Ivanka, a girl of influence
Overexposed since childhood, Donald Trump's favorite child took office at the White House, where his father is celebrating his first hundred days. A consecration for the heiress, who has spent most of her life promoting the family brand. And poses as a skilful moderator of paternal excesses.
When in the summer of 2016 a journalist asked Donald Trump which women he planned to appoint in his government, he only managed to name one name. Or rather a first name: Ivanka. "I assure you, everyone tells me 'Take Ivanka, take Ivanka!" He said, referring to his eldest daughter as obvious. People love it! ” Six months and a few controversies later, she inherited a tailor-made title, an office in the west wing of the White House, and a mission of "special assistant" - as mysterious as it is. evocative. "She will be the eyes and ears" of the president, said his lawyer Jamie Gorelick.
It is difficult to fully define the new status of Ivanka Trump, at the same time advisor, heiress, shareholder, businesswoman and First Daughter. “We never took titles very seriously,” she warned during the campaign. A timely confusion of genres that has allowed him to be everywhere, or almost, since November 8: in the golden living room of the Trump Tower to meet the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, last December; sitting in the Oval Office next to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a few weeks ago; to the right of Chancellor Angela Merkel during her first official visit. Ivanka also picked up the phone her father handed her to answer Democrat Nancy Pelosi, who wanted to know the president's plans for gender equality. Finally, she sat at the table of the greatest leaders of New York's Silicon Valley summoned by her father shortly after his victory.
We lend him a lot
At 35, Ivanka Trump is a valuable asset in many ways for the new White House tenant. Its success, and its plastic, fascinate its supporters, while the anti-Trump see in it a possible ally, likely to influence the ultraconservative and isolationist trajectory of the president. We thus lend him an essential role in the torpedoing of a text which would have restricted the rights of gays at work. She is credited with introducing her father to former vice president Al Gore, a champion in the fight against global warming. With her husband, Jared Kushner, also an advisor to the White House, she would advocate for respect for the Paris climate agreement. The Power couple would campaign behind the scenes to obtain the total disgrace of Steve Bannon, the worrying shadow adviser to the president, already removed from the National Security Council on April 5. Finally, shocked by the images of children gassed by the regime of Bashar al-Assad, Ivanka Trump would have played a decisive role in the launching of the American strikes in Syria.
Everyone has the illusion of knowing her well because Ivanka Trump grew up in front of the cameras. His worldly life as a New York “socialite” has been sprawled out for years in magazines, alongside his father's escapades. So much so that as a true pro of the media, he did not hesitate for a single moment to mobilize her for his campaign. When he announced his candidacy in the lobby of the Trump Tower, on June 16, 2015, it was she who preceded him at the microphone. She too, pregnant with her third child, accompanies her to almost all her meetings across the country when Melania, the discreet wife, remains in New York. She, again, who throughout the campaign distills impeccable millimeter interviews, tinged with gently feminist messages. She, finally, who brings down her father's closest advisers, like her first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski.
The most moderate of the family
With her image of a New York progressive - "neither really Republican, nor really Democrat", in her own words - Ivanka served as an alibi for a population of voters, and especially women voters, who might not have. not dare to vote Trump otherwise (53% of white women gave him their ballot). "She is so composed that she manages to soften the image of her father simply by standing by his side," noted Jia Tolentino, columnist for the New Yorker last year. When her two brothers Eric and Donald Jr. made more mistakes, flaunting themselves with white supremacists or comparing waterboarding (simulating drowning) to student hazing, Ivanka posted on social networks licked photos of her children trotting in her huge apartment on Park Avenue. "She is white, rich and beautiful, attributes that are often taken for moral virtues", summarizes Jia Tolentino.
President Trump's eldest daughter has proven to be precocious. Raised between the triplex on the 68th floor of the Trump Tower, with its fake Titian and its man-made waterfall, the rococo property in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, and the Connecticut country house with its 47 rooms, Ivanka likes to tell how 'she grew up on the construction sites where she followed her father. In her first book, The Trump Card, published in 2009, she writes that she was frustrated as a child that she couldn't sell lemonade and cakes on the streets like other little Americans do. "We did not have these advantages," she laments, assuring that we have always "made the most of the situation". This is how, she writes, her bodyguard was asked to buy her lemonade. Then, his driver. And, finally, the housekeepers of the property, who "must have rummaged very deeply in their pockets" (sic).
At 9, Ivanka realizes her parents are breaking up when a horde of photographers stationed in front of her school ask her questions about her father's mistress, Marla Maples. “The media are perverse and brutal,” she explained in an interview with GQ magazine in 2007. All that taught me not to trust anyone. We must never let our guard down. ” But, unlike her older brother Donald Jr who refuses to speak to her father for a year, she fears losing him and makes sure with her mother Ivana that she can keep her last name. Every day, she calls her father by collect from a phone hidden in the school warden's lodge. “When someone called, even his boys, he didn't answer systematically,” recalls a former employee of the company. She was the only one he always took on the phone. It was imperative. ” When he moves ten floors below the family apartment, Ivanka makes a habit of visiting him every day, morning and evening. She acquires certain reflexes from him. An associate of her father remembers seeing her getting angry when - aged 14 - she learned of the existence of a vague shop in the suburbs that dared to be called Ivanka's. "I told dad that I had to put my name down, I told him !!!" she fumed.
Donald is obviously delighted with the interest his daughter is arousing. The media coverage of his private life being an integral part of his business, he portrays the young girl very early, posing with her on her property in Florida when she was 15 years old. Flattered when she begins to play models for Thierry Mugler and Versace, he admits on several occasions that he “would undoubtedly go out with her, if she were not [his] daughter.” “She is 1.80m and she has a magnificent body. She made a lot of money with modeling. A real jackpot, ”he boasted a few years later. Ivanka will say on the contrary of her career in fashion that it was an aberration and will refuse the post at the prestigious Vogue magazine offered by Anna Wintour. Ivanka has always said it: she wants to work in real estate, she has it "in her blood".
After a stint at Wharton School - her father's university - she entered the Trump Organization directly and began to dream big. "It's amazing, I have the power to change this landscape," she once confided to a childhood friend, gazing at Manhattan's skyscrapers from the roof of Trump Tower. Donald Trump, who has never delegated much, entrusts him with key contracts, including recently that of the historic headquarters of the Post Office in Washington, transformed into a luxury hotel. “In the past, there were always a dozen contracts under negotiation that a lot of lawyers and employees worked on, but no one really had the authority to do anything,” says investor Tom Barrack, a relative of the Trump family. That all changed with Ivanka. ” If the three children officially have the same functions within the organization, Trump readily praises his daughter's "very good instincts", and is amused to see her competitors and partners underestimate her: "I see some of my friends - killers - rubbing their hands ... And then they come back and say "it didn't go the way I thought". "
Above all, Ivanka quickly understands that she has as much potential as her father to develop and promote the Trump brand. Since the 1990s, most of the family business's income has come from licenses, the value of which is fueled by the billionaire's notoriety. Donald displays his jeweled conquests in the headlines? Never mind! She poses in a very low-cut swimsuit in the middle of a construction site on the cover of Harper's Bazaar, jackhammer in hand. "Why pay to advertise in a magazine when you can get the front page with an interview?" No one can afford such an exposure! ” she sums up in The Trump Card, the book in which she reveals the secrets of those "who play to win". She perfects her glamorous image by appearing at charity galas and at the front row of fashion shows, with one goal: to serve the brand. "I don't care if I become a TV star," she says, full of contempt, when she joins the show 'The Apprentice' hosted by her father. I am offered all kinds of silly programs, but in the end, they add nothing to the brand and do not serve my objective, which is to become a great real estate developer, ”she again told GQ in 2007. “Unlike other promoters, we have this ability to generate incredible media interest, which translates into disproportionate publicity for each of our projects. Just because of our fame. ”
The recipe works so well that she naturally considers using it for herself. From 2007, like her father, she began to print her name on a whole range of products. First a line of jewelry sold at the foot of the Trump Tower, a range of bags and shoes, then clothes, perfume and sunglasses. Still under license: Donald's financial difficulties in the 90s demonstrated the virtues of royalties to him. All his activities show a strong self-esteem. Also in The Trump Card, she asserts her truths, such as "Never give up" or "In life, nothing is ever given to you for free".
Her second book, Women Who Work, which will be released in the next few days in the United States, is expected to include new ones. We find in Ivanka Trump the pronounced taste of her father for superlatives and an identical talent for self-promotion. She describes herself as an "outstanding negotiator", embellishes her school performance, or touts her scent as "the best in the world". His generosity is also sometimes a little exaggerated. Until recently, the website of the Trump Organization presented her as an ambassador for the “Girl up” program at the UN, while, in fact, her contribution was limited to donating - five years ago - a part sales of a bracelet from his collection.
In 2009, her princely marriage to promoter Jared Kushner, for whom she converted to Judaism, brought a new dimension to her brand image. The heiress is succeeded by the active woman, model mother, alternately providing career management advice and style lessons on her pastel pink website, on which interviews with executives alongside photos of her own products. During her first interview after her father's victory, while she was talking about her financial aid plan for childcare, her teams communicated live the references of the gold and diamond bracelet spotted on her arm - a model from its Ivanka Trump fine jewelry range, at $ 10,800. The president's daughter has since chosen a more discreet communication for her company, valued at around fifty million dollars, of which she has entrusted the reins to her in-laws. But she has not managed to isolate herself completely from the main risk hanging over the future of her brand: Trump himself.
More dangerous because more civilized
The “Grabyourwallet” (grab your wallet) movement, launched last fall in response to the candidate's words of “catching” women, explicitly called for a boycott of Ivanka's products. “People think she's civilized and well-behaved, that she's not like him,” explained Shannon Coulter, who initiated the boycott. But it is precisely because she is civilized that she is more dangerous than him. " In the process, Nordstrom department stores dereferenced its products, pointing to a dizzying drop in sales - which the company disputed. Donald Trump, as usual, unapologetically poured out his anger on Twitter: “My daughter Ivanka has been treated unfairly by Nordstrom. He's a great person. She always pushes me to make the right decision! It is detestable! ”
The contradictions of the First Daughter are too strong to go unnoticed. If some relatives have said that she suffered from the virulence of candidate Trump's remarks, she never showed anything. "It is an illusion to think that there is a difference between Donald Trump and his children, even on the most extreme subjects, indicates the magnate Barry Diller, who knows the family, as quoted by the New York Times. have had ten times the opportunity to distance themselves publicly but have not done so. " On the contrary, Ivanka flew to her father's aid several times, such as when he was attacked for his degrading remarks about women. "Did you see what he says about men?" Why would women be treated differently? ” she justified in the spring of 2016. “All those who know her wonder how she can support a father like him, admits Peter Davis, a social journalist close to her husband, Jared Kushner. But she works for her father. And the motto with the Trumps is to win at all costs. ”
Democrats remain highly skeptical. Ivanka Trump was skiing when her father decided to cut US family planning budgets. During the Chinese president's visit to Mar-a-Lago, it received permission from Beijing to use three of its brands in China. "A series of anonymous anecdotes told in the press has cleverly created the image of a moderate Trump in the White House," we read on the progressive site Think Progress in early March. But actions are long overdue. ” The person concerned defends herself: “We cannot equate the absence of public denunciation with silence. There are many ways to make your voice heard [...]. I don't think I would be more effective if I always spoke out loud when I didn't agree. ” Before specifying: "It is not me that the Americans elected president ..." In a parody of publicity for her perfume, the comedians of "Saturday Night Live" nevertheless put it in scene, making up again in front of a mirror in which is reflected the image of ... his father. "For a woman who could put an end to all this, but who will not do it", murmurs a voice-over who presents her perfume with the suggestive name: Complice.
