Kushner, however, is less circumspect when it comes to deal-making. As Politico reported last month, Kushner was befuddled by the process of working with a local councilman in order to re-zone part of his company’s Brooklyn property. The councilman “had to explain to him, ‘If you’re going for a residential re-zoning, I have to approve it.’ The reaction was, ‘Oh, interesting.’” His flashy bid for the Observer wasn’t much different. Kushner, who had less experience in publishing than he did in real estate, brought in a revolving door of editors and talent to try to inject life back into the paper. What it resulted in, according to former employees, was a complete lack of direction and depressed morale.

“He’s impulsive. He was constantly trying new things and new approaches,” the former reporter who told me about his bid for the paper added. “Every two months there was a new edict—quotas on the number of blog posts we had to write; launching a new vertical on tech; hiring different Web editors. It was like being in a boat that is constantly shifting directions and it’s never really clear where it’s pointing.”

“I don’t think he’s a diabolical mastermind. He’s an intellectual lightweight.”

Another former employee said it was very clear he was in over his head to people on staff, and had no real interest in the paper other than what it could do for his status. “There was one meeting he showed up to and one person asked him what was his favorite story that the paper had run recently,” she said. “He had to think about it for a very long time in order to remember anything he’d read. He very obviously didn’t read it.”

That’s not to say he didn’t care about story selection. A number of former employees have noted that Kushner often had a hand in nixing certain stories if they involved his friends or launching investigations that could advance his own interests. Sometimes that meant following up on an issue that Kushner found personally troubling, like the fact that the city decided to make the Park Avenue Tunnel one way. “He became obsessed with it because he thought it was a bad idea, so he had an intern write the story,” the employee who called him “impulsive” told me. When the story wasn’t negative enough, he had another reporter write a follow-up. A source close to Kushner noted that publishers often pass story ideas down to reporters. That is a practice not terribly out of the ordinary.

What irked his reporters as much was pullbacks they saw under his leadership. One year, the office holiday party, which took place at swanky restaurants around Manhattan in the years before Kushner arrived, was ultimately moved to its conference room, where cheese platters and wine were set up. Kushner did show up to toast the staff. (A source close to Kushner denied cutbacks. The holiday party has returned during the tenure of current editor Ken Kurson.) “I don’t think he’s a diabolical mastermind,” one of the former reporters told me. “He’s an intellectual lightweight. He ate it on his first real-estate deal and with the paper. He thought it would work out because he thought he had the golden touch.”

Her former colleague was blunter: “It’s dangerous to have someone who thinks he’s so much smarter than he is put in a large position of power,” he said. “It was dangerous to have him in charge of a weekly newspaper.” Last month, the Observer announced it was no longer going to offer print editions at all.

The Jewish community has had a bit more of a nuanced take on Kushner, who grew up going to day school and observing Shabbat (which he still does, with Ivanka, who converted before they got married, and their children). Some have expressed relief that a Jewish adviser to the president, whose campaign was often accused of racist dog whistles and whose whose campaign executive was accused of stoking anti-Semitism, will also have Trump’s ear. (In his Forbes interview, Kushner defended his father-in-law and his campaign. “Trump has disavowed their support 25 times. He’s renounced hatred, he’s renounced bigotry, and he’s renounced racism,” he said. “You can't not be an anti-Semite for 69 years and all of a sudden become an anti-Semite because you’re running.”) Others have their doubts about whether Kushner will put his faith before his father-in-law. “He would not be the guy where you’d be like, ‘Oh, thank God he’s there,’ the source who has known Kushner since adolescence recently told me, in talking about his faith and the Jewish community’s reaction to his new role. “He wouldn’t be a first- or second- or third-round draft pick.”