Jared Kushner: prediction

Transcript context

…So you mentioned the importance of trust at the very beginning of the conversation. From the outsider perspective, just maybe a dark question, which is, how much trust is there in Washington? The flip side of that, how much backstabbing is there? Can you form long-term relationships with people on a basic human level where you know you’re not going to be betrayed, screwed over, manipulated for again, going back to the old money and power? The answer is yes, and the answer is no. So I made some incredible friends, lifelong friends through my time in Washington, but the way I think about it from politics and I think in geopolitics as well, is I would say that politicians really don’t have friends. Politicians have interests. And as long as you follow that rule, you should be able to know how to rate where your relationship with a given person falls in the spectrum. But I do think I was the exception. I did make some tremendous friends. And again, I’d go back to what I said about negotiation where, when you’re in a situation where there’s really nothing in it for any of you personally, but you’re in a foxhole together and nobody in Washington can get anything done by themselves. So you have people coming from all different backgrounds, all different experiences, all different geographies coming together, agreeing on an objective, creating a plan, and then every day rowing together in order to get it done. It’s a beautiful thing and you really learn what people are about. And so when you go through an experience like that, you learn who’s in it for themselves. You learn who’s in it for the cause and for every thing you read about in the press of a fight I had with somebody because we were at odds. I have about 100 people who have become lifelong friends because I respect the way that when we were under fire together, they got better, they were competent, and they were there to serve for the right reason. And so I guess the answer is yes, it is possible. You have to be careful because there are a lot of mercurial people there. I always say the politicians are like gladiators. I didn’t have as much respect for politicians till I got there. But if you think about it, everyone who’s got a congressional seat or a senate seat, there’s 25 people back at home who want their job, who think they’re smarter than them, who are trying to back stab them. And so I always say that the political dynamic, it’s like in the private sector, you’re standing on flat ground. You choose which fights you take on. When you take them on, how you fight them. In politics, it’s like you’re standing on a ball and what you have to realize is that there’s maybe 10 things that you have to do, but there’s a potential cost to taking on each one that might destabilize you. You fall off the ball and then you lose your opportunity to pursue those. You have to always be marking everything to market and going through your calculations to make sure you can accomplish what you want to without falling off the ball and losing your opportunity to make a difference. I guess people like power and I just feel like to be a good politician, good meaning, good for humanity, be willing to let go of power. Try to do the right thing. If there’s somebody back home that does manipulate stuff, screws you over and takes power from you, it’s okay. I feel like that kind of humility is required to be a great leader, and I feel like that’s actually a good way to have long-term power because karma has a viral aspect to it. Just doing good by others, I feel like is-…

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