President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, was working with Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to negotiate a new nuclear agreement with Iran when the U.S. began its bombing campaign. They were close to an agreement, but Trump went to war anyway, said a report from The Guardian.
It's prompting one national security analyst to question why the two are trying again to negotiate if they weren't able to succeed the first time around.
In a BlueSky thread, Marcy Wheeler questioned why folks are focused on things like the 25th Amendment and impeachment, instead of asking about Kushner, who doesn't even work for the White House and has his own economic interest in continuing the war. The New York Times reported last month that while he was negotiating a peace deal, he was also trying to raise money from Gulf states.
"NO ONE is really holding the GOP accountable for letting Trump send his son-in-law on a diplomat's errand, EVEN AFTER his incompetence led to war, or the fact that he has rid his White House of either experts or grown-up advisors," wrote Wheeler.
She added that there's also "the fact that they let him go to war without fully briefing before and during. It's that accountability that matters, one way or another. And impeachment/25A can be a tool to force that accountability."
Wheeler said that House and Senate Minority Leaders Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) are "intent" on demanding a vote over the War Powers Act.
"That would have the effect of peeling off a few members in both [houses]. But you need a larger narrative that GOP refusal to do its job enabled a catastrophic war," Wheeler added.
The comment comes as Trump posted on Truth Social that, despite closing the Strait of Hormuz and causing a possible global economic collapse, he believes Iran has "no cards." He called the closure of the strait "extortion."
The Guardian reported a few weeks after the bombing began that one Gulf diplomat, with direct knowledge of the negotiations, is furious with Witkoff and Kushner’s behavior. That person described them as “Israeli assets that had conspired to force the US president into entering a war from which he is now desperate to get himself out of."
Now, Vice President JD Vance is en route. Vance never wanted the war to begin with, so he might have more success than Kushner and Witkoff.
Meanwhile, inflation has risen above the level it was at when Trump took office in Jan. 2025.


