Jared Kushner Makes Hunter Biden Look Like a Boy Scout

Summary

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Bulwark Takes Podcast Summary

Episode: Jared Kushner Makes Hunter Biden Look Like a Boy Scout
Date: June 8, 2026
Host: Andrew Egger (The Bulwark)
Guest: Casey Michel (author, forthcoming book United States of Oligarchy)

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode dives into the prolific and complex web of conflicts of interest, alleged self-enrichment, and unprecedented influence tied to Jared Kushner — former President Trump’s son-in-law — as both a businessperson and repeat diplomat throughout the Trump administrations. The discussion explores the evolution of Kushner’s roles, focusing on his shifting status from insider backchannel to private financier and, astonishingly, back to a central government actor in "Trump 2.0." The conversation draws explicit contrasts between Kushner’s dealings and the often-reported controversies of Hunter Biden, arguing Kushner’s actions are unrivaled in the scale and blatant disregard for traditional checks on power.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Jared Kushner’s Three Act Play in Public Life

[02:57–06:50]

• First Act: Kushner enters as Middle East portfolio overseer with zero diplomatic expertise, seen as “pliable” by foreign powers.
• Second Act: After Trump’s first term, Kushner founds Affinity Partners, instantly scoring billions in investment from Gulf autocracies (primarily Saudi Arabia)—a move seen as monetizing his diplomatic connections.
• Third Act (current): Despite claiming he would not return to government, Kushner’s been reabsorbed into the administration, given unprecedented authority over not just the Middle East, but also Russia/Ukraine and Iran, alongside business partner Steve Witkoff.

Notable Quote:

"He was something that folks from the very beginning, out of the Gulf, ...saw as someone who is perfectly pliable, someone that they can pocket, someone they can target, someone they can in many ways also finance to do their bidding." — Casey Michel [03:45]

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2. Affinity Partners and Saudi “Due Diligence”

[06:58–09:06]

• Affinity Partners' creation was met with skepticism from Saudi officials—internal reports labeled Kushner’s fund “unsatisfactory in all aspects” due to lack of investment experience.
• Despite red flags, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) overrules advisors, personally greenlighting (and bragging about) the deal — with an eye toward future leverage.

Notable Quote:

“The Saudi officials that are supposed to be screening all of these investments… run a due diligence report and it comes back and it says it's, quote, unsatisfactory in all aspects… But of course, in Saudi Arabia there's only one voice, one vote that matters, and that's Mohammed bin Salman.” — Casey Michel [07:23]

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3. Kushner as De Facto Foreign Policy Tsar

[09:08–13:18]

• Kushner and Steve Witkoff, both lacking in regional or diplomatic know-how, are tasked with broad portfolios: Gaza, Ukraine, Iran.
• Kushner’s past and present entanglements with foreign governments (Saudi, UAE, Israel, Russia) fuel conflict-of-interest concerns.
• Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program failed spectacularly, partly due to Kushner’s lack of grasp—raising risks of war.

Notable Exchanges:

“Kushner and Witkoff by all appearances, have no idea how nuclear policy works… This is what led directly to the failure of those negotiations and now the ongoing war...” — Casey Michel [12:33]
"I will say, he is still Jared Kushner, the head of Gaza policy, still the head of Ukraine policy, and...still trying to find a way through these ongoing bungled negotiations in Iran. It's a lot for anyone, let alone someone who has financial entanglements with all three." — Casey Michel [13:12]

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4. Ethics, Volunteer Status, and Lack of Oversight

[14:41–16:25]

• Kushner’s “volunteer” status is exploited to avoid standard financial disclosures and conflict-of-interest reviews.
• Recent appointment as Special Envoy legally (in theory) triggers disclosure obligations, but enforcement is nonexistent.
• Both DOJ and Congressional oversight have failed to hold Kushner to account; even attempts by Democrats to probe the issue under Biden fizzled out.

Notable Quote:

"If there is no one willing to enforce any of these laws or regulations, then they don't matter. They are laws and regulations in name only." — Casey Michel [15:42]

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5. A Missed Opportunity on Accountability (Biden Era and Hunter Biden Parallels)

[18:14–20:22]

• Early Biden administration dismissed the relevance of Kushner's dealings (“yesterday’s news”).
• Later, fear of fueling Hunter Biden comparisons discouraged a probe, despite the vastly different scale of the cases.

Notable Exchange:

"A lot of leading Democrats, most especially in the White House, did not want to shine a light on a family member of a president monetizing that relationship, primarily because this is exactly what Hunter Biden was doing for years and years… Yes, perhaps Kushner is doing the same thing at a greater magnitude, but we don't want to shine a light on it whatsoever." — Casey Michel [19:20]

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6. Hunter Biden vs. Jared Kushner: A Comparison of Scale

[20:28–22:28]

• Hunter Biden’s “grubby” access-peddling netted small sums (hundreds of thousands) versus Kushner’s billion-dollar windfall and direct policy power.
• Affinity Partners is now worth upwards of $6.2 billion; Kushner himself is a billionaire.
• Kushner’s case presents “the single greatest series of conflicts of interest in American diplomatic history.”

Notable Quotes:

“Hunter Biden was selling his paintings for…fifty thousand, a hundred thousand dollars...not insignificant...but…minuscule compared to Kushner, who himself is... now a billionaire...his firm...now worth at least $6.2 billion...” — Casey Michel [21:08]
“You can't compare him to anyone else in the 250 years of American history.” — Casey Michel [21:56]

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7. Will Public Rage or Political Change Matter?

[22:44–27:00]

• Kushner’s rise from family “fail son” to foreign princeling to backroom czar is unique among America’s well-connected elite.
• There is simmering public anger at the sense of elite impunity — a potential springboard for future Democratic candidates (2026/2028) clamoring for anti-corruption reform.
• “Nothing will change” until oversight flips back to Democrats; only then (with select or special committees, prosecution) can accountability proceed.

Notable Quote:

“If any crimes are committed, appropriate sentencing. That's the only way we're going to get out of this mess and that's the only way we're going to have a brighter and who knows, maybe even hopefully less corrupt future.” — Casey Michel [27:23]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The dollar amounts…you cannot compare…Hunter Biden was skimming off the top…minuscule compared to Kushner, as of late last year, now a billionaire…his firm…at least $6.2 billion.”—Casey Michel [21:08]
• "You can't compare him to anyone else in the 250 years of American history."—Casey Michel [21:56]
• “It’s not just that Kushner is going around on his own…he’s doing it as the official representative of the American government.” — Casey Michel [22:32]
• “It does seem like they are getting away with it right here, right now…[but] a shift in government and…in Congress…[would bring] more investigations, more fallout…” — Casey Michel [24:11]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Jared's background and entry into Middle East policy: [02:57–05:00]
• Affinity Partners and Saudi investments: [06:58–09:08]
• Diplomatic portfolio (Gaza, Ukraine, Iran): [09:08–13:21]
• Exploiting 'volunteer' loophole, lack of oversight: [14:41–16:25]
• Why Congress and Biden WH did not pursue Kushner: [18:14–20:28]
• Comparing Hunter Biden and Jared Kushner: [20:28–22:28]
• Public attitudes, possibility of accountability: [22:44–27:00]

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Tone & Style

The conversation is unabashed, wry, and incisively critical. It mixes deep-dive reporting and legal analysis with biting, occasionally sardonic, humor; both Egger and Michel are forthright about the egregiousness and novelty of Kushner’s accumulation of wealth and power. The podcast prioritizes a sense of urgency but also resignation at the current lack of remedy, paired with hope that political change could bring corrective action in the future.

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Conclusion

This episode spotlights Jared Kushner as a singular figure in the annals of American political enrichment, whose combination of inherited access, diplomatic naiveté, and shameless self-dealing outpaces even the most talked-about cases of recent years. The lack of oversight is traced not just to Trump and Congressional Republicans, but also to missed opportunities by Democrats afraid of their own parallels. The only real path to accountability, the hosts argue, lies in a seismic political realignment.

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Further Reading:

• Casey Michel’s latest in Mother Jones [see episode link]
• United States of Oligarchy, out August 4th, for more on “how America’s wealthiest ally with dictators to weaken the US and destroy democracy.”

Transcript

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[Andrew Egger]

Hey guys, it's Andrew Egger with the Bulwark. One of the weird things about life under Trump 2.0, there's so much that's happening all the time right out in public that you have to figure out that you have to pay attention to chew over without really anybody trying to hide it. It can make it harder to pay attention to some of the quieter stories, some of the stuff that's taking place a little bit behind closed doors that requires a little bit of digging to really get into and get after. And I'm very pleased to be joined today to talk about one of those stories with Casey Michelle, who is author of the forthcoming book United States of Oligarchy, How America's wealthiest ally with dictators weaken the US and destroy democracy. We're going to be talking about America's favorite presidential fail son son in law. Fail son in law. You could say Jared Kushner, who has been doing real well for himself as it turns out. Casey, thanks for coming on to talk about this today.

[Casey Michel]

Yeah, Andrew, thanks so much for, for having me. It's an honor to join you.

[Andrew Egger]

Well, so you have a new piece up today in Mother Jones. Great piece. Everybody should go read it. We'll put the link down below. The selection from this book basically all about Jared, what Jared's been up to. To my shame, I will admit, I've lost a little bit of sight of Jared. There are a lot of these guys to keep tabs on. I knew he was doing the diplomacy abroad. I knew he was involved in a lot of this stuff. But when I think like Trump family corruption, usually the people who spring to mind for me are Don and Eric, who are, you know, much more entangled with Trump's own personal sort of self enrichment schemes, all of the stuff that's running through the Trump Organization and all of that. But I learned a lot from this, this piece today. We talk a lot about how much more blatant and open a lot of this corruption has been under Trump 2.0. But, but it really did strike me, just reading through what you've written, just how entangled Jared Kushner's business interests have been with the diplomatic moonlighting he's been doing under his father in law, the president, Even since Trump 1.0, since 2016. Really? Can you just kind of give us the quick readout of what Jared was up to during the first Trump term?

[Casey Michel]

Yeah. So it's funny to think back to the first Trump term and think about just how relatively straightforward I suppose some of the corruption was then, or at least how much it appears like, like it was child's play back then compared to what it is now. But again, the beauty of writing a piece like this, and of course the beauty of writing a book like this is it gives me the opportunity to really go back and revisit some of what we thought at the time were these earth shattering and era defining scandals, which now of course appear microscopic compared to what we're dealing with right now. But, but Jared Kushner began so many of these networks, so many of these relationships, and so many of these, of course, patterns of what certainly appear to be corruption or at the very baseline, conflict of interest, not during Trump's second term, not over the last year and a half, but going all the way back to, to Trump's first term. And frankly, many of these have been going on for a decade now. If we can go back to 2016, 2017, again, you'll see in the piece and you'll see in the book, if you get the chance to pre order it, that Jared Kushner was right there from the very beginning of Trump's presidency. Donald Trump's go to diplomat, go to point person for many different things around the world, but most especially Middle east policy under Donald Trump. And of course, Jared Kushner himself has no diplomatic history, he has no real regional expertise, he doesn't speak any of the local languages, and he's far from any kind of scholar on the region. And he was something that folks from the very beginning, out of the Gulf, out of Saudi Arabia, out of the United Arab Emirates out of places like Israel as well, saw as someone who is perfectly pliable, someone that they can pocket, someone they can target, someone they can in many ways also finance to do their bidding. Again, the. The piece has all these details that I forgot about from the very first term of Donald Trump, of figures like Mohammed bin Salman or other officials in the region saying, look how gullible this guy is. Look how easy he is to buy off. And of course, look what that means for a pro Saudi or pro Emirati or pro Israeli policy. And we've all been paying the price for it in the decades since. Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Egger]

So here's a guy who had, obviously, business dealings that predated a lot of his diplomatic things, but who had just been going, shaking a hat to many of these same countries for his personal business dealings, even prior to really getting involved with any of them in a diplomatic capacity at all. Right.

[Casey Michel]

Yeah, well, I mean, look, there's three basic chapters to Jared Kushner's life as a diplomat, slash financier, slash. I guess the term of art we're using today, Andrew, is fail son in chief or, or fail son in law. I suppose the first chapter, of course, was Donald Trump's first term when Kushner is overseeing the Middle Eastern portfolio portfolio. He's having these late night texting sessions with mbs. He's having these secret trips to Riyadh. He's acting as basically a backchannel for all of these different governments, all of these different autocracies around the world. Of course, Donald Trump leaves the White House January 20th in 2021. And almost immediately, Jared Kushner begins monetizing those relationships. He starts a brand new firm called Affinity Partners that almost instantly begins opening up multi billion dollar deals in a way we have again, never seen before from a former official, let alone a relative of a former American president. Opening that much more financing again from the Saudis, from the Emiratis, and from the Israelis as well. That is the second chapter when Donald Trump is out of the presidency, out of the White House, and Jared Kushner is profiting from that. And again, fast forward to early 2025 for the final chapter, which we're now all going through in real time when Jared Kushner is broug brought back to the White House, even though he says he will have nothing to do with Donald Trump's second term, suddenly he's the point person, not just for the Middle east, but for everything from Russia and Ukraine to now the Iran war and the failed Iran negotiations, all while still being paid head over foot by all of these regimes and making more money than he has ever made before.

[Andrew Egger]

I really liked the detail in your reporting here that when Kushner was standing up this new firm, the affinity partners, and going around basically saying, hey, why don't we manage some of your money for you? That even. Even, you know, the Saudi officials who were. Who were in place to kick the tires on these sorts of proposals were basically like, this one really isn't doing it for us. Right. Can you just. Can you just tell us a little bit about what happened with that?

[Casey Michel]

Yeah, sure. So Jared Kushner, early 2021, he puts this new fund together, and again, this is a guy without any private investment, private equity experience whatsoever. By all appearances, he's simply monetizing the relationships that he developed under Trump's first term. And he's going around the world, including to the Middle east, to gin up investment in this new fund. And one of the places that he goes is Saudi Arabia. And he has this whole pitch about how he can help accelerate transformation and find new value added. It's a completely vapid, completely valueless pitch that is full of all this kind of, again, corporate pablum. And the Saudi officials that are supposed to be screening all of these investments, they, you know, they run a due diligence report, and it comes back and it says it's, quote, unsatisfactory in all aspects. So even the Saudis at the time are looking at this and saying, why would we bother investing in this? This guy has no experience. There's no clear means of any kind of profitability. We should actually avoid this. We should. We don't want to deal with the PR blowback. We don't want to deal with the questions. We should distance ourselves from Kushner. But of course, in Saudi Arabia, there's only one voice, one vote that matters, and that's Mohammed bin Salman. And mbs, again, being Kushner's longtime texting buddy, there's one report that he bragged about having Kushner in his pocket. And he immediately overrules all of these other Saudi officials and says, what are you guys thinking? This is absolutely someone we want to continue doing financial arrangements with, because who knows what the future holds? And look, far be it from me to give credit to MBS for any kind of foresight, for anything, but this is a deal that has absolutely continued paying off for the Saudis, because, again, early 2025, here comes Kushner back to the White House, back to doing all of these deal and of course, overseeing Middle Eastern policy once more.

[Andrew Egger]

I felt exactly the same way reading that, by the way. Just look, you got to hand it to him. I suppose there were not necessarily a lot of people who thought that Jared Kushner was going to once again be a really financially and politically valuable contact. But I guess MBS managed to cash that bet and it has paid off for him pretty handsomely. I mean, you gestured toward this a little bit already just how expansive Kushner's diplomatic portfolio has been since coming back to the White House. This is a phenomenon we've, we've talked about a lot. I feel like on a lot of our platforms is just like Trump has like six guys doing all the work for him right now, and Jared Kushner is one of two of them when it comes to a lot of this diplomacy, especially in the Middle East. But can you just kind of talk us through his, his involvement in the Gaza conflict and the Ukraine conflict specifically?

[Casey Michel]

Yeah. So he is generally joined by another guy named Steve Witkoff, who is another New York real est, kind of would be tycoon. He has known Donald Trump for years and years. They go back decades. So that's the reason that Trump has also kind of attached Kushner and Witkoff at the hip.

[Andrew Egger]

Witkoff also the business partner of Don Jr. And Eric on World Liberty Financial and a bunch of the other, you know, crypto related schemes. So just to give a quick point of how incestuous this all is. Sorry.

[Casey Michel]

Well, yeah, of course. And another guy who has no diplomatic history, he has no regional expertise, he's certainly not a scholar, he doesn't speak the local languages whatsoever, and by all appearances is viewed as someone who is just as gullible, just as tractable and just as pliable as Jared Kushner. So again, Kushner comes back in early 2025. He doesn't have an official position at the time. He is, as he still claims to be, technically a volunteer who is just doing his patriotic duty to help America and American interests. And of course, it would never have anything to do with his own private finances. Why would we ever think such a thing? But initially, Trump says, President Trump at the time says, says Jared, you and Witkoff are in charge of Gaza policy, broader Israel, Palestine policy. And of course, Kushner himself has his own extensive history, has been connected to Benjamin Netanyahu for years and years. His family supported settlements in the West Bank. And Kushner is generally perceived as being someone who is explicitly pro Israel in his policies. But again, Kushner is now trying to lead the next chapter for what will create, as he calls it, a new Gaza. Whether that has any room for any Palestinians whatsoever doesn't necessarily seem to be the case. But this is what Kushner's initial focus is on. Fast forward to the second half of 2025 and Trump has a little bit more work for him. He says, kushner, you and Wyckoff are now overseeing the Ukraine portfolio as well, and he will be leading negotiations with Moscow. He's generating a relationship with a Russian guy who is sanctioned named Kirill Dmitriev, who again, as we know from federal documentation, was the guy that Putin tasked with cultivating Kushner, again, because he sees him as someone who he can influence and maybe there are some potential dealings there. And the Russians are saying, look, if you drop sanctions and if you give us much of what we want in Ukraine, including all of this territory the Ukrainians have not yet given up, then we will open up all of these new financial dealings worth trillions of dollars to American investors. So that's Kushner's 2025, and then we have 2026. And now we have Kushner leading negotiations along with Wyckoff on Iran going back and forth from Europe to have these sit down meetings with Iranian officials. And as we know now, as again, I've been able to report in this piece and others have shared elsewhere, Kushner and Wyckoff by all appearances, have no idea how nuclear policy works. Again, these are not nuclear experts. They didn't seem to get the advice of any kind of nuclear experts whatsoever. Kushner, as we report in the piece, went back saying the Iranians are weeks, if not days away from a nuclear weapon, which again, is a position very few others shared, of course, that the Israeli government shared that as well. But this is what led directly to the failure of those negotiations and now the ongoing war that we are still dealing with. I will say, Joe Andrew, he is still Jared Kushner, the head of Gaza policy, still the head of Ukraine policy, and of course, still trying to find a way through these ongoing bungled negotiations in Iran. It's a lot for anyone, let alone someone who has financial entanglements with all three.

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[Andrew Egger]

a little bit more on this business of his volunteer status? Is this actually like a real loophole that does in, in some real way shield him from legal liability, conflict of interest laws, these sorts of things, or are they just kind of going for it and he shouldn't be able to get away with that stuff, but for right now, he is.

[Casey Michel]

According to Jared Kushner and according to Donald Trump, this is a position that is volunteer in nature and therefore not subject to any disclosure requirements whatsoever. And as we've seen from Republican allies in Congress and of course from Trump's own Department of justice, there is no whatsoever in investigating any of these links. And of course there's no interest whatsoever in enforcing any kind of conflict of interest requirements. All that said, Trump did recently appoint Kushner as a special envoy for peace, which again, by all appearances means he's now an official member of the American government. There are good government pro transparency officials and experts in Washington who are saying, wait a minute, there is a legal requirement, there's a 60 day window where he has to disclose all of these financial entanglements, all of this financing from Saudi, from uae, from Israel and elsewhere. Look, I think the broader lesson, of course of the Trump era is that if there is no one willing to enforce any of these laws or regulations, then they don't matter. They are laws and regulations in name only. And of course we're seeing that with Jared Kushner himself, we're seeing that with all of his conflicts of interest, which have, of course, yet to be investigated and frankly, yet to be disclosed, who

[Andrew Egger]

would be like in a different world where they tried to run this playbook with everything running the way it ought to be, who would it be that would be running the traps on this guy? And these various, would it be part of the executive branch? Would it be various oversight bodies in Congress? What would it look like?

[Casey Michel]

Look, it would be both. It would be those out of the Department of Justice or potentially the Department of State, who are maybe their inspectors general, maybe there are other internal investigators or enforcement bodies that require these kinds of filings. And again, these are, these are very basic filings. These are about any kind of financial entanglement that may impinge on your ability to do your job as a negotiator, as a policy planner or as a diplomat. This is something American diplomats have been doing for decades. It is not difficult. Of course, the bigger question is who in Congress would be willing to do this? As we, of course, seen under the current makeup of Congress, there's no interest on the Republican side for holding any feet to the fire for those who are currently in the administration. But I will say one of the more disappointing elements that's detailed in the, the piece itself, of course, in the, in the new book, is that there was a time there was a window under the Biden administration, 2022, 2023, even going through 2024, where those in Congress or those in the White House could have investigated Kushner. They could have been able to use their mechanisms and means in government to hold high level hearings or maybe even appoint a special counsel to say, what is Jared Kushner doing with all of these regimes, taking all of this money from around the world? There was a small internal push among Democrats in Congress led by folks like Senator Ron Wyden, who tried to get a special counsel appointed to look into Kushner's financial entanglements. And it ended up going nowhere. There was a window and it closed and nothing was done and nothing happened. And I, look, I'm happy to put my hop up on my soapbox and say that I hope there is another window in the future and that that opportunity is missed. But we just have to get there in the first place, and we certainly won't get there under the current administration and current Congress right now.

[Andrew Egger]

Yeah. Can you just talk a little bit about what the rationale was at that time? I mean, was it Democrats who didn't Want to be perceived as going after, you know, the family of a potential political opponent in Donald Trump? Or was it sort of anxiety over all the Hunter Biden stories that were going around then and they just didn't. I mean, what happened?

[Casey Michel]

Who.

[Andrew Egger]

Why didn't, why didn't we see that last time? Democrats.

[Casey Michel]

So in the first half of Biden's term, there was a general sense that the world of Donald Trump, his presidency, his legacy, his family, and of course, his son in law, Jared Kushner. There was a sense that this was all in the rearview mirror and we could move on, we could ignore that,

[Andrew Egger]

we could put that behind us, let bygones be bygones. Why do we have to keep relitigating that? That unfortunate chapter of history. Yeah, yeah.

[Casey Michel]

Who needs things like accountability? Who needs things like investigations into corruption? Of course it would never flourish again. Look, I think it's one of the most myopic decisions that was taken, but the decision was taken nonetheless. Why bother wasting political firepower on these figures or on Jared Kushner if he's just yesterday's news? But of course, then Donald Trump ends up winning the nomination, and suddenly you have the reality that not only is Trump relevant again once more, but now Kushner is as well. And the hang up in the second half of Biden's term was not that Kushner was yesterday's news, as I detail a little bit in the piece, it's that a lot of leading Democrats, most especially in the White House, did not want to shine a light on a family member of a president monetizing that relationship, primarily because this is exactly what Hunter Biden was doing for years and years. And there was a perception that we do not want to give more fuel to that fire, more reason to highlight potentially corrupt things that Hunter Biden is doing. Yes, perhaps Kushner is doing the same thing at a greater magnitude, but we don't want to shine a light on it whatsoever. And so suddenly you have Hunter as this albatross around the neck of the Biden administration that again is being requested to appoint a special counsel to look at Kushner. The Biden administration punted on it. They whiffed and they said, we're not going to do that. And again, here we are dealing with the consequences of that decision and now dealing with Jared Kushner as the leading American diplomat for so many different hotspots around the world.

[Andrew Egger]

Yeah, I mean, the comparison there, the Hunter Biden, Jared Kushner thing, it really is one of those things that Just makes I feel like blood vessels are, like, exploding in my brain when I think about this. Because, yes, like, qualitatively, it's the same sort of access, trading, grubby corruption. Right. But, like, when it comes to the dollar amounts in, I mean, like, I actually don't. Actually don't have a good sense of the math. But can you give me, like, maybe. Maybe you do a better back of the envelope comparison to, like, you know, what Hunter raked in from. From his, you know, Ukrainian energy company, you know, skimming off the top versus what Jared Kushner has been up to across the Middle East.

[Casey Michel]

Yeah, look, I've written very critically about Hunter Biden in the past, but you cannot compare the final numbers, the totality of what Hunter Biden or Jared Kushner have taken in. I mean, Hunter Biden was selling his, you know, his paintings for, I don't know, the fifty thousand, a hundred thousand dollars. He was making maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars out of some of the networks from Romania and China and Ukraine. Look, you know, not insignificant in the grand scheme of things and for most Americans, but for the. What we're talking about with figures like Jared Kushner, they are minuscule compared to Kushner, who himself is, as of late last year, now a billionaire. Jared Kushner is, just like his father in law, now a billionaire. His firm, Affinity Partners, is now worth at least $6.2 billion, presumably more at this point. So in terms of scope and scale, you cannot compare the two. And again, as I write the piece, Jared Kushner now presents the single greatest series of conflicts of interest in American diplomatic history. It's not just that you can't compare him to Hunter Biden. You can't compare him to anyone else in the 250 years of American history.

[Andrew Egger]

A version of Hunter Biden, who, you know, made 10,000 times as much money and who Joe Biden had subsequently appointed to run all global diplomatic policy, would maybe be somewhat of a better comparison here.

[Casey Michel]

Oh, Andrew, Just to highlight your point. Absolutely. Because that is the other key difference. It's not just that Kushner is going around on his own, gallivanting around to Saudi Arabia or to wherever it might be. He's doing it as the official representative of the American government because of his relationship with his father in law.

[Andrew Egger]

Yeah, yeah. I do have to give Jared his flowers, for one thing here, which is that you see a lot of these, like, silver spoon failson guys who, like, get a really easy start in life. Jared Kushner famously got his spot in Harvard, basically bought for him by his father, his actual father, not his father in law, as you, as you mentioned in the piece. But there are not a lot of these guys who take that and then face plant in business, but then successfully parlay that somehow into a whole second leg where they transition from sort of the coattails of their, of their biological human father in their family to the coattails of their father in law in a way that Kushner has really sort of spectacularly achieved for himself. That, that, that's sort of one interesting element in all these things. Also got a pardon for his biological father into the mix. We don't need to dwell on that. One other thing I wanted to ask about, which is it has sort of seemed like just watching all these corruption stories play out with no oversight in the executive branch, Congress not lifting a finger under control of Republicans the last couple of years, it kind of seems like they're getting away with all this in the moment. And yet at the same time, it seems like there's this gigantic sort of incipient political rage against, not against Trump and these people, certainly, but just against sort of the oligarchs, the elites, the billionaires in general that's out there right now just sort of like waiting to be channeled in some new direction politically. How when you're doing reporting on, on stuff like this, how do you feel like this stuff is landing with Americans right now?

[Casey Michel]

Well, look, I think it's getting more and more tense by the day and that pressure is building up more and more by the day. And Andrew, I think to your point, you know, it does seem like they are getting away with it right here, right now, in the moment. But of course, you could have said the same thing about those who are behind Teapot Dome at the moment, at that time, those were behind Watergate, as the burglary and other elements of that scandal were happening. And it wasn't for a number of years a shift in government and of course, a shift in Congress as well, for more investigations, for more fallout for that, I think, and I've talked about this elsewhere, that corruption, the blatancy of it, the obviousness of it, the in your face elements of it, and the fact that this is all happening in a economy that is so clearly rigged in the favor of those who are the wealthiest, those who can buy the politicians, those who can access American politics for their own benefits. And of course, this is what I detail in the brand new book United States of Oligarchy, that is becoming inescapable and that is becoming something that a, let's call it Democratic 2028 candidate can absolutely center a successful campaign on. This is something we have seen already in other contexts right here in New York City, Mayor Mohamdani, yes, he ran on affordability, but the number two element is in his election, corruption. The recent ousting of Viktor Orban in Hungary, the opposition figure there, Peter Magyar, the primary plank of that campaign, corruption. I have no doubt the appeal for the central element of corruption and of course, tackling that corruption head on is only going to grow in appeal for candidates for the 2026 midterms. But maybe again, most especially the presidency in 2028, because it is not going to happen in terms of accountability or oversight or investigations, let alone any kind of prosecution unless there is a shift in government and unless Democrats regain power, of course, in Congress, but maybe most especially in the presidency and you begin implementing both investigations and of course, policy responses. Andrew I don't know. I never thought we would get to this level of corruption. I never thought we would have luxury jets from foreign governments. I never thought we would have sitting presidents, you know, sicing their, their son in law or of course children themselves to have all of these financial arrangements, arrangements and of course have, have it all in your face. I never thought we would get here. And yet here we are. And it's going to be our duty moving forward to tackle all of this head on.

[Andrew Egger]

Yeah, financial arrangements now, but maybe financial arraignments later. Let me ask you a little bit more. You mentioned 2028 in particular, but I did want to ask about 26 because in your piece you mentioned a couple of Democrats who have been teeing off on this stuff. Georgia Senator John Ossoff has been, you know, calling Kushner a royal and a princeling who's hitting up MBS for billions of dollars. Do you see Democrats making this a big part of their midterms right now, that they need to retake Congress to hold these guys accountable? And if they do succeed in retaking the House and or the Senate, what might be different next year? What might accountability look like under a Democratic Congress, even during this administration?

[Casey Michel]

Yeah, look, I think it's these topics of corruption, affordability, rigged economy. They're all, they're all, you know, oligarchy. They're all inextricably linked with one another. You kind of can't have one without having the other. And this is again something we are seeing increasingly Democrats run on. I've been, I suppose, a little bit surprised that major campaigns, major candidates haven't centered corruption and anti corruption. A little bit more. It's been wonderful to see Jon Ossoff out of Georgia, of course, making this the centerpiece of his campaign. But it might be a little bit longer once we get actually past the election, once we have potentially Democratic House and maybe even Democratic Senate and more information, more details of these corruption networks come to the to the fore that we'll see more 2028 candidates moving forward with this. But of course, what you have to see is the Democrats taking one, if not both houses, after which you can have select committees, you can have specific committees to look into the profiting from those who are in the White House or the children related to Donald Trump himself, those who are profiting from defense procurement, those who are profiting from foreign arrangements, those who are profiting any and every way from their access to power, which is of course, Corruption 101. You have to have these high level investigations and ideally at some point, again, post 28, post 29, you have to have a special counsel who can hold some of these figures that much more to account, high level prosecutions and of course, if any crimes are committed, appropriate sentencing. That's the only way we're going to get out of this mess and that's the only way we're going to have a brighter and who knows, maybe even hopefully less corrupt future.

[Andrew Egger]

I have been talking with Casey Michelle. He's the author of the forthcoming book United States of How America's Organization Wealthiest Ally With Dictators, Weaken the US And Destroy Democracy. Casey, thank you so much for coming on to talk to me about this, talk to the people about this. What else should we expect from your book other than the takedown of Jared Kushner we have already perhaps read in Mother Jones today.

[Casey Michel]

Well, remarkably, there's more on Kushner in the book itself. Kushner and Elon Musk are the two primary figures, primary narrative components of the book. And again, the book is talking about how America's wealth inequality is now a threat not only to to American democracy, but to American national security. And it talks about how a number of America's wealthiest figures have opened the doors to autocratic forces around the world, entrenching autocratic forces right here at home. There's plenty of American history, there's plenty of legal history. And of course, there's plenty of new details, unreported details on what some of these figures have been doing, who have they been doing it for and how they and their autocratic allies abroad have been profiting every step of the way. It's on shelves August 4th pre order wherever you get your books.

[Andrew Egger]

Thanks Casey for coming on to talk to me and to the people about all this stuff. And thanks to you all out there for watching. If you have been all along, if you've been on YouTube, hope you'll subscribe to the YouTube. If you've been on substack, hope you will subscribe to the Bulwark on substack. Thanks and we'll see you all next time.

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I knew that's where I was going wrong. Interesting.

[Casey Michel]

There are all sorts of reasons why, but we would go into them all on our podcast along with loads of extra facts as well. That's right. And if you want to check it

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out, no such thing as a fish

[Casey Michel]

is available wherever you get your podcasts.