YouSaid · the spoken record

Jared Kushner

lines on the record: 249
first: 2023-10-11
most recent: 2023-10-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And we basically all came together. And then once we had a good project management plan, we were able to kind of move very, very quickly. I think we built about 470 miles of border barrier in about two years, basically. And that was very well because we basically brought private sector project management skill sets, which were quite often missing in government. The second one is just, you know, we spoke about negotiation earlier. I would say that most people in government, it's just a different form of negotiation than you see in the private sector and way less effective in that regard, which is why I think it's good, the more we can encourage more people with private sector experience to do a stint in government and to really try to contribute and serve their country. That's how our founders. I mean, George Washington and all the founding fathers, they were working on their farms. They left their farms, serve in government, then they went back to the farm. And that was kind of the design of the representative government.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was just the only way to be. I mean, if I was giving up a nice life in New York and if I was giving up the stuff that I really enjoyed, the company that I'd help build and the life that I was enjoying in order to do government, I was going there to make a difference. We had to focus on it. The other skill set, so there was a couple skill sets that I found were quite deficient in government. First of all, there was a ton of amazing people. I mean, people talk about the bureaucracy. What I found was you had incredibly committed, passionate, intelligent, capable people all throughout the government. And what they were waiting for, though, was direction and then cover in order to get there. And so there were a lot of tasks that I worked on, whether it was building the wall at the southern border, where I was able to work with customs border patrol, Army Corps of Engineers, military DHS professionals,”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Words without actions or without the threat of actions, and that was something that President Trump did very well, was that people knew that he was willing to take action, he was very unpredictable in how he would act. And that made our words much more effective in what they did. So it's all a combination. But, you know, coming from the private sector, we were all about results, right? If you're in government, you can work on something for 10 years and fail and then retire and they consider you an expert in the private sector. If you work on something for 10 weeks and you don't have a success, then you're unemployed, you know. So it's a different kind of notion. And it was just understanding the mentality and trying to adjust and bridging the divides between the different trainings.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think you have to be respectful to the craft that you're in where words matter, but then realize that they don't matter as much. And then also focus on the fact that the actions are actually what's going to matter more than the words. And so you have a difference between leaders and politicians. You know, politicians are there to say the right thing and to hold the power. Leaders are people who are willing to do things that will be transformational from my perspective. And so what I would think about diplomacy.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kind of, you know, yeah, let's give it a shot. That image ended up capturing everyone's heart. So going back to Sadat, that visit was very critical. And what was interesting was, according to this book, it happened because of a miscommunication. That was the first part. The second part of the book, that's just amazing theater. And actually the book was based on a play, was just going back and forth with all of the different methodologies that they tried that failed, but they kept trying out it. And then ultimately seeing how the personalities were able to find ways to make the compromise that ultimately was a very, very big thing for more stability in the Middle East. And so amazing book. I would highly recommend it. A very entertaining read and something that at least gave me encouragement to keep going when the task I was pursuing seemed so, so large.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So we go and we do it. He says, if we can work at these issues, what will do it? So we go to Israel, we do our meetings, we get everything back into a good place. We set up this trip over. We fly on an LL plane. We fill it up. At the time, it was during COVID with a health delegation. We had the financial ministry because we had to open up banking relationships. They could wire money between countries. We want to get health partnerships. Then we just had a lot of legal things and national security things. We wanted to start putting together. So we do this flight and we end up landing in UAE. And the picture of us coming off the plane being greeted by Emiratis and Tobes with a LL plane with an Israeli flag on it just captured everyone's imagination. And so it was one of these things where it's like, you work so hard on the details in the negotiation. I mean, hundreds of hours to kind of make sure everything's perfect. And the one thing that 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
“And so after a couple weeks, I said, you know what? I've got to go over there and try to sort through these issues. So we make a plan to go to Israel, then we can go to UAE. And then a young gentleman who worked with me named Afi Berkowitz says, well, if we're flying from Israel to UAE, instead of flying on a government plane, why don't we see if we can get an El plane and we'll do the first official commercial flight? And so I said, that's a great idea. Let's call Ambassador Otaiba Youssef, who was a tremendous.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But all we had was a phone call and then a statement that was released. And what was interesting after that is we said, okay, well, how do we integrate countries? Nobody's done this in a long time. And we were trying to figure out all the issues. And there's big miscommunications between Israel and UAE. And we were navigating through all the issues.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He goes to Israel. They set this whole thing up. He goes and gives the Knesset. They go for their meeting after. And Sadat says, okay, well, are we going to do this thing? And Bagas says, what are you talking about? I'm not giving you an inch of our land. And it was just one of these things where it was a miscommunication that brought about the symbolic visit of Anwar Sadat to Israel. And that was one of these notions that just made everyone think that something was possible that they thought was impossible a moment before. And actually, we had an example like that during our time in government when we did the Abraham Accords, the first step of the Accords was really a phone call between President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and Mohammed Benzayed, who at that point was the crown prince and de facto ruler of the UAE.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Completely in every way. I mean, that's an incredible book, and it's a very entertaining read. It has obviously a lot of good historical context on some of the key players, whether it was on Morsad or Menachem Began or Jimmy Carter and Sivans and a lot of the others who were involved with those negotiations. And the thing that I kind of took from that experience was just how personal it was. And again, one of my favorite stories from that book was how Anwar Saddat, who was a big, big leader. He had a mystic who was, according to this book, again, history, I like reading it, but I always, you know, realized that you have to notice that this is just the perspective of a given author that's writing it. But the way that they write this book was that he had an advisor who was a mystic. And the mystic was having a back channel with the Israelis. And the mystic told Sadat, if you go to Israel and you make a speech at the Knesset, Bacon is ready to give you the Sinai. And so”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All human beings, and people want to be successful, and people want to be good. And you're right too, there's way more emojis involved in diplomacy than I ever would have expected.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's always very challenging, and especially when you're going against the grain of what's established, right? We did something different to think that an old business contact that I had. Could then do it. I mean, that's the type of thing that if the press knew what we were doing, they would have derided it and criticized it in every which way. But that was one of the benefits of operating very much below the radar is that we were able to try all these different things. And not all of them worked, but some of them did. But that is what's amazing about the world, right? This could be the biggest story on the front page of every paper and their inciting fear and everyone. And it's not illegitimate fear. I mean, there were missile tests over Japan. I mean, you had a lot of very big challenges with that file. And then all of a sudden, we made contact, we go through negotiations to set a meeting. There's a meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un. And then all of a sudden there's a framework to try and move things forward. And again, I think that there's a lot of possibility there for what could happen if it's worked in the right way.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Dynamic of how you work through these different areas. So the answer is it doesn't have to be that way. You just need the right courageous leader. And that's why I'm so optimistic about what the future of America and the world could be if you have the right people in power who are willing to take on the right challenges and do it in the right way.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think it has to be that way. And that's, I think, one of the great lessons from the time of the Trump administration. He brought a lot of people from the business world into government. The business people have a much different mindset than government people. And there was a lot of resistance. And I think part of why there was so much resistance was because, you know, I think about it from my personal sense was that if I was successful with no traditional qualifications to do diplomacy, it meant that all the people with traditional qualifications and diplomacy didn't necessarily need those qualifications in order to be successful. And that same sentiment manifested itself in many areas in government. And I think that in the business world, it's outcome-oriented, it's results-oriented. And what we would see in New York is there. They would stab you in the eye in DC. They would stab you in the back. And it just became a whole different.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The incentive structure is just much different than in the real world, right? In the sense that you have a hard problem than if you try to solve a hard problem, the likelihood of failure is great. Whereas in the business world, if you're going after a hard problem, we celebrate those people, right? We want our entrepreneurs and our great people to go after solving the big hard problems. But in politics, if you try to take on a hard problem, you have a high likelihood of failure. You'll get a lot of criticism on your pathway to trying to accomplish that if you fail. And then if you fail, it has a higher probability of leading to you losing your opportunity to serve. And so it's just one of these things where people want to play it safe, which is not the notion that really was taken during the time that President Trump was in office.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How intense that was at the time. And then through that interaction, he called some of his context in North Korea, and then we were able with the CIA to open up a back channel that ultimately led to the de-escalation, the meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un, which led to a de-escalation. So that was really the mindset, which was whenever there's a problem, just pick up the phone and try. And I think President Trump had a very similar approach, which was, let's give it a shot. And he wasn't afraid to go after the hard ones too. And I'll say one final thing on this, which is that in politics,”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I got a call from a friend who was an old business contact who actually had done business in North Korea. And he said, you know, I'd love to find a way to solve this. And I was getting calls from friends at the time saying, I'm trying to go to Hawaii for vacation. Should I not be going? Is it not safe? I mean, we forget the psychology.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He told President Trump that the single biggest fear that he had, and this is a time when the world was a mess, you had the Middle East was on fire, ISIS was beheading journalists and killing Christians. They had a caliphate the size of Ohio. Libya was destabilized. Yemen was destabilized. Syria was in a civil war, where 500,000 people were killed. Iran was on a clyde path to a nuclear weapon. Yet the single biggest fear he had was North Korea. Then it got compounded by the fact that we get into office and President Trump brings his generals around and he's learning how to interact with all the generals and says, okay, what are my options? And they said, come down. We've been using all of our ammunition in the Middle East. We don't have enough ammunition to go to war over there. He says, let's not let that be due public. Let's try to restock and come up with a plan. And at the time, there was a lot of banter back and forth. And, you know, I was able to.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Civilian all my life, you know, I would read the newspapers, I would observe how different leaders would act. But when we had the opportunity to serve in government and have the position, you realize you're not a civilian. You don't have the luxury of sitting back and letting the world happen the way it's happening. You have agency and you have the potential to influence the outcome of things. And one thing I've seen is most political prognosticators are wrong. Anyone who tells you what's going to happen really has no clue. And it's not because they're bad or they're not intelligent. It's because nobody knows. And at the end of the day, the outcomes in the world are usually driven by the decisions of humans. And if you're able to come together, form relationships, listen to each other, you can do that. And one of the great examples that I speak about in the book is with North Korea. Whereas if you remember in 2017, it was very intense when President Obama was leaving off.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, this was a book I read way before The Notion of Serving in Government was ever even on my mind or reality. And I remember thinking about it, reading it, and thinking how World War I started, where you had somebody was assassinated and then you had all these different alliances that were created. in order to accomplish objectives, it triggered all of these people getting in bed with everyone else because of documents that were created without the intent of going to a massive war. And I think in the course of World War I, it was one of the greatest atrocities that we've seen as humanity. We've had 16 million people killed in that war. And I was reading the book. I remember thinking to myself, even though things are set in a certain way, go sit with somebody, go talk to them and say this doesn't make sense. This is wrong. How do we create a better pathway?”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I didn't have a choice to deal with them or not. It was a function of how do you deal with them effectively in order to find areas where you have common interests and then work well together to pursue those common interests in order to achieve a certain goal.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so leaders are generally chosen by their country. And so my view was, if I had an objective, I didn't get to choose who was the leader of other countries. My job was to deal with that leader, understand their strengths, understand their weaknesses, understand their power dynamics as well. You know, one of my greatest takeaways when I grew up, I'd read the newspapers about all these powerful famous people. And then as I got older and had the chance to meet them and do business with them and then ultimately, you know, interact with them in government is I realized that they're just like you and me. They wake up every morning. You know, their kids are pissed at them. Their wife doesn't want to talk with them. And they've got a set of advisors around them. One saying, you know, let's go to war. One's saying let's make peace. One's saying do the deal. One's saying don't do the deal. And they're all thinking, where do I get advice? How do I make decisions? And so understanding the true human nature of them and then the different power dynamics around them I thought was very key.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Financial crisis, I really learned a lot about partnership, and I always thought, how can I act in a way where I could be the type of partner or friend to others that I wish others would be to me?”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say that I always would think about how I can be a partner to others like I would want somebody to be a partner to me. And a lot of it comes from just my different experiences in business. I've had great partners. I've had terrible partners. My father, again, a lot of my childhood was I was exposed to business. My father, you know, on Sundays he would take us to job sites and to the office with him instead of the football games like my friend's fathers would do. And so we were exposed to business. And what he would say about his father, who was an immigrant to America, came over with nothing, had no formal education, but he would always say, a good deal with a bad partner will always be a bad deal and a bad deal with a good partner, you'll figure it out. And so going through some of the challenges that I had in my life early on, whether it was the issue with my father, I'm sure we'll talk about or even going through some tougher financial times during the Great”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But in fairness, too, like, you know, for him, during the time that we were dealing with him, he was always in election versus election and then election. And what he was saying wasn't wrong. And I think he was more expressing his concerns given the dynamics. And we never held those concerns against him. We just said those are real concerns he had. We respected those concerns. But then we helped him prioritize to help accomplish the right things. And that's ultimately what the partnership is, right? My job was to represent America. His job was to represent Israel and you had other parties representing their own interests. And as long as you assume that people were acting mostly in good faith, you were able to navigate areas where you didn't have complete overlap of priorities and objectives.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People thought was very hard to do. And both of them in a divided time of the Trump administration were bipartisan wins with big, big votes in the Senate and the House.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or Dick Durbin, and then also on the Republican side with Mike Lee, I had Lindsey Graham, I had Tim Scott, Senator Grassley, and then also Doug Collins in the house was tremendous. And every time we maneuvered something, we would get attacked either from the left. There was a time we were being attacked by Nancy Pelosi, John Lewis for not being inclusive enough. And then there were times that we maneuvered it, we'd be attacked from the right for maybe going too far. And ultimately we had to find just the right place where we can get it done. And the same thing happened with USMCA where we were negotiating the biggest trade deal in the history of the world, which was $1.3 trillion in annual trade between Mexico, Canada, the United States of America. And we were able to form good trust with the other side and try to say, how do we create win-win outcomes? And ultimately, we were able to do something in a record time that”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and then finally I would just say that in any negotiation you have to understand the power dynamics as well. And you have to then weight your approach in order to maneuver pieces to accomplish the objective. And so in areas where we had stronger power dynamics, I'd always look at it and say, what are the potential escape routes where a politician would say this is just the reason why we can't get there? And I'd always think, how can you try to eliminate those escape routes or make them much harder to accomplish? And then ultimately think about what's the golden bridge that you want to create for them in order to get to the other side where they were motivated to get there because it was in their self-interest to get there, but also because it helped accomplish the different objective. And I have many examples that I live through with that, obviously negotiating in Congress for prison reform. I had to form a lot of trust with Democrats, whether it was Hakeem Jeffrey.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Taking maybe a first principles approach to what the outcome of whatever problem you're looking to solve should be. Now you have different kinds of negotiations. I always try to create a framework in the negotiation where it wasn't me against you. It was always let's agree on what the outcome is that we're trying to accomplish. Let's all sit on the same side of the table and say we want to get to this outcome. How do we get there? Really trying to create a roadmap. And so once you understand the destination you want to get to, the endpoint, then you'd have to work backwards and really try to put yourself in their shoes and try to understand what were their motivations macro. Most of the time you have to assume that a leader's primary objective was to stay in power. And so all decisions made would be made through the framework of what it would take to do that and how it would impact their ability to do that.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If I look back on the different negotiations I had when I was in government, either with leaders of countries, with representatives of leaders, or even with members of Congress to pass legislation. The most important thing I would draw back to would be trust. I think getting to know each other, understanding what was motivating. Other party to get to the outcome and making them feel like you weren't going to use whatever information they gave you. To benefit yourself at the expense of them is probably what I would call table stakes to have a shot at accomplishing anything that was hard in negotiation. After that, I would say”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thank you. And Lex, if I could say just one final thing, which is that my thoughts and prayers are really with all the people in Israel and the innocent civilians as well on the Palestinian side. And my prayers are with the IDF soldiers that they should be safe and they should be really watched by God to accomplish whatever mission will enable to make the world a safer place.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I believe that we should always be trying to push to make the world a better place, and you'll only do that by listening to people and connecting with people and by respecting people. And finally, I'll just say on this, is that, you know, I meet people all the time who have so much confidence in their perspectives. I'm very jealous that these people are able to be so confident about every single thing because for me, I have some degree of confidence in the things that I've studied and what I've learned, but I'm always trying to find, you know, people who disagree to kind of sharpen my perspectives and to help me grow and to help me learn further. And so I think that's kind of the beauty of the world is that, you know, the knowledge base continues to grow. The facts continue to change and what's possible tomorrow continues to become different. And so as humans, we have to continue to thrive, to learn and to grow and to connect. And if we do that, everything's possible.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it was an incredibly robust and respectful debate. And so I don't think we maybe concluded anything that night, but it was interesting for people to get together, having a dinner at my house where I had Dick Durbin, the number two ranking Democrat in the Senate, Lindsay Graham and Stephen Miller, who's known to be a very hardline on immigration, discussing what an immigration reform could look like. I mean, they left that dinner saying, wow, you know, we hadn't spoken to people on the other side and we actually agree on like 85% of things, like maybe something is.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Some people are just evil. There are some evil people, but I do think the vast, vast, vast majority of people are good. And I do think that people sometimes also can In a bad place, and then society can push them to a worse and worse place, but we all have the power to make them feel loved, make them feel heard. And I think there's also tremendous power that we have as people to help people get to a better place. And so, you know, my wife and I, we've always tried to be a force for good. We've always tried to be, you know, we've always tried to provide a place where people can discuss with each other when we were in Washington. We would host dinners at our house all the time or we would have Democrats and Republicans sitting together. We just had, I saw Senator Feinstein just pass away. We had a great dinner at our house when she was a senator with her and her husband. And Mark Meadows when he was on the Freedom Caucus. And we had actually a fascinating discussion about Iran. Mark was much more hardlined than me. I had to actually bite my tongue. I was impressed at how much he did. Whereas, you know, Feinstein and her husband were like super into, you know, they knew the Iranians well. They thought they were peace love.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do believe that. Yeah, and you have some bad people. I mean, you have some real evil people. I mean, a big part of the work I did was on prison reform and previously the mentality was that the prison should basically be a warehouse for human trash. And if you've made a mistake in this world, then we're going to throw you out and we're going to make the rest of your life incredibly difficult because you're going to have a criminal record. You're not going to have access to jobs. But what I found is when I would sit with people in prison, the people I met through my father's experience and who I met along the way is that people make mistakes. We're all human. I think it's the right thing from a religious perspective to give people second chances. I always believe you shouldn't judge people by the worst mistake they make in their life. Unfortunately now in the era of social media people will say one wrong thing. It sticks with them forever. They get canceled or they get put out. We're all humans. We grow from our mistakes. We learn from our mistakes. And I think that”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If we each take responsibility to try to make the world better, then I think that there's no limits to the incredible place that this world can be.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, I've traveled all over the world now. I've been very fortunate to meet people from different states in America. I've different political persuasions, different ages, different classes. And what I found is that there's a fundamental driving amongst all of us where we all want to live a better life. And, you know, people don't want to fight naturally, but it's easy to fight when you feel wronged or you feel like somebody disrespected you or somebody did something from hatred. And hatred leads to more hatred, which sometimes just pushes that cycle further and further. So I believe that each and every one of us has the power to stop that cycle. And we don't do it by being on Twitter and yelling at people. We don't do it by just being critical. We do it by finding the people we disagree with, by listening to them. By asking questions, by sitting with them, and then...”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He says, But I got a meeting, and they started sitting down together, and they started saying, you know what, you're just like me. And all of a sudden they started finding areas where they were more together.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is a very powerful force, and it's much easier to hate people you don't know. Funny when I was working on prison reform, one of the most interesting people I met was a Reverend actually down in Texas who negotiated the first truce between the bloods and the crips, two of the notorious gangs in America in prison. And I was very excited to meet him. And when I met him, I said, well, how'd you do it? And he says, it was very simple. He says, I got all the guys together and I had a tremendous amount of barbecue brought in. He says, and I got the meeting. He says, no drinking. He says, drinking sometimes gets people a little bit more against each other.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The leaders who are focused on giving their citizens and their neighbors the opportunity to live a better life are able to work together and really dream and be ambitious and find ways to create a paradigm where humans can flourish.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's managed correctly, and if Iran is able to be restrained and suppressed with their ambitions to cause destabilization, I don't mean around the country. I mean the Iranian regime, because actually once you have this economic sphere, if you could bring Iraq into it, if you could bring Iran into it, that makes it even bigger and stronger. And the Persian people are incredibly entrepreneurial and incredibly industrious. So I do think that the region has tremendous potential. It's just been held back by bad policy, bad leadership, bad objectives. And again, when President Trump left office in 2021, the Middle East was really on a very, very positive trajectory. And if the right things happen, it can continue to be so. So I'm praying at this moment in time that we navigate the current crisis, that the important objectives are achieved of eliminating the terrorists and their threats, and then allowing”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Middle East for 20 years was an area of conflict. They spent all their money on bullets and bombs. You have young leadership now in Saudi Arabia and UAE and Qatar. And there's a much more ambitious agenda now for the region to make it an economic superpower and hub of the world. Israel is one of the most burgeoning and exciting tech economies in the world. And if you think about it, it's almost like having Silicon Valley not connected to California. The thing that's held the region back for all these years has just been the conflict and the division and the lack of connectivity. But if you have that region and if it can all come together, if you can create a security architecture, you have an incredibly young population. You have a lot of wealth and resources and a lot of capabilities and know-how. And so I think that if”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think when Donald Trump was president, we had a peaceful world. Everyone said if he was elected, we would have World War III. Meanwhile, he gets elected and he not only is the first president in decades to not start any wars, he's making peace deals. He's making trade deals. He's working with our allies, getting them to pay their fair share in NATO. He's having a dialogue with China, with Russia. He's weakening Iran. And so I do think that the job he did as a foreign policy president was tremendous. I think And when you have a weak American leadership, the world becomes a less safe place. And so my hope and prayers are that President Trump is re-elected and that he's able to then restore order and calm and peace and prosperity to the world.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's very, very clear. And I think that if people were honest about the situation, if they spent time to really understand it, again, if you follow the conference I did in Bahrain, we had all the leading businessmen there and they said, we can rebuild Gaza very easily. We all want to. The leading Arab businessmen, the leading American businessmen. Everyone wants to. They're just held back by Hamas. And so I do think having an honest conversation about this at this point in time has really only one logical conclusion. And my hope is that maybe this conflict leads to that conversation being had. And if it is, then maybe that brings more unity and understanding. And we kind of get to a conclusion better that could improve the lives of the Palestinian people.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Directing their anger towards the Hamas leadership, I think that it's very clear that the group that's responsible for the Palestinian people living the lives that all of these people are angry about is Hamas. And if they direct their anger towards Hamas and put the attention on the failings of Hamas and put forth a vision for what they'd like to see leadership in Gaza do and they respect that there's a real fear that Israel has and any country would have of having a group of terrorists next to them that's calling for their destruction. I think that that recognition of finding a way for Israel to be secure and then having an opportunity for the Palestinian people to live a better life is the right pathway to try and pursue.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is something I've observed over the years since I got involved with the Israeli-Palestinian issue with a lot of interest. I think a lot of the people who are Pledging support for the Palestinian people. I think that they want to see the Palestinian people live a better life. And I actually agree with them in that regard. Unfortunately, I think many of them are incredibly ill-informed as to the facts on the ground. I think all the people who are advocating online for the Palestinian people who are going to these marches in support of them, I think they'd be best served if they really care about effectuating the outcome of joining with Israel right now.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Society. So I definitely believe that this division has left them less prepared for the situation than it would. I do think there's real lessons we should be taking from this here in America where we're in a time where we're very divided, but I do think that it'd be very wise for our leaders to find the areas where we do agree and find ways to secure our southern border, to make sure that we know who's in our country, what risks we all face. And I do think that division definitely creates risk for countries.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On the one hand, the political turmoil, it's a sign of a vibrant democracy. I think it's been actually nice to see how people have fought for their country and their beliefs in a democratic way. You compare that to the Palestinians where there's no democracy, there's no free speech, there's no free press. You can't disagree with the leadership in Israel. If you want to be homosexual, you can have go to a parade and live your life. In Gaza, they'll throw you off a building and kill you. So in Israel, you have the freedoms, which I think make it a special place. And you have a very vibrant democracy. With that being said, you know, the times in Jewish history where the Jewish people have been most vulnerable have been when there's been division. And that's when the temple was destroyed. But that's not just with the Jewish people and with Israel.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Be somebody who left Israel more vulnerable than it had to be. So I think in that regard, he'll be incredibly strong. But I also think that he'll hopefully be calculating in the risk that he takes and not create more risk than is needed. And that's easy to say, you know, the two of us sitting here having a conversation when you're sitting in that chair as a leader in the fog of war. It's a very, very hard decision to make. He's been here before. He knows the weight of the situation. I'm sure he knows the moment. And I pray that he'll do what's right here to bring the best outcome possible.”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Phoebe is definitely a historic figure. I'd meet with a lot of different world leaders, and some of them I would say they're very, very special transformational figures, and some I would say how the hell is this person running a country? And be somebody who has done a lot for the state of Israel. He has a tremendous understanding of the security apparatus. He has tremendous global relations. So for a crisis like this, I think BB's the leader you want if you're Israel to be in that seat. I think he's ambitious in what he's going to look to achieve. He understands his role in history as somebody who's helped strengthen Israel economically, militarily. And I don't think he wants to see his legacy”
2023-10-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #399 – Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source