(The Hill) — Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a top White House adviser in his administration, claims in a new book that Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly once shoved his wife, Ivanka Trump, after a tense Oval Office meeting.
According to an excerpt of “Breaking History: A White House Memoir” obtained by The Washington Post, Kushner writes that Kelly had a “Jekyll-and-Hyde” disposition and “only once did Kelly let his mask fully slip.”
“One day he had just marched out of a contentious meeting in the Oval Office,” Kushner writes, according to the Post. “Ivanka was walking down the main hallway in the West Wing when she passed him. Unaware of his heated state of mind, she said, ‘Hello chief.’ Kelly shoved her out of the way and stormed by. She wasn’t hurt, and didn’t make a big deal about the altercation, but in his rage Kelly had shown his true character.”
Kushner added that Kelly later stopped by Ivanka Trump’s office to offer “a meek apology, which she accepted.”
Kelly, however, denied the account, writing in an email to the newspaper that he does not recall the episode and that he would never do something like what Kushner described.
“It is inconceivable that I would EVER shove a woman. Inconceivable. Never happen,” Kelly said. “Would never intentionally do something like that. Also, don’t remember ever apologizing to her for something I didn’t do. I’d remember that.”
Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Kelly have clashed in the past.
The former chief of staff reportedly got frustrated with the couple, questioning what they did during the day and blaming the pair for the president making last-minute changes on policy.
Journalist Vicky Ward claimed last year in her book “Kushner Inc.” that President Trump directed Kelly to “get rid of” Ivanka Trump and Kushner, allegedly telling Kelly that they “didn’t know how to play the game.”
Trump White House officials also said at the time that the former president’s family believed that Kelly allowed Kushner to be exposed to political attacks.
“‘Javanka’ and Kelly are locked in a death match. Two enter. Only one survives,” an unidentified source said at the time.
Kushner also reportedly wrote in his new memoir that Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch told him that there was nothing he could do about the network’s decision to call Arizona for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.