Beware Jared Kushner Since History May Repeat Itself

Jared Kushner, like his father-in-law, Donald John Trump, was born gagging on a golden spoon of immense wealth and privilege. Kushner married Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka, in 2009 at Trump’s National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. when he was 28 years old.

While anti-nepotism laws prevent Kushner from working in the Trump White House in an official paid capacity, in Trump’s first and second regimes, Kushner has served in both official and informal roles. Previously, Kushner acted as a real-estate investor in New York City primarily through his family’s organization, Kushner Companies. He stepped up as head of the business in 2005 after his father, Charles Kushner, was convicted and incarcerated on criminal charges including tax evasion, witness tampering, and illegal campaign donations.

Jared Kushner ventured into the newspaper industry by purchasing The New York Observer in 2006.

Kushner served a primary role in Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Throughout his entire involvement in the regime, he has attempted to justify what critics denounce as his conflicts of interest since he benefits financially and in terms of power from policy proposals that he advocated for under Trump.

Trump appointed Kushner in 2017 as a senior advisor and as director of the Office of American Innovation, whose purpose was to function as a link between the White House and leading U.S. technology companies to supposedly reform the federal bureaucracy to better serve the industry. Both positions Kushner held until Trump left office in 2021.

Though Kushner had no previous experience in international diplomacy, Trump raised him as a chief envoy to the Middle East peace process serving as a virtual shadow Secretary of State. He contributed to the 2020 Trump peace plan, which facilitated negotiations leading to the Abraham Accords and other normalization agreements between Israel and some moderate Arab states.

In his role as advisor, he was influential in convincing Trump to downplay the potential danger of COVID-19 and by alerting the public that the media was simply exaggerating the threat.

Though he has no experience leading a private equity firm, after leaving the White House in 2021, Kushner founded Affinity Partners, which receives most of its funds, then over $2 billion, from the Public Investment Fund, the Saudi government‘s sovereign wealth fund.

During the second Trump regime in 2025, Kushner returned to his informal advisory role. Working with Steve Witkoff, he “serves” as a key intermediary in diplomatic negotiations regarding the Gaza war and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This year, Trump officially appointed Kushner as a Special Envoy for Peace, as more conflicts of interest arise since he is tied to massive amounts of Saudi finances.

Kushner supports active negotiations with Iran ever since Trump’s chosen war on that nation, and he consistently claims that the U.S. is involved in “positive communication” despite contradictory statements from Trump.

Trump and Mussolini’s Sons-In-Law: A Cautionary Tale

While not an elected leader per se, though influential nonetheless, the figure of Galeazzo Ciano (pronounced “Chano”), was tapped by Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini as his chief propagandist and foreign minister from 1936 until 1943.

Ciano was, in fact, Mussolini’s son-in-law. At age 27, he married Mussolini’s eldest child, Countess Edda Mussolini, on April 23, 1930.

Ciano was born into wealth and privilege in Livorno, Italy in 1903. His father, Costanzo Ciano, owned vast tracts of real estate, and a successful newspaper, all which he shared with his son. In addition, the elder Ciano served as an Admiral recognized as a hero in WWI in the Royal Italian Navy. He assisted in the reorganization of the Italian merchant navy soon following the war, and he served as a founding member of the National Fascist Party.

Both father and son joined Mussolini’s 1922 march on Rome before the soon-to-be Il Duce’s installation as Prime Minister.

Some of the elder Ciano’s “service” to the nation centered on exploitation on a massive scale, and even on fraud. He used his great influence in finances and on the stock market to ruthlessly degrade the stock of certain companies, after which he purchased controlling interests. The value of the stock then rose, and he substantially increased his profits.

Lacking anti-nepotism statutes in Italy, Mussolini appointed Galeazzo Ciano as Italian counsel in Shanghai, and in 1935, chose him as minister of press and propaganda. He joined the army and volunteered in the Italian incursion into Ethiopia (1935-1936), returning as a war hero as did his father earlier. The younger Ciano then resumed his ministerial rank and duties under Mussolini.

Even prior to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, provoking World War II, Mussolini decided to side with Germany and enter the conflict by declaring war on France in 1940. Ciano attempted to act as a moderating voice in Mussolini’s ear by warning the Italian leader that their military was completely ill-equipped for any serious and possibly prolonged war effort. Ciano attempted to serve as a voice of reason throughout Italy’s doomed involvement.

His truculent arrogant father-in-law dismissed the younger man’s concerns by assuring him of the army’s readiness for what he predicted would amount to a swift and relatively easy victory.

“Single-mindedness is the virtue of fools,” Ciano later wrote in his diary. In fact, Mussolini became a German puppet once he decided to enter the war.

In Ciano’s diary, he wrote: “I am sad, very sad. The adventure begins. May God help Italy.” He increasingly turned against the war effort, and he even leaked a warning to then neutral Belgium of an imminent German invasion.

Ciano’s prognostication materialized. He actively lobbied Mussolini to withdraw from the war and to sue for peace. Il Duce refused and ultimately fired Ciano and his entire cabinet on February 5, 1943, and offered his son-in-law the post of Italian Ambassador to the Vatican, which he accepted.

After Italian King Victor Emmanuel III’s decision to relieve Mussolini of his duties and to form a new government, Ciano fled the country fearing arrest by the newly installed Italian government.

He and his family had been assured by Nazi leaders in Italy that they would fly them to Barcelona for safety, but airlifted them, instead, to Munich, Germany on Hitler’s direct orders.

The Germans returned Ciano to Mussolini, whom they positioned as provisional leader of the “Italian Social Republic,” a German-controlled territory in Northern Italy. Mussolini summarily ordered the execution of his son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano, on the charge of treason, February 6, 1943, before Mussolini was ultimately rounded up and killed by Italian socialist partisans.

Soon before his killing, he is reported saying that “I got to the top of the world so fast, and now I die just like this.”

When affairs went well, Mussolini considered Ciano a trusted advisor. As conditions increasingly deteriorated, and as Ciano advised a different course – specifically for his father-in-law to sign a separate peace with the allies to spare the country needless loss of life and devastation — Mussolini only distrusted Ciano more and accused him of treason.

While historians have yet to write the final chapters on the Trump presidency, and we do not know precisely what Jared Kushner’s part will be in the complete story, we can refer to the Mussolini/Ciano drama as a cautionary tale that Jared Kushner would do well to consider.