Advisers to Donald Trump Jr. say a Wednesday report claiming tensions are building between President Donald Trump’s eldest son and son-in-law Jared Kushner is unequivocally false.
Vanity Fair special correspondent Gabriel Sherman reported Wednesday that Trump Jr. and Kushner, a senior White House adviser, are locked in an “escalating cold war” for control over President Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign. An anonymous source purportedly told Sherman that “Jared wants to take control of the campaign” headed up by Brad Parscale and has sought to clip the wings of Tommy Hicks Jr., the co-chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and a Trump Jr. ally.
“None of this is true,” RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told Sherman via email. “The president’s family, the campaign and RNC couldn’t be working any better together. This is a total team effort to re-elect the president and Tommy is an integral part of it.”
Sherman further alleges special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into now-debunked collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia put a strain on Trump Jr. and Kushner’s relationship. One so-called “Republican close to the White House” purportedly told the Vanity Fair reporter that the pair “really dislike each other” and Trump Jr. suspects Kushner leaked details of his Trump Tower meeting in July 2016.
Shortly after the report’s publication, Trump Jr.’s team came out swinging against the allegations in a series of tweets.
“If there’s a single serious reporter covering the WH that believes a single word that Gabe Sherman “reports” please step forward,” wrote Trump Jr. “More fake news bullshit trying to sow discord because they’re scared of the machine we’ve created to get @realDonaldTrump re-elected in 2020!”
When Sherman replied directly to Trump Jr.’s tweet asking what specific facts he disputes, Andrew Surabian, one of the two seasoned Republican communications specialists advising the president’s eldest son, jumped in to respond.
“I’m having trouble finding a single factual point besides Don and Jared being brother-in-laws in your entire hack story Gabe. Is that specific enough for you?” Surabian began.
In a subsequent tweet, Surabian disputed Sherman’s claim that a Trump Jr. adviser sent an email stating, “We need to clean this up” in reference to a tweet about Sen. Kamala Harris’s (D-CA) race. “Gabe your story claims you were “briefed” on an email from a Don Adviser (There’s only 2 of us, me & @arthurschwartz) regarding the Kamala tweet. Does that mean you wrote about it without actually confirming the existence of the email? Because newsflash, no emails exist,” Trump Jr.’s spokesman said.
“Gabe is a cancer to journalism & a stain on his colleagues in the press corp. I don’t know a single reporter in DC who thinks otherwise either,” he added in a separate tweet. Sherman did not respond publicly to Surabian or fellow Trump Jr. adviser Arthur Schwartz when challenged on the purported email exchange.
A White House official dismissed the Vanity Fair report, telling Daily Mail White House correspondent David Martosko: “Gabe Sherman has yet to even accidentally report something that has been accurate. Of course this most recent report is false.”
Sherman is the author of the 2014 biography on Fox News CEO Roger Ailes titled The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News – and Divided a Country. The book was adapted into a critical drama miniseries and premiered on Showtime June 30th. According to Nielsen Media Research, the first episode was a huge ratings flop despite featuring A-list Hollywood stars such as Russell Crowe, Naomi Watts, Sienna Miller, and Seth Macfarlane.
Sherman previously reported White House officials considered the possibility of shifting then-Chief of Staff John Kelly to the Department of Veterans Affairs, a move which never ended up occurring. Months ahead of the Mueller report’s release, Sherman published a story entitled, Trump Is Screaming. He’s So Mad at Rudy”: Giuliani’s Fate Is Uncertain After Botched Interviews – in which he claimed, citing unnamed sources, “a debate is playing out inside the West Wing over Giuliani’s future.”
Giuliani still remains the president’s lawyer, even after the special counsel’s investigation has concluded. And in January 2019, the Vanity Fair journalist reported once again, citing anonymous sources, that “There’s a revolt against Parscale” as 2020 campaign manager. Months later, Parscale is still leading the campaign.
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