Jared Kushner shared that he faced a medical scare during his days at the White House.
The 40-year-old, who is a son-in-law and former senior advisor to former President Donald Trump, revealed that he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer while working in the White House in October 2019, according to an excerpt of his memoir provided to The New York Times. In Breaking History: A White House Memoir, Kushner recalled the moment he learned of his diagnosis.
"On the morning that I traveled to Texas to attend the opening of a Louis Vuitton factory, White House physician Sean Conley pulled me into the medical cabin on Air Force One," he wrote, per the outlet. "‘Your test results came back from Walter Reed,' he said. ‘It looks like you have cancer. We need to schedule a surgery right away.'"
Kushner shared that he chose to keep the diagnosis as private as possible. In fact, he said that he initially asked the doctor to keep the news a secret until they could meet in person the next day: "Please don't tell anyone—especially my wife or my father-in-law." (He said he later told his wife Ivanka Trump.)
"This was a personal problem and not for public consumption," he wrote. "I didn't tell anyone at the White House—including the president."
But despite keeping the medical results under wraps, Kushner wrote in his memoir that President Trump found out about his surgery—which required the removal of a "substantial part" of Kushner's thyroid.
"The day before the surgery, Trump called me into the Oval Office and motioned for his team to close the door," he recalled. "‘Are you nervous about the surgery?' he asked," to which Kushner replied, "How do you know about it?"
According to Kushner, the reality star told him, "I'm the president. I know everything. I understand that you want to keep these things quiet. I like to keep things like this to myself as well. You'll be just fine. Don't worry about anything with work. We have everything covered here."
His memoir will be published on Aug. 23.