Kushner: When you work for Trump ‘you don’t make the waves, he makes the waves’

President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner says in a new interview that “When you work for Trump … he makes the waves.”

Kushner’s interview for a Time magazine cover story released Thursday focused on his role in the White House, in which he has covered a range of issues including U.S.-Mexico border wall construction, trade deals, criminal justice reform and the president’s reelection campaign.

The senior White House adviser, who has played a key role on numerous issues, told the magazine it is “very rare” he provides his opinion to Trump in front of others, saying he will advise when asked but will ultimately help the president execute his decisions.

“One thing you have to remember when you work for President Trump is that you don’t make the waves. He makes the waves,” Kushner said. “Your job is to surf the wave as best as you can every day. And you have to always smile and have a sense of humor with it, because he’s the one who’s got the instinct.”

Kushner acknowledged he had a rough start at the beginning of the administration with a learning curve, but added he hopes “my results speak for themselves.”

“I think there’s a lot more that we can do,” Kushner said. “Hopefully, I’ll get the chance through a second term to continue to put these reforms into place.”

The magazine cover story comes after The New York Times published a profile on Kushner last week that reported his role is shifting more toward his father-in-law’s reelection campaign and away from global issues.

A White House spokesman told the newspaper that his primary focus in the Middle East is “developing a peace plan between the Israelis and the Palestinians,” adding that he “gets involved in other matters where appropriate to further President Trump’s objectives.”

Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager who was put in his position by Kushner, told Time magazine that the president’s son-in-law is “No. 2 after Trump.”

“Nobody has more influence in the White House than Jared,” he said. “Nobody has more influence outside the White House than Jared.”

Not all White House officials see Kushner as an asset, Time noted, with some seeing him as inhibiting the overall goals of the president and Republican Party. Some say his wide range of responsibilities allow him to take credit in areas where the administration is successful and distance himself when it is not.

“Sometimes he comes in, he f—s everything up, and if it works well, he takes credit, [but] if it’s shitty, he just flits away,” a senior White House official told the magazine.