Kushner grilled on Trump’s birtherism claims

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner was grilled in an interview that aired Sunday on HBO about President Trump’s previous claims that former President Obama was not born in America, an idea commonly referred to as “birtherism.”

Kushner repeatedly dodged questions on the topic when pressed by Axios reporter Jonathan Swan.

“Look, I wasn’t really involved in that,” Kushner said, before adding that it “was a long time ago.”

Swan also asked Trump’s son-in-law if Trump had ever said anything racist.

{mosads}“No. Absolutely not,” Kushner answered. “You can’t not be a racist for 69 years then run for president and be a racist.”

He added that he thinks when Democrats label Trump a racist, as many have done, they are “doing a disservice to people who suffer because of real racism in this country.”

Jared Kushner deflects when asked if he disapproves of Donald Trump’s promotion of birtherism, saying he wasn’t involved with it. @DCTVny @HBODocs pic.twitter.com/YTYaDCJJVa

— Axios (@axios) June 2, 2019

“I know who the president is and I have not seen anything in him that is racist,” Kushner said. 

He also defended Trump’s campaign call to ban immigrants from Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

“I think that the president did his campaign the way he did his campaign, Kushner said. “I think he is here today and I think he is doing a lot of great things for the country and that’s what I’m proud of.”