Jared Kushner Has Some Things to Say About Data

Unfortunately, Jared Kushner has been brought on board to help with the Trump administration’s response to the covid-19 pandemic. Yes, that’s right, the same Jared Kushner who, not even a month ago, was using his brother’s father-in-law to crowdsource advice on how to handle the virus from a Facebook group of ER physicians. It’s concerning, though not at all surprising, that Kushner’s process for making decisions surrounding a global pandemic resembles the same process I use to get recommendations for a new face wash.

During today’s briefing, Kushner came up to the podium (always a mistake) and delivered some comments which sounded like they came from a teenager trying to bullshit his way through his part of a group project which he didn’t start working on until half an hour before the class began.

But, please, don’t take my word for it.

“What the President asked is that all of the recommendations that we make be based on data. He wanted us to be very rigorous, to make sure we were studying the data, collecting data… A lot of things in this country were happening very quickly, and we wanted to make sure that we were trying to keep updating our models and making sure that we were making informed decisions and informed recommendations to him based on the data that we were able to collect and put together.”

For those of you who weren’t counting, Kushner said the word data four times in approximately 20 seconds. And yet, somehow, he never managed to mention any specifics at all about this elusive “data”… which makes me question whether he’s seen any of this “data,” or whether this so-called “data” even exists. (I’ll stop with the quotation marks around the word data, I’ve made my skepticism clear by now.)

Somehow, Kushner continues.

“The President wanted to make sure that we had the best people doing the best jobs, and making sure that we had the right people focused on all of the things that needed to happen to make sure that we can deliver in these unusual times for the American people.”

Again, it would actually be impossible for these comments to be any more vague and useless. Who ARE these “best people” apparently doing “the best jobs” and can Jared tell us literally any of their names? And what are the things they plan to deliver to the American people “in these unusual times”? Because a $1200 check is not going to cut it.

The wildest part of this entire video is actually the first sentence. What on earth would their recommendations be based on if not actual data?