Trump Told Jared and Ivanka to Go Back to NYC, Said His Son-in-Law Looked Like 'Little Boy' on TV

President Donald Trump once mocked Jared Kushner to aides, saying his son-in-law and senior adviser looked like "a little boy" as he addressed reporters during a television appearance, according to a new book

President Donald Trump once mocked Jared Kushner to aides, saying his son-in-law and senior adviser looked like “a little boy” as he addressed reporters during a television appearance, according to a new book.

In Ronald Kessler’s The Trump White House: Changing the Rules of the Game, the author says that Trump remarked to aides who watched the appearance with him: “Look at Jared, he looks like a little boy, like a child.”

Kushner, who’s married to Trump’s older daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump, has been a familiar presence at the White House since his father-in-law took office in January. But the former real estate executive, 37, rarely makes public remarks — so rarely in fact that John Oliver once devoted an entire segment of Last Week Tonight to the subject. “For someone with the amount of power that he has, have you ever heard him speak?” a bewildered Oliver asked in April. “Seriously, what does his voice sound like? You don’t know, do you?”

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Months later, in June, Kushner spoke publicly in his role for the first time at a summit of tech and business leaders, prompting social media jokes about his voice sounding “like a young Michael Cera” or a boy who has yet to hit puberty.

Kusher also made a live televised speech in July about his congressional testimony on the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia.

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Kessler also writes that at one point, the president told Kushner and daughter Ivanka that “they never should have left New York.”

He “made it clear to them that he would not mind if they gave up their White House roles,” says the author, who interviewed the president, members of his family and many current and former White House officials for his book.

The White House did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

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The New York Times reported last month that aides said Trump had “privately asked” Chief of Staff John Kelly for help in removing Ivanka and Kushner from their White House roles — while simultaneously telling the couple they should stay.

The aides said Trump was reportedly “frustrated” with Kushner, “whom he now views as a liability” because of Kushner’s legal issues, investigations of the Kushner family’s real estate company and publicity over Kushner’s recently downgraded security clearance.

A Trump insider recently told PEOPLE that Kushner and Ivanka would be relieved to leave their White House days behind them.

“If they leave they’ll be happy to go back to their old lives,” the source said. “They love their kids so much and this is so distracting, to be a young family and have all this pressure instead of focusing on the kids.”