What Jared's office actually does
Its briefing is almost comically broad, but the innovation office run by the presidential son-in-law is starting to take shape. Now can it succeed where others have floundered?
By Nancy Scola
07/01/2017 09:12 PM EDT
When a dozen and a half CEOs of the world’s biggest tech companies descended on the White House earlier this month, it turned a spotlight on one of the bigger mysteries of a mysterious White House: They were convened by the Office of American Innovation, the new operation being run by presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner. Announced with much fanfare by the president in March, the office was set up to bring “new thinking and real change” to the country’s toughest problems, according to Trump, in part by drawing on the lessons of the private sector.
Since then, observers have been wondering just what it was, or even if it was. It didn’t help that the sweep of its briefing was almost comically broad, from upgrading federal government’s $82 billion worth of IT, to spurring the creation of new jobs, changing how the country thinks about apprenticeships, and "unleashing American business." Not to mention working with sometimes-antagonist Chris Christie’s commission on tackling the United States' opioid epidemic. (And all this while Kushner is also supposed to be tackling Middle Eastern peace.)
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http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/07/01/jared-kushner-office-american-innovation-000470
