Kushner Recounts ‘Awkward Moment’ When Trump’s ‘Chief Antagonist’ Jim Acosta Called Fauci Directly

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Jared Kushner is the latest Donald Trump administration official to be putting his experiences on paper and in one excerpt from his upcoming book, he recounts National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director and White House medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci receiving a direct phone call from CNN’s Jim Acosta, then one of Trump’s most vocal critics in the media.

In a portion of Breaking History: A White House Memoir, out in August, obtained by Fox News Digital, Kushner recalls the “awkward moment” the phone call created, as well as some of the tension between Fauci and Trump regarding Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.

“Early in the pandemic, Fauci was sitting in my office when his phone rang. We both glanced down and saw the caller’s name: Jim Acosta, the president’s chief antagonist on the generally hostile news network CNN. Neither of us acknowledged the awkward moment, but it stuck in my mind,” Kushner wrote in his memoir.

Kushner, also Trump’s son-in-law, served as a senior advisor in the White House.

Since leaving the White House, Trump has regularly criticized Fauci, claiming he would do the opposite of whatever the infectious disease expert recommended. Kushner recounted an April 2020 exchange between the two in which the then-president wanted to end strict lockdown orders, while Fauci argued they should continue them for as long as possible.

Kusher wrote that on April 15 Trump told him he wanted to reopen the country completely on the following day, something Fauci argued against.

“In a meeting with the president the next day, April 16, Fauci strongly advised against a full reopening. Continued lockdowns would save lives, he argued, and we should keep them as long as possible,” Kushner wrote of Fauci, later calling the health advisor a “shrewd politician” with a knack for self-promotion.