What will become of Ivanka and Jared after the Trump era?
The end of Trump's presidency leaves his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner in search of a new home, but it looks like it won't be in their old New York apartment, but in a house in neighboring New Jersey.
Officials in the city of Bedminster, NJ, have the plans for a possible future for the Trump family, or at least the blueprints: a major addition to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner's “cabin” on the Trump National Golf grounds. Club, four new pickleball courts, a relocated helipad, and a spa and yoga complex.
As Manhattan awaits news of the Trump family's return, the first daughter and her husband appear to be making preparations elsewhere: a sheltered haven in New Jersey, the so-called Garden state, perhaps, or in Florida, where President Donald Trump is. renovating your Mar-a-Lago property.
But New York now seems inhospitable and is nowhere in their plans.
"Oddly enough, they'll even have a harder time than Trump himself," says Donny Deutsch, a Manhattan branding mogul and a staunch critic of Trump on cable television. "He is despicable but very influential."
"Those two are just the unfortunate henchmen who accompanied him."
Sam Nunberg, who was a brief advisor to Trump's campaign, said he would never dare give the couple advice, but "I'm moving to Florida next year because of the taxes and the lifestyle."
Wherever they settle, Ivanka Trump and Kushner seem ready for a quick exit from Washington, where they always struggled to fit in. The couple had already expanded their “cottage” in New Jersey by 230 square meters in 2016, adding a basement and a living room with a fireplace, all documented by her on Instagram. The new plans for Bedminster Township call for the expansion of the master bedroom, bathroom and dressing room, two new bedrooms, a study and a ground floor deck, making it more comparable to the $ 5 million house they rented for $ 15,000 a month in the upscale Kalorama enclave in Washington.
Plans also call for the addition of five "cabins" over 460 square meters each to the property, and a recreational complex with spa treatments and a "general store." A family friend said Tuesday that renovations have been underway for a while, but Trump representatives are ready to present the plans to the municipality on Dec. 3.
When Ivanka Trump and Kushner moved to Washington, they had convinced many that they would be a moderating voice in the West Wing.
Since then it has been a turbulent social adventure, best illustrated by her experience with the Milton Gottesman Jewish Day School in the United States capital. In 2017, they enrolled their two oldest children in that private elementary school.
That institution's small student body obviously leans toward the progeny of public officials and diplomats derided by Trump as the "deep state." The Kushner enrollment created the kind of heated divide that has followed the Trumps to where they go for the past four years. Some parents lobbied to deny them admission; others urged tolerance because children are not responsible for what they saw as their grandfather's sins.
Once their children were admitted, Trump and Kushner tended to violate the unspoken rule of the Washington private school world: Parents of students with strong security measures keep disruptions to a minimum, four parents said. At school events, the family and their security entourage often occupied the first two rows and stood to greet government supporters, an irritated parent said.
Three people, including two who were present, spoke about a birthday party the children attended, where Kushner accompanied them and then asked the hosts for the Wi-Fi password so he could work in the room.
Tensions came to a head this fall, following the event to announce the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, in which there were few face masks, no social distancing, an outbreak of coronavirus infections and the subsequent hospitalization of the president with COVID-19. With parents on the warpath, school administrators approached the family to inquire about possible exposure from the students, the youngest of whom had been attending face-to-face classes. According to a person familiar with the discussions, the conversations failed due to the couple's reluctance to answer basic questions such as when was the last time their children were in contact with Trump.
On October 19, the family withdrew the children from the institution and enrolled them in another Jewish elementary school located in Rockville, Maryland, a suburb of Washington.
A White House spokeswoman, Carolina Hurley, has issued the same blanket response since last week when the Jewish Telegraphic Agency first reported on the removal of the children from school: “It is shameful that anonymous sources attack the decision of a family on what is best for their children in the midst of a pandemic. As with all families, school choices and education are deeply personal decisions and they owe no one, especially idle gossip seeking the attention of the press, an explanation. "
The school has also stuck to its official statement: “Our school community has made extraordinary efforts to provide a safe and supportive learning environment during these difficult times. As is our longstanding policy, we are not talking about individual students and families. "
This is how the family has fared in Washington, whose neighbors include the Obamas and Jeff Bezos. The Daily Mail, a gossip tabloid, installed paparazzi Matthew D’Agostino on the street in front of the family's home. Liberal neighbors or their guests passed by the photographer's car offering news, muttering that taxpayers were paying the Secret Service bill to stay in a nearby apartment and talking about Middle Eastern diplomats visiting the Jordanian ambassador's home located across the street. side of the street.
D’Agostino relayed those comments to editors who were most interested in “full-length shots; they want the dress, the shoes, the bag, ”or a photo of the cheap bottle of wine that Steven Mnuchin, the billionaire Treasury Secretary, brought to a dinner party.
The Kushners' residence was once occupied by Shirley Temple Black, the movie star turned diplomat, whose stay is commemorated on a bronze plaque. "What badge will they put on when they're gone?" D 'Agostino wondered over a beer in front of his car. "The answer is none."
The house was near the family synagogue. Observant Jews often walked there in accordance with Saturday tradition, followed by about 15 Secret Service agents.
"Outside the building they may be one of America's most famous couples, but inside the synagogue they are just a young Jewish couple trying to raise their children in the Jewish tradition," said Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends. from Lubavitch (Chabad) and spiritual leader of his congregation, TheSHUL, in the nation's capital in Kalorama.
Perhaps Ivanka Trump's greatest contribution to Washington's cultural community was inadvertent. In 2019, Washington conceptual artist Jennifer Rubell created Ivanka Vacuuming, sponsored by CulturalDC, a play in which a 16-year-old who looked like Ivanka Trump sucked up crumbs that viewers threw on a pink carpet.
“I really didn't mean that the piece was just a critique of her. I thought it was an accusation to the viewer and to all of us about our perception of her, ”Rubell said in an interview. “I invited her to see the play. I was very naive because I thought she would think it was something funny. "
Instead, Ivanka Trump tweeted: “Women can choose to demolish or build each other. I choose the latter ”. Conservative commentators and Trump's brothers criticized Rubell's work for days. The artist said that she received death threats.
For the artist and her colleagues, it was a turning point in Ivanka Trump's personality in real life, from when she was perceived as a moderating influence to becoming a conservative culture warrior.
By the time the 2020 campaign was in full swing, all the liberal hopes that she brought with her to Washington had been dashed.
"For the first time in a long time, we have a president who has denounced Washington's hypocrisy and they hate him for it," she declared on the White House grounds during the Republican National Convention. "Dad, people attack you for being unconventional, but I love you because you are real."
Days before the elections, she declared: "I am in favor of life, and I do not apologize for that."
Such statements appear to have made a return to Manhattan impossible, at least for now.
"As soon as she leaves the District of Columbia and finds herself at the residence she owns with Kushner on Trump Park Avenue in Manhattan, she will beg to be back on the scene," she said Nov. 6 ArtNet News. “In 2017, the art world organized a series of social media campaigns, protests and performance actions under the slogan Dear Ivanka, urging her to reject her father's platform of hatred and division. This is not functional".
Not everyone expects that kind of turbulence. "I think she is a wonderful and intelligent person, and she has handled the situation very very well," Georgina Bloomberg, whose father, Michael Bloomberg, spent more than a billion dollars of his fortune to defeat the Daily Mail, told the Daily Mail this month. Trump. "At the end of the day, he's her father, and she gets a lot of criticism that she doesn't deserve."
When it comes to business, the couple won't be short of options, given the Kushner family's money. Two people who know them said Ivanka Trump could resurrect her jewelry and clothing brands, targeting new conservative fans of hers, but two more say that line would not sell.
“Kushner is in the real estate business. She can do real estate deals, and if she's doing something with the Trump name, she can monetize it in the Republican areas, ”Deutsch said.
Nobody rules out Ivanka Trump in the world of politics, either as a candidate or as an influential figure.
"If I'm trying to keep my Senate seat or if I'm running in the gubernatorial election in Michigan, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, I don't just want President Trump, I want all the Trumps there," Nunberg said.
"I think she can live in two worlds, the conservative populist Trump and, I'm not saying it disparagingly, the Republican, country club-type sphere of Jeb Bush and Nikki Haley," she said.
Manhattan society is a different story. Christopher Buckley, a veteran comic book author who satirized the Trump administration in the novel Make Russia Great Again, said: “Washington tends to be more tolerant of the other swamp creatures, who continually enjoy the favors of the public and then fall for it. misfortune".
That doesn't extend to "Manhattan, where the who's who lists are holy tablets," he added. And he concluded: "There could be more Grubhub than La Grenouille in its gastronomic future."
