Jared Kushner, son-in-law of of President-elect Donald Trump walks from Trump Tower. Photo / AP
Jared Kushner, son-in-law of of President-elect Donald Trump walks from Trump Tower. Photo / AP
Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has broken his silence, telling how he helped the Republican win.
Mr Kushner, who married Mr Trump's daughter Ivanka in 2009, has been one of the billionaire's advisers during the campaign.
However, he has not spoken publicly about his work for Mr Trump, other than a July opinion piece, which ran in the New York Observer, a newspaper that Mr Kushner owns.
Now he has sat down with Forbes magazine to explain his support of Mr Trump - despite coming from a family of Democrats, who also happen to be Orthodox Jews. (Mr Kushner's brother Josh, who dates supermodel Karlie Kloss, came out during the election and said while he loves his brother, he would not be voting for Donald Trump."
"I just know a lot of the things that people try to attack him with are just not true or overblown or exaggerations. I know his character. I know who he is, and I obviously would not have supported him if I thought otherwise. If the country gives him a chance, they'll find he won't tolerate hateful rhetoric or behaviour," he said. "You can't not be an anti-Semite for 69 years and all of a sudden become an anti-Semite because you're running."
Mr Kushner said he sought advice from friends, mostly in Silicon Valley, about how to run a lean campaign while getting the message out.
"We played Moneyball, asking ourselves which states will get the best ROI for the electoral vote," he said. "I asked, "How can we get Trump's message to that consumer for the least amount of cost?"
President-elect Donald Trump with his son Barron, wife Melania, Jared Kushner, and Ivanka Trump. Photo / AP
"I called some of my friends from Silicon Valley, some of the best digital marketers in the world, and asked how you scale this stuff. They gave me their subcontractors," he said. "I called somebody who works for one of the technology companies that I work with, and I had them give me a tutorial on how to use Facebook micro-targeting."
Mr Kushner said that he "helped facilitate a lot of relationships that wouldn't have happened otherwise."
"People were being told in Washington that if they did any work for the Trump campaign, they would never be able to work in Republican politics again," he said. "I hired a great tax-policy expert who joined under two conditions: We couldn't tell anybody he worked for the campaign, and he was going to charge us double."
Mr Kushner said the campaign was swift in making decisions.
"We weren't afraid to make changes. We weren't afraid to fail. We tried to do things very cheaply, very quickly. And if it wasn't working, we would kill it quickly," Mr Kushner said. "It meant making quick decisions, fixing things that were broken and scaling things that worked."
ON WORKING IN A TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump walk through the lobby of Trump Tower. Photo / AP
Mr Kushner was coy on whether there had been a role offered to him in his father-inlaw's administration.
"There's a lot of people who have been asking me to get involved in a more official capacity. I just have to think about what that means for my family, for my business and make sure it'd be the right thing for a multitude of reasons," he said.
If Kushner served in the Trump administration, it could violate the nation's Nepotism law, which states that "a public official may not appoint, employ, promote, advance, or advocate for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement, in or to a civilian position in the agency in which he is serving or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control any individual who is a relative of the public official."
DENIES PUSHING CHRIS CHRISTIE OUT
President-elect Donald Trump, left, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Photo / AP
Mr Kushner also denies any involvement in New Jersey Governor Chris Christie being removed from being chair of Trump's transition team.
Gov. Christie ultimately sent Mr Kushner's father, Charles Kushner, to jail back when he was a federal prosecutor for tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign donations.
"Six months ago Governor Christie and I decided this election was much bigger than any differences we may have had in the past, and we worked very well together," Mr Kushner said. "The media has speculated on a lot of different things, and since I don't talk to the press, they go as they go, but I was not behind pushing out him or his people."
