* Jared Kushner has bonded with two ambassadors: Ron Dermer of Israel, according to the Times, and Yousef Al Otaiba of the United Arab Emirates, according to the Times and another profile in Politico.“He is in almost constant phone and email contact with Otaiba, whom he met last June on the campaign through a mutual friend, the billionaire real estate investor Tom Barrack, one of Trump’s closest friends and the chair of his inaugural committee,” Politico reported.Trump has tasked Kushner with brokering a Middle East deal, and his friendship with Oitaba jibes with Netanyahu’s agenda of making peace from the “outside in” — i.e., forging ties first with Sunni Arab states, growing closer to Israel because of a shared apprehension of Iran. Kushner also secretly talked Israel with Haim Saban during the campaign, Politico reported. Kushner has long admired the Israeli-American entertainment mogul and backer of all things Hillary Clinton. It’s not clear why Kushner was reaching out to Saban — it didn’t diminish Saban’s support for Trump’s rival.Kushner has also met with Henry Kissinger, who as secretary of state in the 1970s laid the groundwork for Israel-Egypt peace. Kissinger left the meeting with little clarity about Kushner’s actual role.“It’s not clear to me in what way he’s in charge of it, whether he’s in charge of it with supervision from the White House, or whether he’s supposed to be the actual negotiator,” Kissinger told Politico. “Nor has it been defined what they’re negotiating about.”— Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to and speechwriter for Trump (and his opening speaker at campaign rallies) earned two major profiles, in the Times and The Washington Post.Miller, 31, the child of liberal Jewish Democrats from California who was first drawn to conservatism because he favored gun rights, appears to be well liked in Trumpland. Stephen Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, told the Times that Miller is “a loyal and faithful soldier in the Trump movement, a warrior for the working class.”Arch-conservative David Horowitz launched Miller’s career by introducing him to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who was the first senator to endorse Trump and now is the US attorney general.“One of the things that struck me when I became a conservative was that conservatives don’t have any fight,” Horowitz told the Post. “They don’t have any stomach for it. … Stephen Miller had that from the get-go.”Miller also blitzed this weekend’s Sunday shows, and it wasn’t so pretty.My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017