As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles<\/strong> to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.<\/p>\n By <\/span>Annie Karni<\/span> and Maggie Haberman<\/span><\/p>\n WASHINGTON \u2014 Making the rounds promoting his new memoir, Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Donald J. Trump, this week ran into the question he has managed for months to avoid commenting on publicly: Did he agree with Mr. Trump\u2019s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen?<\/p>\n \u201cI think that there\u2019s different words,\u201d Mr. Kushner told the talk show host Megyn Kelly during a friendly interview on SiriusXM. He added, \u201cI think there\u2019s a whole bunch of different approaches that different people have taken, and different theories.\u201d<\/p>\n Pressed to say whether Mr. Trump lost, Mr. Kushner demurred. \u201cI believe it was a very sloppy election,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that there\u2019s a lot of issues that I think if litigated differently may have had different insights into them.\u201d<\/p>\n In reality, the words that election officials have used to describe the 2020 contest are \u201cthe most secure in American history,\u201d and judges across the country rejected nearly all of the several dozen lawsuits that allies of Mr. Trump filed alleging fraud.<\/p>\n Mr. Kushner\u2019s reluctance to concede as much reflected the contortions he is now attempting as he tries to sell a book whose success hinges on his close ties to Mr. Trump. At the same time, he is seeking to keep his distance from the lies and misdeeds that paved the way for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.<\/p>\n Like the memoir itself, titled \u201cBreaking History,\u201d the task involves a highly selective narrative that casts Mr. Kushner as a young star getting things done in the White House without getting his hands dirty.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore I came into office,\u201d the unelected Mr. Kushner said on Tuesday, settling into the \u201cFox & Friends\u201d couch, the \u201cconventional thinking\u201d had been that there could never be peace between Israel and Arab nations \u201cuntil you have peace with the Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n In that interview, Mr. Kushner, who was a senior adviser in the Trump White House, credited himself with helping to bring an \u201coutsider\u2019s point of view\u201d to the world\u2019s intractable problems.<\/p>\n In another interview, he noted that his father-in-law had \u201casked me to take lead on building the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n During a virtual book event, Mr. Kushner even suggested he might be immortal, saying that he had prioritized exercising since leaving the White House because his generation could be \u201cthe first generation to live forever.\u201d<\/p>\n When it comes to Jan. 6 and the election lies that spurred the riot, Mr. Kushner is less sure-footed. In the interview with Ms. Kelly, he labored to defend Mr. Trump\u2019s feverish obsession with the 2020 election.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s happened over the last year is that there has been a debate that\u2019s been badly needed in this country about election integrity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2022\/08\/27\/us\/politics\/27dc-kushner-1\/merlin_165816372_04079aa5-e325-47b1-a153-ae801a9fb814-articleLarge.jpg\")
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