According to Jared Kushner’s upcoming memoir, John F. Kelly, the second White House chief of staff under President Donald Trump, “shoved” Ivanka Trump following an Oval Office meeting.
Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, wrote that Kelly possessed a “Jekyll-and-Hyde” demeanor and often experienced fits of “rage.”
Donald Trump’s son-in-law recalled the incident in “Breaking History: A White House Memoir,” according to The Washington Post, which obtained excerpts from the book and reported the account Wednesday.
“One day he had just marched out of a contentious meeting in the Oval Office,” Kushner wrote. “Ivanka was walking down the main hallway of the West Wing when she passed him. Unaware of his heated state of mind, she said, ‘Hello, chief.’”
Kelly, who was chief of staff from July 2017 to January 2019, was not in the best of moods, though.
According to the Post, Kushner wrote that “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.”
The memoir is set to be published Aug. 23 by HarperCollins’ Broadside Books.
Kushner described Kelly offering a “meek apology” to Ivanka in her second-floor West Wing office an hour later.
The former chief of staff denied the allegation.
Kelly told the Post in an email that he did not “remember” the incident, saying, “I don’t recall anything like you describe.”
“It is inconceivable that I would EVER shove a woman. Inconceivable. Never happen. Would never intentionally do something like that,” he wrote. “Also, don’t remember ever apologizing to her for something I didn’t do. I’d remember that.”
According to Kushner, however, Julie Radford, Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff, was meeting with her and said she heard Kelly delivering the apology.
“It was the first and only time that Ivanka’s staff saw Kelly visit their second-floor corner of the West Wing,” Kushner wrote.
Trump told the Post through a spokesperson that her husband’s account of the episode was accurate.
The report said Kelly believed Kushner and his wife were out to undermine his authority as chief of staff because they were related to the president. Additionally, Kushner accused Kelly of insincerely complimenting Ivanka in public only to denigrate her behind her back.
“Then the four-star general would call her staff to his office and berate and intimidate them over trivial procedural issues that his rigid system often created,” Kushner added. “He would frequently refer to her initiatives like paid family leave and the child tax credit as ‘Ivanka’s pet projects.’”
Details of this incident and more inside the Trump White House will be revealed when the memoir is published next month.
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