Kushner Admitted Trump Pushed ‘Birtherism’ Because He Knew GOP Voters Were Stupid Enough To ‘Buy It’ [Report]

A report claims that Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, once admitted that Trump championed “birtherism” not because he believed it but because he knew that Republicans were stupid enough to believe it. According to the website GQ, Kushner once implied in a conversation with the former editor of a news website he once owned that his billionaire real-estate father-in-law did not believe in “birtherism,” but he championed it as part of a strategy to win the support of the anti-Obama GOP voter base and get elected as the U.S. president.

“Birthers,” as believers in “birtherism” are known, claim that former President Barack Obama was not qualified to be president because he was not born in the U.S. Most believe that Obama was born in Kenya, his father’s native country in East Africa.

Trump was at the forefront of the birther movement during President Barack Obama’s presidency. He was one of the most vocal right-wing leaders who stirred up the anti-Obama GOP voter base with claims that Obama was born in Kenya.

Trump demanded that Obama produce his birth certificate to prove his claim that he was born in Hawaii, U.S.

When Obama eventually produced his birth certificate, the leaders of the birther movement insisted that the certificate was a forgery and they continued stirring up the nativist GOP voter base against the Obama administration by promoting complex conspiracy theories about how Obama and Hawaii public officials conspired to produce a fake birth certificate. Some even alleged that some people who obtained insider information about the conspiracy were murdered to prevent them from coming out as whistleblowers.

But according to GQ, Kushner once admitted that Trump only cynically exploited the birther movement as a means to achieving his political goals, which was to make it to the White House. He adopted the strategy, according to Kushner, because he knew that Republican voters were “stupid” enough to “buy it.”

Kushner allegedly made the shocking claim in a conversation with Elizabeth Spiers, the former editor-in-chief of the New York Observer which Kushner bought in 2006. Spiers was discussing with Kushner about how the news outlet could properly cover Trump’s birther claims that Obama was not born in the U.S.

Kushner reportedly dismissed Spiers’ concerns, saying that Trump did not really believe in the birther conspiracy theory.

“He doesn’t really believe it, Elizabeth. He just knows Republicans are stupid and they’ll buy it.”

#Kushner: #Trump ‘knows #Republicans are stupid’ https://t.co/zhb5wUcsqI

— pink indian (@pink_indian_) May 31, 2017

Spiers served as the Observer’s editor-in-chief after Kushner bought the newspaper for $10 million in 2006 and discontinued its print edition to focus on the website. Spiers reportedly revealed the conversation he had with Kushner during an interview with a conservative blogger on Facebook, according to Newsweek.

Spier’s claim that Kushner, probably Trump’s most trusted adviser, once admitted that Trump had deceived his supporters and thought that they were stupid is the latest in a series embarrassing revelations by respected journalists who had spoken with members of Trump’s family before he became president.

James Dodson, a golf journalist, recently claimed that Trump’s son, Eric, once told him that the family business did not rely on American banks for funding during the recession because the family business was getting “all the funding we need out of Russia.”

“Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”

Journalists who attended a forum for real estate investors in 2008 also recalled that Donald Trump Jr. admitted that the family business was receiving a disproportionate amount of total funding from Russian investors.

“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets… We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

The statements by his sons appeared to contradict Trump’s insistence that he has no business and financial links with Russia.

Kushner is currently the focus of ongoing investigation into Trump organization’s alleged ties to Russia. Kushner allegedly contacted and met with Russian officials and Putin allies to discuss setting up a secret back-channel for direct communication with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

[Featured Image by Debbie Hill/Getty Images]