After Trump’s son-in-law gave an expose last week, he is now defending his high school record.
Photo illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/Reuters
Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is furiously trying to object to media coverage of him, but in doing so he has made a blatant admission about his time at Harvard.
Kushner, 45, published a lengthy article on Thursday targeting his profile in the New Yorker published last month, titled “Jared Kushner’s Dollar Diplomacy.”
The president’s son has been scrutinized for his work around the world for the Trump administration, although he has no official government role and continues to conduct personal business.
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump watch as President Donald Trump speaks before the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, in Jerusalem. Kushner worked on peace deals for the Trump administration despite having no government role.
Evan Vucci/Pool via Reuters
In his latest attempt to “get the facts out there,” as he put it, Kushner shared a lengthy message disputing fourteen claims in the article.
But among them, Kushner went so far as to push back on the idea that a gift from his father, Charles Kushner, played a role in his acceptance to Harvard nearly 30 years ago, but his response literally admitted it.
Jared Kushner alongside his father-in-law, President Donald Trump, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, June 18, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque/Kévin Lamarque
“Kushner was admitted to Harvard, after his father pledged $2.5 million, with donations beginning as soon as his son started classes. While in college, Jared began investing in apartment buildings, many in Somerville, just steps from campus,” the article read, and Kushner emphasized in his response.
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“This allegation has been repeated for nearly two decades, but that does not make it true,” Kushner wrote. But a few lines later, he added: “His philanthropy may have played a role in my admission. »
Screenshot of Jared Kushner in the Harvard Yearbook 2003.
Screenshot from Harvard 2003 yearbook
It turns out that Kushner doesn’t dispute the article’s claim at all, suggesting that his family’s giving millions to Harvard may have had an impact, but he has always disputed any suggestion that he wasn’t a great high school student or lacked merit.
Jared Kushner’s post in which he admits that his father’s gifts “may have played a role” in his acceptance to Harvard.
Although Kushner didn’t specifically point out these lines, he was clearly triggered when the New Yorker called him a “middle grader” while he attended the Frisch School, with a family acquaintance saying, “He’s a parody of someone who was given everything.” »
“The claim that I was a mediocre student is contradicted by the record of the time: I was an excellent student, captain of the basketball team, assistant captain of the hockey team, an award-winning debater, and I completed the New York City Marathon while still in high school,” Kushner wrote.
Jared Kushner, pictured with Steve Witkoff at the United Nations on September 23, wrote a lengthy article pushing back against a paper, but in it Kushner admits that his father’s philanthropy “may have played a role” in his acceptance to Harvard.
According to Kushner, the distortion of his record “began with a quote attributed to an administrator at my high school who later said her comments had been distorted. She and her principal explicitly disputed the allegation in the attached letters.”
Kushner graduated from the Frisch School, a private Jewish school in Paramus, New Jersey, in 1999. This year’s tuition for the school is $29,550, not including other fees.
As proof, Kushner shared two letters from 2006, which did not prove he was an exemplary student, but focused on a quote about him as a student that they later wrote that had been misrepresented.
Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff to his left met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on September 5, 2026.
Mikhail Metzel/via REUTERS
One letter was from his former high school administrator, Margot Krebs. She wrote to him that his quote in a book, reported by the Daily News, had been “totally misrepresented,” even though she had not seen the book itself.
“I told him that you had many personal qualities, including individuality, entrepreneurship, and great charisma, that made you a desirable candidate for Harvard,” she wrote 20 years ago.
A 2006 letter from Jared Kushner’s school administrator that he shared while claiming his high school record had been misrepresented.
The other letter he shared Thursday to support his claim that his academic record had been falsified came from Frisch School Principal Kalman Stein, who also raised concerns about the Daily News article about a book by Daniel Golden quoting Krebs.
In it, he reassured Kushner that the school was “quite upset by the inaccurate and misleading content of the article and the discomfort it may have caused you and your family.”
In the letter, Stein said he spoke to the book’s author, but Kushner never came. He also said that if his name had been called, he would have told her that he never talked about students or alumni with unauthorized people, but that he had never met Kushner, had never crossed paths with him and knew nothing about his academic background.
Stein also noted that he told Krebs about his own interview and wrote: “As she recalls, she responded that if you weren’t absolutely at the top of your class, you had special qualities and strengths that should have, and apparently did, make the Harvard admissions people take note and decide to admit you.”
A 2006 letter from Jared Kushner’s school principal that he shared while claiming his high school record had been misrepresented.
As for the suggestion that his father’s multi-million gift helped secure his place at Harvard, Kushner also wrote in his article: “My father’s philanthropy was not limited to Harvard. »
“For more than four decades, he contributed more than $100 million to charitable causes and institutions, including schools attended by members of our family and many institutions with which our family had no personal connection,” he wrote.
In 2025, Charles Kushner was appointed ambassador to France and Monaco by his son’s father-in-law, Donald Trump. The plum post came after Trump pardoned Charles Kushner in 2020, after he pleaded guilty to charges of aiding the filing of false tax returns, retaliating against witnesses and making false statements to the Federal Election Commission, and served two years in prison.
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