A slew of media reports say President-elect Donald Trump thinks very highly of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and takes his advice on central decisions.
"Over the months, Trump relied on Kushner's advice to make changes at the top of the campaign, craft key speeches and think through senior White House appointments," wrote NPR.
The two men "share a trust and a bond that are real," the news outlet said. While anti-nepotism laws may prevent Kushner from assuming a formal position in the White House, he will "likely have great sway in the Trump White House."
NPR, like other outlets, raised the possibility that Kushner was the person behind the demotion of Chris Christie from his senior role in Trump's entourage – purportedly because Christie was the prosecutor who put Kushner's father, Charles Kushner, in federal jail, for a blackmail scheme against Charles Kushner's brother.
"In an ever-shifting organization chart of friends and advisers," the New York Times wrote Saturday, Kushner "has been the lone constant," who has "emerged as the closest thing to a steadying influence, injecting optimism, playing down controversies and reinforcing Mr. Trump’s perceptions, worldview and instincts," wrote the Times.
Both of Trump’s most senior advisers, Rience Priebus, his new chief of staff, and Stephen Bannon, his chief strategist, "seek Mr. Kushner’s advice routinely, considering his buy-in almost a prerequisite for their proposals to Mr. Trump, two senior Trump officials said." The Times added that in deference to Mr. Kushner, the transition team delayed announcing the two men’s appointment until after the Jewish sabbath last weekend.
The Financial Times called Kushner "a single-minded operator with a capacity for filial piety that is second to none", citing sources familiar with him. “He is the ultimate family man,” Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, a Jewish chaplain at Harvard who met Kushner when he was a freshman and has kept in touch with him, told FT. “There is nothing he wouldn’t do for family. His loyalty to family is supreme in life.”