Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald Trump, is the de facto President of the United States, according to former White House official.
A report in which details the Trump Administration's response to coronavirus outbreak, said when pandemic exploded out of China, Kushner was second most powerful person in West Wing.
"Jared is running everything. He's the de facto president of the United States," a former White House official told .
The President's son-in-law, according to a Republican cited in the report, kept saying, that markets would go down and Trump would not get re-elected even as the advisors sounded alarm at the coronavirus situation in January itself.
The report said previous chief of staff John Kelly, who'd "marginalized" Kushner, was long gone, and Mick Mulvaney, a "virtual lame duck by that point, let Kushner run free". "Jared treats Mick like the help," a prominent Republican was quoted as saying.
As the World Health Orgsation declared coronavirus a global pandemic, Kushner told President to not declare a national emergency, being apprehensive about reaction of the markets.
US President Donald Trump has, on more than one occasion, made it clear how much he trusts his son-in-law.
Trump had earlier tasked Kushner with brokering peace between Israel and Palestine, completing an environmentally destructive wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, reforming the criminal justice system, and building an "Office of American Innovation," and now in charge of the U.S. coronavirus response, according to a GQ report.
Kushner is also somewhat vindictive and "arrogant". After Donald Trump was acquitted of impeachment charges by US House, Kushner pushed for purging of officials who were not deemed loyal enough during the hearings.
He helped "orchestrate a purge" of national security officials that testified against the president. The cited a source as saying that Kushner provided the White House's personnel director, John McEntee, with a list of names to be fired.
Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus cases in US have surged past 1 million and death toll crossing 55,000.
( With inputs from ANI )