Jared Kushner says black Americans must ‘want’ to succeed after criticising sports teams taking a knee and anger over George Floyd’s death

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner criticised athletes and others who have protested against US racism on social media and basketball courts and suggested that black people had to want to succeed for policies to change.

In televised remarks that drew criticism from the Democratic Party, Kushner, the Republican president’s son-in-law, spoke about Trump’s “Platinum Plan” to create jobs and opportunities for black Americans if he is re-elected next month.

“So look, there’s been a lot of discussion about the issues that were needed in the black community for the last years but particularly, it intensified after the George Floyd situation,” he told Fox & Friends.

A black man, Floyd was killed after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes in May, sparking widespread protests over racial inequality and police brutality organised by Black Lives Matter and other groups.

“And, you know, you saw a lot of people who were just virtue signalling. They’d go on Instagram and cry or they would put a slogan on their jersey or write something on a basketball court. And quite frankly, that was doing more to polarise the country than it was to bring people forward.”