It’s understandable why some on the left are perturbed by reports that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., recently met in secret with Jared Kushner. The president’s son-in-law isn’t an official in his administration, which has prompted questions about what Jeffries hoped to achieve. Even if Kushner were on the White House payroll, a Jeffries-Kushner huddle, at first glance, could be seen as the Democrat who seeks to be the next House speaker wildly misreading the room.
Despite the (again) understandable skepticism, the potential benefits of Jeffries’ parlay with Kushner outweigh the bad optics. Whether it will pay off, though, will depend on several factors, including whether Democrats win, what that majority looks like and what kind of speakership Jeffries intends to have.
Despite the understandable skepticism, the potential benefits of Jeffries’ parlay with Kushner outweigh the bad optics.
The midterms primary season has shown that Democrats largely voted for candidates they believe can best fight back against President Donald Trump’s agenda. They elected a slew of progressive candidates over more mainstream incumbents and continue to express a mistrust of the way things are done in Washington. The clandestine Jeffries-Kushner meeting provoked worries that a Democratic majority might focus on chasing dreams of normalcy and pursue compromise instead of strongly challenging Trump’s lawlessness and his MAGA agenda.
But Jeffries is likely of the belief — as I am — that more information is better than less and that a meeting with an insider from the opposing camp has the potential to yield insight into their hopes, fears and overall priorities. The midterm elections remain months away, but if there’s a Democratic majority, the more work Jeffries can do now to lay the groundwork for the first months of 2027, the better.
Jeffries and Kushner meeting backchannel also makes sense. If this meeting were with a sufficiently high-level Trump administration official, it would have undercut Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and come dangerously close to an admission that Jeffries is likely to run the House next year. Kushner, then, is ideal. No one can claim he speaks for Trump, but he’s close enough to the Oval Office that he can be expected to report what Jeffries said.
The New York Times, which first reported the private meeting, said that “the pair discussed housing, immigration and the high cost of living as potential areas of common ground.” It’s an interesting list of topics that in some other time could be the basis for some progress in a split government. But there’s a difference between an issue sounding like a place for overlap and actual agreement.
After all, Trump already rejected the chance to add his name to a bipartisan housing bill that Congress approved this year. Cracking down on immigrants is so central to his domestic agenda that the odds seem remote of him supporting any immigration measure Democrats could also back. And with tariffs and the war with Iran driving up prices beyond wage growth, the president himself is the greatest contributor to the affordability crisis, which he’s deemed a “hoax.”
Democrats upset at Jeffries’ meeting with Kushner is telegraphing the same capitulation and timidity Democrats displayed during Biden’s presidency. We’ve seen what the “slow and steady” approach to holding Trump accountable looks like; it’s why there’s a second Trump term. Some Democrats are also concerned that any attempt at compromise undercuts the rightful focus on Trump and his family’s blatant corruption and lawlessness.
However, Jeffries meeting Kushner in August doesn’t preclude Democrats, if they’re in power, from subpoenaing him to testify on his business dealings in January. A single meeting shouldn’t be read as Jeffries’ promise to look away from the billions of dollars in questionable investments Kushner and Trump’s children have raked in during the last year and a half. Any majority the Democrats win is likely to be slim, and the House’s investigative functions will be of paramount importance for Democrats hoping for a chance to enact their full agenda in 2028.
Democrats do have reason to worry if Jeffries believes Kushner presented a genuine offer for compromise.
Knowing what Trump’s allies are presenting as viable points of cooperation helps prepare counterarguments for future bad faith offers. Republicans have made an art out of dangling potential deals in front of moderate Democrats to give the appearance of progress, only for them to melt away and be replaced by accusations of Democratic stubbornness. Better for Jeffries to start thinking now about how to counter the narratives that claim his caucus is the impediment to governing.
Democrats do have reason to worry if Jeffries believes Kushner presented a genuine offer for compromise. Kushner reportedly telling people “that if anything bipartisan is to get done with Congress, Mr. Jeffries is the most serious person among Democratic leaders,” as the Times reported, feels too much like heavy-handed flattery for anyone to accept at face value. For now, I’ll assume that Jeffries is smarter than that — and will be the first to admit if my assumption was wrong.
Democrats rightly have no appetite for more of the hesitancy House Democrats displayed during the back half of Trump’s first term. If Jeffries becomes the country’s most powerful Democrat and de facto leader of the party, a “business as usual” approach would be a far worse blunder than meeting with Kushner.
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