The first episode of season two of Axios on HBO featured an interview with Jared Kushner that demonstrated why President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser rarely does media interviews.

Kushner struggled to answer reporter Jonathan Swan’s straightforward but firm questions on a range of issues, from his relationship with foreign leaders to his views on Israel and stance on abortion. Two exchanges stand out, though, as so cringeworthy that no one will forget them anytime soon — one on racism and another on the Trump campaign and Russia.

Kushner won’t say whether birtherism was racist

In one exchange, Swan asked Kushner if he’s “ever seen [Trump] say or do anything that you would describe as racist or bigoted.” Kushner responded by saying “absolutely not” — but Swan had receipts.

“Was birtherism racist?” Swan asked, referring to the racist conspiracy theories about President Obama that Trump rode to political prominence earlier this decade.

“Um, look, I wasn’t really involved in that,” Kushner replied.

“Was it racist?” Swan followed up.

“Like I said, I wasn’t involved in that,” Kushner replied. “Look, I know who the president is and I have not seen anything in him that is racist. So again, I was not involved in that.”

Kushner may not have been directly involved in birtherism, but as Swan quickly noted, he was involved in a presidential campaign in which one of Trump’s signature promises was banning Muslims from the country.

“Would you describe that as religiously bigoted?” Swan asked.

As he did many times throughout the interview, Kushner deflected.

“Look, I think that the president did his campaign the way he did his campaign,” Kushner said.

“But do you wish he didn’t, do you wish he didn’t make that speech?” Swan followed up, referring to the December 2015 speech in which Trump proposed barring Muslims from entering the country.

“Uh, I think he’s here today and I think he’s doing a lot of great things for the country, and that’s what I’m proud of,” Kushner said.

Watch the exchange for yourself:

Jared Kushner deflects when asked if he disapproves of Donald Trump's promotion of birtherism, saying he wasn't involved with it. @dctvny @hbodocs pic.twitter.com/D2wINVHLIx — Axios (@axios) June 2, 2019

Kushner might not contact the FBI if Russia offered help again

In another breathtaking exchange, Swan pressed Kushner on why he and other top Trump campaign officials didn’t inform the FBI about Russia’s efforts to help them during the summer of 2016. He asked Kushner about a meeting at Trump Tower between the Trump campaign and a Kremlin-connected lawyer who was offering dirt on Hillary Clinton.

“On June 8, 2016, you were sent an email with an offer of help for the Trump campaign from the Russian government,” Swan began. “My question to you is why didn’t you pick up the phone and call the FBI? It was an email that said Russia. That said the Russian government was trying to help. Like, why didn’t you do that?”

Kushner tried to portray the Trump Tower meeting as no big deal — “like I said, the email that I got on my iPhone [setting up the meeting] at the time basically said show up at 4. I didn’t scroll down, I never would’ve thought about that email,” he said.

Swan fired back: “It had Russia in the subject line.” (The subject line of the email, which was forwarded to Kushner from Donald Trump Jr., read “FW: Russia - Clinton - private and confidential.”)

But Kushner claimed he was too busy at the time to notice.

“Again, I would get about 250 emails a day and so I — I literally saw ‘show up at 4,’” he said. “I showed up at 4.”

Watch:

Jared Kushner to #AxiosOnHBO on why he took 2016 Trump Tower meeting:



"We're in a place now where people are playing Monday morning quarterback & they're being so self-righteous...I'm running 3 companies, I'm helping run the campaign...I didn't know what the hell it was about." pic.twitter.com/qy6KXD0f2V — Axios (@axios) June 3, 2019

Kushner ultimately said he’s unsure whether he’d contact the FBI if Russians contacted him to request another meeting.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s hard to do hypotheticals, but the reality is is that we were not given anything that was salacious.”

Kushner isn’t sure about a lot of things

Throughout the interview, Kushner attempted to distance himself from the administration he works for. Pressed about his personal position on abortion, Kushner said, “Again, I was not, uh, the person who was elected.”

On the topic of whether he thinks Jews have “a God-given right to what the Israeli government calls Judea and Samaria,” he said, “Well, so, in my job it’s not about what I believe.”

Kushner also punted questions about his close relationship with Mohammed bin Salman — the Saudi crown prince whose regime killed a Washington Post journalist last fall — saying “the discussions I have, with whether it’s, you know, individual Palestinians or with world leaders or with other people, I keep those discussions to myself.”

Perhaps the most honest moment of the interview came when Kushner acknowledged that nepotism played some role in his ascent to being one of the most powerful people in the country.

“The president wouldn’t have been able to get me to work on his campaign had it not been for familial relations, and I guess because I’m related to him, people will make that accusation one way or the other,” Kushner said. “I do think that I’ve got a good track record in all the things I’ve done of, uh, focusing on producing results.”

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