White House senior adviser Jared Kushner listens as Assistant to the President Chris Liddell speaks at the opening session of the White House meeting with technology Chief Executive Officers to mark "technology... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — Jared Kushner spoke in public on Monday. In April, John Oliver made this point about President Donald Trump’s Senior White House adviser and son-in-law: “For someone with the amount of power that [Kushner] has, have you ever heard him speak? While he sometimes spoke publicly as a businessman, and once made a quick cameo in a May interview his wife, Ivanka Trump, gave with CBS This Morning, this was the first on-camera speech Kushner gave as a member of the Trump administration.
– Jared Kushner spoke in public on Monday. And that alone counted as news. In a White House full of loud voices, the powerful senior adviser and son-in-law to President Donald Trump tends to keep his mouth shut, the AP reports. He shuns televised interviews, avoids public speeches and rarely addresses a meeting when cameras are rolling, preferring to work behind the scenes. So Washington took notice Monday when Kushner presided over a White House meeting of technology executives and actually took the microphone. It took a few moments for Kushner to get the attention of the dozens of suited executives gathered in an ornate room at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. But eventually the room quieted and he could finally be heard. The slim, stylish former real estate executive addressed the crowd in a soft but confident tenor, revealing the New York influences around his vowels. News outlets pounced. "Jared Kushner Actually Has A Voice," read a headline on the Huffington Post. Time's online headline read: "Hear Jared Kushner Speak in a Rare Public Appearance." And the Daily Beast's: "This Is What Jared Kushner’s Voice Sounds Like." Kushner sometimes speaks at sanctioned background briefings for reporters. He also briefly popped in to an interview that his wife, Ivanka Trump, did with CBS at the White House last month. He declined to join the interview, but when asked if he enjoyed their late-night walks on the Washington Mall, Kushner said: "Beautiful. Great company. Beautiful scenery." Business Insider, though, notes that this is Kushner's first time giving an on-camera speech in his White House role. While his public speaking has been limited at best, Kushner has been busy with an expansive policy portfolio, charged with modernizing government and leading an effort to broker a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.