Rapper and fashion designer Ye told Fox News’s Tucker Carlson on Thursday that he believes Jared Kushner’s Middle East initiatives during the Trump administration were intended to make him money.
During his father-in-law’s presidency, Kushner helped orchestrate deals in the Middle East, including a $110 billion arms deal to Saudi Arabia and the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and multiple Arab countries.
“I just think it was to make money,” Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, told Carlson.
“I don’t know, is that too heavy-handed to put in this platform?” Ye added, to which Carlson responded “no.”
Kushner, who served as a senior adviser to former President Trump, after leaving the White House, garnered scrutiny from Democrats for accepting $2 billion for his investment firm from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which is controlled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee announced a probe into the matter in June, noting how Kushner incorporated the firm in January 2021 shortly after Trump exited the White House and secured the Saudi investment six months later.
“These guys might have been really been holding Trump back and being very much a handler right then,” Ye said of Kushner and his brother on Carlson’s show.
“They loved to look at me or look at Trump like we’re so crazy and they are businessmen,” the rapper continued.
Ye embraced Trump during his time in the White House, and the former president held an Oval Office meeting with him in 2018.
“I get along with him very well. I like him. I like his wife,” Trump said of Ye in August 2020.
Kim Kardashian West, Ye’s then-wife who later filed for divorce, had lobbied Trump to grant clemency to several Black Americans imprisoned for nonviolent offenses.
The Hill could not reach Kushner for comment.