In conversation with Jared Kushner: Israel-Hamas War, paths forward, macro picture, AI

The episode opens with banter. Sacks describes collecting scalps on Twitter: he tracks people who attacked him over Ukraine and, months later, tweeted that they were wrong.

I keep these receipts of people who attack me on Ukraine.

The hosts call him petty. Sacks calls the habit a deterrent: critics should know they get no free shots.

Asked how his outlook changed, Kushner describes an unplanned path: Livingston, New Jersey, then Harvard and NYU, then taking over his father's real estate business after his father had a legal issue, and later buying a New York media company.

He says he grew up registered as a Democrat, in a home that hosted Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, and became an independent during the Obama years because the party no longer reflected his views.

The turning point, in his telling, was a Springfield, Illinois rally where an organizer told Trump he had broken the arena's attendance record, previously held by Elton John.

congratulations, sir. You just broke the record for the arena for attendance.

Kushner says media friends likened such rallies to Klan conventions, but in the crowd he saw old and young, male and female, white and minority Americans who felt Trump gave them a voice. Weeks earlier, a charity chairman had urged support for Common Core while Trump wanted it ended. That contrast made him question how closed his own view had been.

Asked how the campaign verified that the appeal would scale, he rejects the idea of a methodical plan. People were told that working for Trump would end a Washington career, so hiring was hard, and loyalists such as himself stretched dollars through unconventional data, advertising and event work.

less planned and way more entrepreneurial

He credits Trump personally: without pollsters, Trump held heterodox trade views and moved the polls toward himself, and illegal immigration, Kushner recalls, was not a top-five issue when the campaign began. His own role, he says, was telling Trump the truth, deferring to experts, and taking no pay.

Asked why he appeared after his Lex Fridman interview, Kushner says news reflects one person's selective editing, while podcast listeners want deeper understanding. He says he has declined cable interviews because real issues are more complicated than slogans.

it was a place where you could have real conversations

Sacks frames the Israel-Hamas segment from his reading of events. Israel has formed a perimeter around Gaza City, split the territory north and south, and is bombing entry and exit points of Hamas's tunnel network, apparently aiming to clear the north first. He notes protests in the West and Muslim world, calls Erdogan's statement notably harsh, and asks about the prospects for success and the risk of horizontal escalation.

Kushner says his initial fear was that Israel would react emotionally rather than pragmatically. He judges that Israel has since acted wisely, preparing supply lines and building international support, and notes that the dead and the hostages included American, German, Thai and UK citizens.

Israel would react, emotionally