'We'll all be dead by June': Jared Kushner lashed out at a health official after hearing about mask shipments, according to a new book
- Kushner reportedly grew so frustrated about mask shipments last year that he threw a pen at the wall.
- "You f---ing moron," Kushner reportedly said to a health official. "We'll all be dead by June."
- The Washington Post said the scene was detailed in a forthcoming book by two Post reporters.
Jared Kushner lashed out at a public-health official when he learned in late March 2020 that millions of masks wouldn't arrive in the US until June, a forthcoming book says, The Washington Post reported on Monday.
"You f---ing moron," Kushner reportedly said to Robert Kadlec, then an assistant secretary of health and human services, who had purchased 600 million masks as coronavirus infections spiked across the country. "We'll all be dead by June."
The Post said the scene was described in "Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration's Response to the Pandemic That Changed History," a book by its reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta set to be published later this month.
Kushner grew so frustrated that he threw his pen at the wall, the book says, according to the report. At the time, he had taken on greater responsibilities as senior advisor to President Donald Trump, playing an influential role in the White House's COVID-19 response.
The Post reported that the book detailed many more chaotic moments of the Trump administration's coronavirus response, including a time when another Trump aide blew up at Kadlec.
Upset at the administration's rollout of the antiviral treatment remdesivir, Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, reportedly shouted at Kadlec in a phone call, "I'm going to fire your a-- if you can't fix this!"
The reporters wrote that the handling of the pandemic had turned the Trump administration into "a toxic environment in which no matter where you turned, someone was ready to rip your head off or threatening to fire you," according to The Post.
The book is also said to describe an instance in February 2020 when Trump asked officials in the Situation Room whether people with COVID-19 could be sent to Guantánamo Bay.
"Don't we have an island that we own?" Trump reportedly said. "What about Guantánamo?" The idea shocked the officials, who dismissed it, the book reportedly says.