the new york times just happened to have reported a few hours ago bart that a company called brookfield properties is close to reaching an agreement with cushion or companies which would essentially amount to a bailout concerning a troubled property kirshner companies holds in new york qatar owns the second largest stake in brookfield properties and kushner companies is of course run by charles kushner father or. husband of the volga trump that's one example but with a little circuitous currency is there isn't a jihad in another boat but a very bizarre story which broke last week actually rapper ice cube and his business partner jack required to claim quote that it could tare investor in their big three basketball league try to get access to steve bannon when he was trying to white house chief strategist and that the investor was a front for the qatari government basically what happened here bart is this investor promised five million dollar investment in the big three basketball league and then one span it will because business partner happened to be close with bannon but when bannon was ousted f

this deal they have reportedly all but sealed is with brookfield properties. as the "times" puts it today, "brookfield has financial ties to the government of qatar. the qatar investment authority is the second largest shareholder in brookfield properties ranking only behind brookfield's parent company." bloomberg puts an even finer point on it noting the kushner company is doing this deal with a specific upt of brookfield and the single largest owner of that unit is qatar. the qatar investment authority which invests on behalf of qatar's government. so who says big city real estate has to be complicated? or foreign policy for that matter. qatar tells the kushner family real estate company no, we're not going to give you hundreds of millions of dollars to bail you out of your failing sky skraiper in midtown. u.s. policy toward qatar almost immediately turns suddenly and radically hostile against qatar. qatar freaks out a little bit, scrambles a little bit. qatar decides okay, we'll take another look at the kushner family real estate company's failing skyscraper

a complicating factor here is that the qatari investment already owns 1/4 of brookfield property partnerswhich th eunits which brookfield would do this deal. scarlet: how does this deal differ from the one that they had agreed to with the chinese company that ended up falling apart? >> so totally different. they were going to knock that building down. there was going to be a $4 billion construction loan. there are going to build a new tower twice as high. that is not what is happening. it is going to be an update, new hvac units, make the windows bigger, make the faÇade more appealing. scarlet: but the building will look the same? >> we are expecting a new faÇade. you can get more of the glassy, floor-to-ceiling could julia: this was a battle between the jared kushner and boneto, they have a different views of how t he money should be used. ly enough, this was the sort of plan that if charlie kushner were to agree with it, you could see them having done this before. julia: because that is where was going. what about the handshake deals that stephen roth talked about in his annual sharehol

secretary, i have two other topics i wanted to touch on one is a report that brookfield properties isner companies will that go through sifios and is that something you would be involved with or would you have to recuse yourself >> i can't make any spisk comments i will tell you so far i have read about that in the paper but not aware of anything else >> okay. then the other question i want to ask you, in the wake of this school shooting this friday and throughout this year given some of the issues that have taken place, a number of big banks have distanced themselves from gun manufacturers on their own but there's been a bit of concern that there's going to be retaliation from different parts of government. specifically there was a report that the s.e.c. and commissioners have made some comments to some of the banks n in -- how do you oversee that issue? >> first of all, i want to express my condolences for the family who is were involved. it is a difficult issue. i know something the president is focused on. as it relates to any specific regulatory issues, we haven't reviewed that y

brookfield. nato out ofould buy the building. they haven't seen eye to eye on what they should be doing with the property. it of an all the kushner company. why has brookfield felt the need to come out here and say that qataris know nothing about the deal. clearly they have a significant stake. caleb: they own more than one quarter of the publicly traded entity. the kushner family has been in -relatedth qatar officials and individuals previously. brookfield is coming out with this statement telling us there is nothing to do with qatar julia:. and to take this. cool, we know jared kushner is heavily involved in the middle east. i think that establishing the jaredf an action between kushner and the kushner companies, the fact that he separated himself, and the relationship with the atari's. >> qatar is in a fraught wrongcal position, on the side of a blockade with saudi arabia, bahrain, and the uae, currently much more closely aligned with the white house than qatar is. as we have seen in the machinations around michael cohen, there are people around qatar trying to cut business deals. not necessarily this o