Black people must ‘want to be successful’ Jared Kushner says

President Donald Trump‘s policies can fix what black people are ‘complaining about,’ White House adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner said Monday morning on ‘Fox & Friends.’

‘But he can’t want them to be successful more than they want to be successful,’ Kushner said. 

Kushner was talking to the trio of hosts about his sit-down with rapper Ice Cube, who has pitched his ‘Contract with Black America’ to members of both political parties.  

White House adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner said President Donald Trump is solving problems Black people are ‘complaining about.’ ‘But he can’t want them to be successful more than they want to be successful,’ Kushner said 

Jared Kushner (right) made the comment Monday morning on 'Fox & Friends,' and took heat online for sounding out-of-touch. Kushner was telling the 'Fox & Friends' hosts about his meeting with Ice Cube

Jared Kushner (right) made the comment Monday morning on ‘Fox & Friends,’ and took heat online for sounding out-of-touch. Kushner was telling the ‘Fox & Friends’ hosts about his meeting with Ice Cube 

President Donald Trump waves as he baords Air Force One Monday for rallies in Pennsylvania. Trump pushed out a 'Platinum Plan' for black America, which Jared Kushner said Ice Cube helped make better

President Donald Trump waves as he baords Air Force One Monday for rallies in Pennsylvania. Trump pushed out a ‘Platinum Plan’ for black America, which Jared Kushner said Ice Cube helped make better 

Ice Cube sat down with Jared Kushner to discuss his 'Contract with Black America,' which calls for banking, prison and police reform, the creation of 'baby bonds' and the removal of Confederate monuments

Ice Cube sat down with Jared Kushner to discuss his ‘Contract with Black America,’ which calls for banking, prison and police reform, the creation of ‘baby bonds’ and the removal of Confederate monuments 

Attorney Ben Crump, who's had the families of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor as clients, said the Kushner 'speaks as if Black people are lazy complainers who don't want to be successful.' Crump called this 'blatant DISRESPECT'

Attorney Ben Crump, who’s had the families of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor as clients, said the Kushner ‘speaks as if Black people are lazy complainers who don’t want to be successful.’ Crump called this ‘blatant DISRESPECT’ 

Kushner spoke critically of how companies and celebrities showed their support for Black Lives Matter in the aftermath of the ‘George Floyd situation,’ as the White House aide put it.   

‘And you saw a lot of people who were just virtue signaling, they’d go on Instagram and cry, or they would put a slogan on their jersey or write something on a backetball court and quite frankly that was doing more to polarize the country than bring people forward,’ Kushner said. 

‘You solve problems with solutions,’ Kushner said. 

‘And one of the things I respect about Ice Cube is he actually went and said, “OK, what are the policies that are needed to solve the problems that everyone is complaining about?”‘ Kushner continued.  

Kushner sang a similar tune back in August, when he complained about Lebron James and other NBA player boycotting playoff games on the heels of police shooting Jacob Blake, a black man, in front of his children. 

‘What I’d love to see from the players in the NBA – again they have the luxury of taking a night off from work, most Americans don’t,’ Kushner said. ‘I’d like to see them start moving into concrete solutions that are productive.’   

President Donald Trump’s son-in-law said he connected with Ice Cube through mutual friends.

‘It was a really in-depth and respectful policy discussion – there were some things we didn’t agree on, but there were a lot of things we did agree on,’ Kushner said. ‘I think he helped make our plan better and we appreciated it.’ 

Ice Cube’s plan – called the ‘Contract with Black America’ – asks for banking, prison and police reform, and federally-funded ‘baby bonds’ starting at $1,000 for black children.  

Ice Cube also wants Confederate statues removed. 

Trump has railed against Black Lives Matter activists for tearing down statues and has pushed to keep the names of Confederates on military bases.

Trump has rolled out a ‘Platinum Plan’ for black America, with the aim to create 3 million new jobs over four years, increasing access to capital by $500 billion. 

Part of the plan calls for making immigration to the U.S. more difficult to protect American jobs. 

Kushner was knocked around online for being out-of-touch with his comment that black people must want to be successful for Trump’s plans to work for them. 

George Conway, the husband of former White House official Kellyanne Conway, mocked Jared Kushner Monday morning saying, 'I think he really wants another billboard'

George Conway, the husband of former White House official Kellyanne Conway, mocked Jared Kushner Monday morning saying, ‘I think he really wants another billboard’ 

Kushner came from a wealthy New York family and is estimated to be worth around $800 million. 

‘Jared Kushner speaks as if Black people are lazy complainers who don’t want to be successful. This blatant DISRESPECT shows he has NO understanding of the Black community and its challenges that have spanned centuries. You can’t “fix” these problems from this level of ego,’ tweeted Ben Crump, the civil rights attorney who’s worked for the families of Floyd, Breonna Taylor and shooting victim Blake.

George Conway, the husband of former White House official Kellyanne Conway, tweeted, ‘I think he really wants another billboard.’ 

The Lincoln Project, a Republican-led anti-Trump group, put up a billboard in Manhattan pillorying Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s coronavirus response. 

‘Jared Kushner – son and husband of privilege – has a message for the black community: You would have more wealth if you just wanted it more,’ commented Jason Kander, a former Democratic U.S. Senate candidate from Missouri. 

The Democratic National Committee also issued a statement. 

‘According to the Trump administration, when African Americans find fault in policies that have led to historic unemployment for Black families, an explosion of racial inequities and wealth gaps, and an uncontained global pandemic that has taken the lives of over 45,000 Black Americans, it means that we just don’t want to be successful badly enough,’ said DNC spokesman Brandon Gassaway. ‘In the eyes of this White House, demanding accountability for the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake, and countless other Black men and women who have lost their lives at the hands of law enforcement is just “complaining.”‘ 

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany pushed back on the criticism and defended Kushner, Bloomberg reported. 

‘It’s disgusting to see internet trolls taking Senior Advisor Jared Kushner out of context as they try to distract from President Trump’s undeniable record of accomplishment for the black community,’ McEnany said, pointing to Trump’s signing of the bipartisan criminal justice reform bill, the First Step act, and bumping up funding for historically black colleges and universities. 

Ice Cube and other rappers, including 50 Cent, Lil Pump and Kanye West, have been criticized for working with or endorsing Trump. 

50 Cent came out against Trump’s Democratic rival Joe Biden’s tax plan, saying, ‘I don’t want to be 20 Cent.’  

In a profanity-laden endorsement of Trump, Lil Pump also said he didn’t want his taxes to go up. 

Kushner met with West, who’s visited Trump at the White House in the past, as he launched his own bid for the White House. 

50 Cent appeared to play take-backsies with his Trump endorsement tweeting Saturday, ‘Fu*k Donald Trump, I never liked him.’ 

He shared a video of his ex-girlfriend, comedian Chelsea Handler, telling ‘Tonight Show’ host Jimmy Fallon how disappointed she was that he was pro-Trump. 

‘I had to remind him he was a black person, so he can’t vote for Donald Trump and he shouldn’t be influencing an entire swath of people who may listen to him because he’s worried about his own personal pocketbook,’ Handler told Fallon. 

She said she hadn’t heard from 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson.  

‘I am willing to seal the deal in more ways than one if he changes his mind and publicly denounces Donald Trump,’ she said. ‘I might be willing to go for another spin, if you know what I’m talking about.’ 

Jackson also included, ‘A what – another spin?’ in his tweet. 

Biden needs black voters, in particular black men, to show up this cycle, as a diminished turnout among black Americans in 2016 spelled doom for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. 

Four years ago, the black turnout rate declined for the first time in 20 years, Pew Research Center reported, going from a record-high of 66.6 per cent in 2012, when President Barack Obama was up for re-election, down to 59.6 per cent when Clinton topped the ballot.  

Trump’s pitch to black voters in 2016 was, ‘what the h*** do you have to lose?’ 

In 2020, he points to the First Step act and funding HBCUs, while touting Biden’s connection to the 1994 crime bill, which the former senator and vice president has said was a mistake. 

Biden and the Democrats have pointed to Trump’s dog-whistling of racists, such as his refusal to remove Confederate names from military bases, his indirect answer on white supremacy at the first presidential debate and his response to the Charlottesville ‘Unite the Right’ demonstration in 2017, which brought KKK members, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists together and left one counter-protester dead.