurt your business, but I'm going to make sure you guys are made whole. And then he doubled down and basically went back at the Chinese with even more tariffs. So what we watched over a year and a half was probably the biggest hand of poker that was ever played. And it was an amazing experience to be a part of it. And the role I played was really working for Secretary Manuchin and Ambassador Lighthizer as a back channel with the Chinese to make sure we can just de-escalate things and get to solutions in the best way possible. And so anyways, it was a fascinating time. But if you think about the global awareness of the bad practices that China was putting in place today versus what they were in 2016, I think one of President Trump's most successful policies was shifting the way the entire world”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “And the biggest champion of environmentalism and fighting for climate change. And what occurred was President Trump came in and basically said, like, I think China has not been following the rules-based order, took very, very drastic approaches with tariffs. Every time he would do the tariffs again, I had Manuchin, our Treasury Secretary, come to Vankma House if he does this. This is going to crash the whole economy. I mean, and by the way, he believed it. I mean, these were things that people were telling him would be very tough to do. You know, President Trump had a gentleman named Ambassador Lighthizer, Robert Leither. He was really the tip of the spear on all of our trade negotiations. He worked very well with Secretary Manuchin. And we ended up increasing tariffs to numbers that hadn't even been thought could happen. So we did the first round of tariffs. Then the Chinese came back and retaliated very surgically trying to hit us in all the areas that politically would.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “The next part about the visit, I mean, obviously, we had a lot of discussions on trade, but the part that was probably most impactful to me was President Xi basically did an hour monologue at lunch where he just went through Chinese history from his perspective. And he talked about with particular emphasis on kind of the Treaty of Unequals and then the Hundred Years of Humiliation. And then you go through from Mao all the way to today and you had China coming back and rising and you could tell that he was learned the lessons from the past and was very committed to kind of seeing China go through. So that was a different time, right? So China today is different than it was in 2017. In 2017, I remember President Xi was at Davos and he was feted by all the top business people in the world as the Donald Trump was the threat to the global world order. President Xi was the champion of free trade.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “And our daughter actually opened when Presidents G and President Trump were together with Melania and with Madame Pang is my daughter actually sang them a couple of Chinese songs. And I thought that was a nice way to show we're tough, but we respect your culture because the Chinese have an incredible culture that goes back thousands of years. They're very proud in how.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “Very much anticipated visit, and it was incredible. So they were supposed to sit together for 15 minutes. And they sent about an hour and a half together. And during that meeting, President Trump, they said, look, let's just set some ground rules to this relationship. Let's just not talk about Taiwan. Just don't do anything. I don't want on the table. If it does, I'm going to have to do harsh things. I just don't want this to be a problem for four years. We got bigger issues. They basically just, again, you notice four years of Trump administration, no Taiwan talk whatsoever. It was a non-issue. Started talking about the trade issues. They spent a lot of time on North Korea. President Trump was trying to get the perspective from President Xi about North Korea because that was, again, considered from Obama the biggest national security issue that we faced at the time. And they just had a good feeling for each other. It also helped that my wife and I, we actually had a Chinese nanny and teacher in our house and our kids learned fluent Mandarin.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “President Xi was going to come over to the US for a visit so they could sit together. And they want to do it outside the White House. And so we agreed on Mar Lago, which I also thought was good because President Trump always felt much more comfortable when he was hosting at his properties. And he just felt at home. And so he liked having people as his guests. And he loved it. He always felt really relaxed and it was great. So that was really what we did. Then the Chinese come over.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “Was a lot that they probably could agree on, which could lead to resolutions to a lot of issues in the world. That was like my most optimistic view. My most more pragmatic view was that President Trump had very big issues on trade that he wanted to get to with China. He felt like China, their trade practices were unfair, they weren't following all the global rules of trade. He was a little bit nervous that they would be provocative with Taiwan. And I felt like the two of them getting together would be the best way to try and resolve that. So the Chinese are very proud and a lot of it is about face. And so in order to negotiate for that first call, we basically agree on what would happen in the call. So not let's just have a call say hi, nice to meet you as a question of President Trump basically agreed that he would acknowledge the One China policy, which he didn't see as a big concession because you could always unacknowledge it the next day. So, yeah, I'll acknowledge it and then we'll go and exchange.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “So during the transition, President Trump took a call from the head of Taiwan. And that sent the Chinese into a real tailspin. And he didn't do it, I think, to be provocative to them as much as just as a businessman, he felt you answer your call. Somebody wants to speak to you, you speak to him like you, you want to have conversations, hear their point of view. But it was taken as a very big insult. And it was against tradition and norm. And so that was something that set us off in a wrong direction. My view at the time was that, you know, we are kind of entering a G2 world, whether people want to admit it or not. And that a lot of these countries in what I call the middle market countries were basically playing, this one China was being aggressive with their one belt, one road. They were basically playing US and China against each other. And I thought that by the two leaders coming together, there were some things they wouldn't agree on.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “And understanding the DNA of countries. It was one of the most phenomenal books. And I just found it on Amazon randomly. But I loved every minute of it. The chapter on America is also incredible. Going through the evolution of, you know, how we became the country we are, the different acquisitions, the different changes, why we have all these geographic advantages. And it's an unbelievable book for anyone who's interested in geopolitics.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “Think you have to think through what's a paradigm that he can accept? And I do think that he'll give the justification for why he's done what he's done. And then I think the framework for a solution is about how do we move both parties forward. Tough job. I hope you get the opportunity to do it because I think it's a conversation that will only help the world hopefully find a pathway forward.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

35. “For Vladimir Putin, his biggest concern is how do we create a security paradigm in the west of his country that won't be a creep? And I think that there's like two different parts of the mindset. You know, the people who are most cynical of Putin will say, well, he's just trying to recreate the USSR. He's being expansionist. And the people want to be sympathetic to him will say, well, if you think about it, the Russian perception of the NATO arrangement was that they wouldn't be expanding westward over the last years. They've included all these countries that they said they promised they wouldn't include, who knows what the promises were or weren't. But what I do know from his perspective is allowing Ukraine into NATO was always a red line. And that's why we never offered it. We never provoked it. We never brought it up. We said we're going to arm them. And we basically said, just calm down. We don't want any conflicts there. We have bigger issues and bigger opportunities to work for them.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

36. “What I would say is that for Zelensky and Putin, any conversation with both of them is about understanding their perspective. I think with Putin, he's a student of history from the things that I saw with him. If you look at Russia over the last 500 years, I think they were attacked by the Polish in early 1600. I think they were attacked by the Swedes in the 1700s. I think they were attacked by Napoleon in the 1800s. And then in the 1900s, they were attacked by Germany twice. And so from his perspective, there is, you know, in the early days of Russia, they were attacked by the Mongols. They were very vulnerable. And a lot of the geography of Russia today is really designed for defensive purposes that they have natural barriers that makes them easier to defend. And Russia is a massive landmass. It's twice the size of America. They have 11 time zones in the country. And so I do think that for...”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

37. “And we set up a call between King Salman, Vladimir Putin, and President Trump to announce the deal. I'm like, oh, this is great. So President Trump gets honest. Congratulations. We have a deal. And then King Smith says, we don't have a deal. Mexico hasn't agreed to their cuts. He's saying, what do you mean? And so they were part of the OPEC Plus. And so I get a note saying, you got to go call Mexico. So I'm calling Mexico. They're saying, we're not doing any cuts. So why? We're hedged to $55. I said, why do you tell us that in the beginning? So I'm telling the Saudis, so we were working through this whole thing. So meanwhile, we were trying to find the compromise with Mexico. I set up a call with Trump and Putin. They can kind of talk this through. And he was always trying to play the game of how do we get Russia away from China.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

38. “Calls from a lot of the oil industry executives here in America saying, you don't understand, we can't just like flip a switch and turn off our oil wells. Like we're running out of storage here. And I said, look, President Trump likes low oil prices, so he's not upset about what's happening. You have to call him. And if he gives me permission or the instruction, then I can try to intervene. But right now, he's not inclined to intervene. After a little bit, he said, you know, it's time get involved, go do it. It was right over Passover. This was during COVID. I spent three days nonstop on the phone with Karel Dimitriv from Russia and with MBS directly. And I was dealing with Dan Burlett, who was our energy minister, you know, going back and forth. And it was like, it was crazy. I mean, it was just one of the craziest negotiations. We ended up agreeing on the largest oil cut in the history of the world. But the story you went to before, which was pretty funny, was finally make the deal.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

39. “He was our great enemy in World War II. So it goes back to the notion we discussed earlier of you shouldn't condemn tomorrow to be like yesterday if you're unhappy with yesterday. So number one is I would definitely ask him about that. The phone call that you mentioned was after we did a pretty intense negotiation to create the largest oil cut in the history of oil production. during COVID, demand just shut off like crazy and it was stopping very quickly. Saudi and Russia at that time were having a conflict. They created this thing called OPEC Plus, which goes back again history between the two countries where they had conflicts and then all of a sudden they were working together to try to stabilize the oil markets. But they couldn't agree on the cut. So Saudi actually increased production. So you had two things hitting at once where Saudi and Russia were both increasing production and demand was dropping. So you were headed for a real crisis and I was starting to get”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

40. “So I didn't deal with Russia a ton, but in my interaction with Putin and with Russia, you know, I would kind of point out a couple of things. Number one is when America was hit with COVID and New York was looking like we were going to run out of ventilators and masks, Russia was the second country that sent us a plane load of supplies. And they didn't send that because they hate America. They sent that because we were starting to make progress together as countries and they thought that they wanted to show goodwill to figure out how can we start working together. And again, people may attack me for saying that that sounds naive. Again, the past, you know, 15 years may show that that's not the case, but I don't believe that countries have permanent enemies, and I don't believe countries have permanent allies. Again, you think about the US and Russia and World War II. We work together to defeat the Nazis, right? And now we're great allies with Germany, who basically was our great enemy in World War II. We're great allies with Japan.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

41. “Be very hard for them to get the trust of Russia based on the way that they've played their moves to date. I always thought from the beginning that Putin would try to bring in President Xi in China to resolve it, to basically give a big screw you to America to say, you know, China is now the one in charge of this, but that hasn't seemed to manifest itself to date either, but it takes leadership. The leaders have to get it and say, you know, let's get everyone together and let's try to get this done because every day it goes on. A, more people are dying. And B, you know, we do risk nuclear war for the world, which is not a good situation.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

42. “It has to be somebody who's willing to put themselves on the line. Go and do it. And, you know, again, if you're the U.S. president and you're the most powerful nation in the world, you should be trying. I do think, again, the posture that the US has taken is probably been in a place where they...”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

43. “Just a lot of tough stuff now that's occurred that's going to be hard to walk back. And it's a big task to get it done. But for the sake of the world, it'd be amazing if we were able to reach a conclusion to that conflict.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

44. “What's happening, that's really what it will take, how that occurs. Again, it's not something I'm involved in now, so I don't know who the right broker is or how to put that together. But essentially they need somebody in between them who can figure out how do you create a landing zone that works because neither party's going to jump until the pool is filled with water. And you have to outline what the go forward looks like because you can't just stop it for then to get worse for both parties. You have to move it forward into what happens next, that hopefully can start to turn the tide to benefit both sides where they can focus on the future instead of being stuck into the old paradigm of who started what, who's to blame for what, who did what to who.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

45. “I think we go back to negotiations. Number one is trust, right? Both leaders have to have the ability to communicate what Off ramp is without fearing it's going to leak to the public. So if you go to the posture of Zelensky right now, and by the way, President Zelensky, I have a lot of respect for the courage he showed, especially initially. You saw what Ghani did in Afghanistan. They were getting attacked by the Taliban. He took the cash and got the hell out of there. Staying in Kiev when he did, how he did, it was one of the most brave things we've seen in a long time. And he has a ton of my respect and admiration for doing that. But now he's promising his people we're going to win the war. And the military action has not necessarily coincided with that sentiment. And so there has to be some form of off-ramp. But he can't say that publicly. So for him to be able to work privately with somebody who can help create a new paradigm where both leaders can say, we're going to stop the bloodshed, we're going to stop the risk of nuclear war for the world. We're going to stop.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

46. “Still, no excuse to do what they did. I think that the invasion was a terrible thing and should not have occurred. But with that being said, I think 100% if Trump was president, there would not be a war in Ukraine today.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

47. “I think 100% it would have been avoided, not 99%. President Trump for four years had no problems with Russia. We were arming Ukraine, but we were working with Russia. And again, the first two years, we had a little bit of issue working with Russia because they were accused of colluding with us and so we had to go through that investigation. But in the second two years, we were trying to focus Russia on what are the areas where we couldn't collaborate together. I think Russia, you know, we thought it was in their strategic advantage to play U.S. and China against each other because of the way that everything was done before. They were stuck with China, but not getting a lot for it under Bush. They took Georgia, under Obama. They took Crimea under Trump. There was no problems. And then under Biden, unfortunately, I think they misplayed a couple of things, which I think provoked Russia to go forward.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

48. “Everyone was outraged all the time with everything. But if you look at his body of work, people said if he was elected, he would start World War III. Meanwhile, we inherited a world filled with wars, no new wars, right? Three years, he made peace deals, no new wars. He was tough, he was strong. People respected him. He built relationships and got trade deals done, got peace deals done. The economy was rocking. His body work, I think, was pretty strong as president.”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

49. “A 232 national security exemption to protect our steel industry, and we put tariffs on steel and aluminum. And again, I thought about this because we also negotiated them with Canada. And there was a very funny phone call where Trudeau is calling Trump. And again, they got along decently well. And Trudeau's calling saying, you can't put national security tariffs on us in Canada. We're your NATO ally. We fall wars with you. We do military together. And Trump says to him, Didn't you burn the White House down in 1812? And Trista says, that was the French. He says, no, it was the Canadians. And so it was just, you know, like I said, he's always keeping everyone on their toes. But he took very calculated risks. And like I said,”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

50. “So in all the agreements that I was negotiating, I wasn't doing it as a principle. I was doing it on behalf of President Trump. And people knew that I had access to President Trump and they knew that I could say, you may say this that we don't like, but I'm going to have to take it back to him and then we'll see what he does. And one of the biggest instances was on the USMCA trade deal where that deal happened because Mexico was legitimately concerned and smartly so that President Trump was going to impose tariffs on the car industry, which would have been decimating to their economy. And by the way, he was ready to do it. We were holding him back from doing it with every ounce of strength that we could. So it wasn't a bluff. I mean, that was actually real, but they were smart to read that it was real. And ultimately, we created a great win-win deal. I'll tell you a funny story just popped into my mind from the tariffs is we did also, we used...”

    2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source