Back in March, when the COVID-19 pandemic was hitting New York hard, Jared Kushner reportedly dismissed pleas for the federal government to help out. Vanity Fair reports the senior Trump adviser met with a group of business leaders on March 21 in a meeting where they expected to hear more about the federal government’s pandemic response and details about how they could help with the PPE supply. But, according to the report, the president’s son-in-law told them: “The federal government is not going to lead this response... It’s up to the states to figure out what they want to do.” One attendee reportedly pointed to a CNN article about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s calls for help with supplies, which Kushner dismissed as “CNN bullshit.” Kushner reportedly went on: “Cuomo didn’t pound the phones hard enough to get PPE for his state… His people are going to suffer and that’s their problem.”

A senior administration official disputed the magazine’s account, saying the recollections were “not rooted in reality.”