Jared Kushner underwent surgery for thyroid cancer while serving as an adviser to then-President Donald Trump and tried to keep his illness secret from him, Kushner wrote in a new book.
In an excerpt of “Breaking History: A White House Memoir” shared by the New York Post on Monday, Kushner wrote that he was given the diagnosis in October 2019 during trade negotiations with China.
“As this high-wire act of trade talks with the Chinese progressed, I had to confront an unexpected and frightening personal problem,” Kushner wrote. “On the morning that I traveled to Texas to attend the opening of a Louis Vuitton factory, White House physician Sean Conley pulled me into the medical cabin on Air Force One. ‘Your test results came back from Walter Reed,’ he said. ‘It looks like you have cancer. We need to schedule a surgery right away.’”
He wrote that he told only his wife Ivanka Trump, colleague Avi Berkowitz, Trump deputy assistant Cassidy Luna and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
“I didn’t tell anyone at the White House ― including the president,” he wrote.
But Trump did eventually find out, asking Kushner behind closed doors the day before his procedure: “Are you nervous about the surgery?” Kushner wrote.
“’How do you know about it?” Kushner said he asked.
“‘I’m the president,’” Trump replied, according to the book. “I know everything.”
Kushner wrote that doctors removed a substantial part of his thyroid, and that he was thankful the cancer was caught early.
Kushner and Ivanka Trump both served as senior advisers to Trump and reportedly helped guide the former president’s desperate scheme to retain power after losing the 2020 election. Testimony to the House Jan. 6 committee has indicated they knew Trump’s claims were lies, but still stood by him.
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