Inside Jared Kushner’s Coronavirus Research: A Wide Net on a Giant Facebook Group

Just before midnight Wednesday, a doctor asked a group of fellow emergency room physicians on Facebook how they would combat the escalating coronavirus outbreak.

“I have direct channel to person now in charge at White House,” Kurt Kloss wrote in his post.

The next morning, after hundreds of doctors responded, Kloss explained why he sought the suggestions: Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, had asked him for recommendations.

Kloss, whose daughter is married to Kushner’s brother, sent Kushner 12 recommendations Thursday morning. 

The Facebook crowd-sourcing exercise showed how Trump‘s team is scrambling for solutions to confront the outbreak after weeks of criticism for the administration's sluggish response, a shortage of tests and the president’s own rhetoric downplaying the pandemic. It is now expected to consume the final year of Trump's first term and threaten his campaign for a second term.