President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner accessed private equity underwriters (PEU) to help the White House's coronavirus response. Politico reported:
The out-of-government team now includes Nat Turner, an entrepreneur and investor who co-founded New York City-based Flatiron Health, as well as David Caluori, a partner at private equity firm Welsh Carson Anderson Stowe, who is voluntarily aiding the effort with the help of a couple other Welsh Carson associates, a person familiar with the team dynamics said.Mr. Caluori rejoined WCAS in October 2019. Piulse 2.0 reported:
Caluori was previously a General Partner in the Healthcare Group. And he is rejoining WCAS after having previously worked at the firm for 9 years. And most recently, he worked at General Atlantic as a Principal focusing on healthcare investments. And he also worked in healthcare investment banking at Piper Jaffray and Jefferies.Why would PEU WCAS mobilize a team to help the White House repair its hapless response to the pandemic?
One possible reason: WCAS founder Russell Carsons sits on the board of NY Presbyterian Health System. He chairs the board's Budget and Finance Committee. Carson has the connections to directly contact the White House on behalf of NY Presbyterian. Consider his political donation history for the last two elections. It's heavily oriented to the Red Team.
This gives Carson the chops to contact the White House and suggest they do more to help New York hospitals. As part of the request Carson could have offered Caluori and a couple other Welsh Carson associates.
Consider what NY Presbyterian's Surgical Chief of Staff wrote on March 20th.
Two days ago Dr. Smith said the hospital was entering its Iwo Jima, its Fallujah. In a previous memo he wrote:
"'Failing to plan is planning to fail'. That will not be us."It was the Trump White House and that's why a team of WCAS PEUs were mobilized . I'm sure Russ Carson wants NY Presbyterian Health System to get the resources they need to navigate this crisis. The question is how the Trump team will reward their PEU help? That can be done directly and/or indirectly to WCAS healthcare affiliates.
The Slim Suit Crowd is here. GQ reported:
The skinny suit, after all, is the standard fit for the twenty- and thirty-something class of management consultants, bankers, real estate brokers, and poor little rich sons; for those who use a combination of youth and modeling software to flatten the humanity out of everything; of those types who, more than a decade after graduation, still think the name of their alma mater belongs at the top of their resume. They are the linguistic artisans of garbage language—putting everything into “buckets”; looking at “takeaways”; asking about “value-add.”
Lord help us all.
Update 7-11-20: Vanity Fair reported "According to news reports and a recent whistleblower complaint,
Kushner’s crack squad of young private sector volunteers—hailing from
venture capital, private equity and consulting firms—has been beset by
crippling incompetence and political cronyism, exacerbating the federal
government’s gross mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis that has
killed more than 70,000 in the United States. “Americans are facing a
crisis of tragic proportions and there is an urgent need for an
effective, efficient and bold response,” a member of Kushner’s team said
in a whistleblower report sent to the House Oversight Committee on
April 8, and which was obtained by the Washington Post. “From my few weeks as a volunteer, I believe we are falling short.”According
to the whistleblower, volunteers on Kushner’s team often lacked
relevant qualifications to help get necessary resources to hospitals
fighting the COVID crisis, with team members who didn’t have sufficient
“health care, procurement, or supply-chain operations” experience
assigned to help obtain and direct supplies to medical workers."
Update 4-29-22: Insider reported "The severity of COVID-19 first struck President Donald Trump after an
older, wealthy New York real-estate-developer friend got sick and was
fighting for his life in the president's hometown hospital"
