UPDATE: Trump says Kushner helped convince him to go to war with Iran

At a press conference on Monday evening, President Trump said his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was one of a handful of top advisers who convinced him to launch major combat operations in Iran. The disclosure raises additional questions about the role of Kushner, who is being paid tens of millions of dollars annually by Middle Eastern governments that were reportedly lobbying Trump to attack Iran.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com

Trump: "Based on what Steve and Jared and Pete and others were telling me, Marco is so involved, I thought they were going to attack us"

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 22:04:24 GMT

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“The situation was very quickly approaching the point of no return… based on what Steve and Jared and Pete and others were telling me, Marco is so involved, I thought they were going to attack us,” Trump said, referring to Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Kushner, who has no formal title.

“Within a week, [Iran was] going to attack us, 100 percent. They were ready,” Trump said at a different event Monday. “They had all these missiles, far more than anyone thought, and they were going to attack us.”

Witkoff and Kushner were dispatched by Trump to Geneva to participate in mediation with their Iranian counterparts, in what was described as a last-ditch effort to avoid war. Kushner’s participation violated his pledge not to be involved in foreign policy in a second Trump administration. Instead, Kushner had said he was focused on running his private equity fund, Affinity Partners, which has raised billions of dollars from foreign governments.

Kushner’s largest investor is the Saudi Arabian government, which provided Kushner with $2 billion in funding in 2021. Each year, Saudi Arabia pays Kushner 1.25% of its investment, $25 million, as a “management fee.” Meaning he has received in excess of $100 million from the Saudi government over the last few years.

Notably, “Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made multiple private phone calls to Trump” in February, advocating a U.S. attack,” according to reporting in the Washington Post. Trump’s comments reveal that Kushner used his role in Geneva to push Trump toward the outcome favored by his biggest client. Affinity Partners also received more than $200 million from the UAE. According to CNN, behind the scenes, the UAE was also lobbying Trump to strike Iran.

It is unclear precisely what Kushner told Trump about his mediation session with the Iranians. The Times of Israel, quoting an anonymous administration source, said that Kushner told Trump that Iran was “basically playing games.” According to the source, Kushner told Trump that it would only be possible for Trump to strike an “Obama kind of deal“ with Iran and even that “would take months.”

The claim that Iran was planning an imminent attack against the U.S. — the conclusion that Trump took away from his discussions with Kushner and others — is directly contradicted by U.S. intelligence agencies. Shortly after the war began, “Trump administration officials told congressional staff in private briefings on Sunday that U.S. intelligence did not suggest Iran was preparing to launch a preemptive strike against the United States interests,” according to ABC News. CNN reported that Trump administration officials “acknowledged to congressional staff that Iran was not planning to strike US forces or bases in the Middle East unless Israel attacked Iran first.” Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat on the intelligence committee who receives classified briefings, said, “I saw no evidence that Iran was on the verge of launching any kind of preemptive strike against the United States of America.”