Jared Kushner Gives "Forbes" Rare Interview.
BERMAN: We have some breaking new on the Donald Trump transition. Dr. Ben Carson tweeted moments ago, "An announcement is forthcoming about my role in helping to make America great again." We don't know exactly what that role will be but the speculation was that he was offered the job of HUD secretary, Housing and Urban Development. And you think he wouldn't be tweeting about helping make America great again unless he was going to accept that offer. So, apparently, an announcement is forthcoming on that. Stay tuned. Besides Ben Carson, the most intriguing figure of the 2016 campaign, who doesn't give interviews, just gave an interview. How much does Donald Trump count on his son-in-law, Jared Kushner? So much that he now says that he might rely on the 35-year-old to help negotiate Mideast peace. Jared Kushner was a, if not the, central figure in the campaign. He spoke extensively to Forbes editor, Steven Bertoni, who joins us now. Steve, thanks so much for being with us.</s>STEVEN BERTONI, SENIOR EDITOR, FORBES: Thanks for having me.</s>BERMAN: Jared Kushner made a point of saying in your interview that he didn't give interviews. So why is he giving one?</s>BERTONI: I think there was so much press about him, even before the Chris Christie stuff, with stories in "Esquire" and "Vanity Fair," kind of writing big pieces on him, but they never quoted him. I think after the Chris Christie stuff, when he was on the cover of all the newspapers, he decided to have his voice in the public market, and he spoke to us.</s>BERMAN: He said the Chris Christie thing wasn't him. What was him was bringing in all kinds of new high-tech campaign practices to this. What did he do?</s>BERTONI: He started from scratch. He's a real estate mogul, but he has a lot of tech investment. He wasn't an expert, so he said, how can I win an election? Donald Trump is a unique non-traditional candidate. How do we build a non-traditional campaign to make this work? Like an entrepreneur, he asked a lot of questions. He had no assumptions. And made -- they did things. They moved fast, broke things, made a lot of mistakes, but then they'd kill, and then whatever would work, they'd scale. They treated it like a consumer start-up, and that delivered -- helped deliver Trump to the White House. It wouldn't work with anyone else. It was custom made for someone like Trump, who was so nontraditional, so Twitter focused, so outside the normal bounds.</s>BERMAN: He basically said it looked like the "money ball" of politics, for people that aren't baseball fans and don't know on base percentages. It's basically highest return on lowest investment.</s>BERTONI: Yeah, they were saying that -- he went to the Electoral College. They said every Electoral College vote is worth the same amount of money, but you can buy them, so to speak, at different levels. They said New Hampshire very expensive just in terms of what it takes to get that vote. Let's avoid that and get things that are cheaper, maybe in Pennsylvania, maybe in Michigan. So, they looked at this as if a vote was a commodity and could they get the commodity at the cheapest price.</s>BERMAN: As was sit here, and Hillary Clinton's popular vote lead grows to two million, that strategy seems incredibly prescient.</s>BERTONI: It's like football. A lot of times, a team loses, gets more yards, but it's the team with the points. They went for the points, not for the yards.</s>BERMAN: The Patriots know exactly what that means. Talk to me about the relationship between these two men? How much does Donald Trump rely on Jared Kushner and exactly why?</s>BERTONI: Jared is just very - anyone you talk to about him, he's very polite and very even keeled, very quiet. People say he has an open mind. I've talked to people like Henry Kissinger, Peter Thiel and even Eric Schmidt, who is on the other side of the fence and who helped Hillary Clinton build her machine, and they said that, no matter your politics, you want Trump to have Jared in his ear. He's just trusted. He's rational. There's a lot of fear out there about this administration. And people like Eric Schmidt said, if you're scared of the Trump administration, it's good to have --- you want Jared Kushner in there because he's rational, he's centralist, and he's not - he might balance out the more extreme parts of this administration.</s>BERMAN: Donald Trump told "The New York Times" yesterday that he might rely on Jared Kushner to help Mideast peace. When he said that, that sounds like an enormous task. But is it surprising to you that Trump said that?</s>BERTONI: Yes. This has been a problem for so many years. It's so complex. I don't think any one person can do that, especially -- he has no international experience. But I think he saying that if Jared kind of takes that fresh look that helped him win the campaign, maybe that mind-set could help in Middle East peace. I don't think one person can solve this. This has been the biggest problem in the past 100 years.</s>BERMAN: If nothing else, it does show how much Donald Trump counts on Jared Kushner and trusts him. Steve, thanks so much for being with us.</s>BERTONI: Thanks for having me.</s>BERMAN: A great article. And it's the only one of its kind because Jared Kushner has never really spoken like that before. Thanks for being with us.</s>BARTONI: Thanks so much</s>BERMAN: If we can put the countdown clock on the screen. In just over two hours and 45 minutes, President Obama will pardon either Tater or Tot. I don't know which is which, but the president does. He'll make that selection. Stay with us for that. Thanks for watching AT THIS HOUR. NEWSROOM with Pamela Brown starts right now.</s>PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. And welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Pamela Brown, in for Brianna Keilar.