The cold war between Ivanka and Melania Trump
The rudeness that the daughter of President Trump did to her stepmother at the Republican Convention is just a small sample of the war of tripping and fighting for the prominence that the two women maintain in the White House.
It is not yet clear who will win the presidency in the United States, but what was confirmed in one of the highlights of the contest, the Republican Convention, was that Donald Trump's wife and his stepdaughter Ivanka do not understand each other at all.
Both in the press and on social media, the images of the uncomfortable moment in which the president's preferred heir, who aspires to a second term in the White House, did not correspond to Melania's greeting on the night of acceptance of the candidacy. . Although Ivanka looks from behind, the way the first lady's smiling expression transforms into a hard, puzzled grin said it all.
If the relationship has not been good, that day was perhaps one of its worst moments, because the first excerpts of the book Melania and me: the rise and fall of my friendship with the first lady, written by Stephanie, had just been released Winston Wolkoff.
For nearly three decades, the two treated each other like sisters and Winston became Melania's top adviser in the White House. However, a mess related to the financing of the presidential inauguration ceremony, in 2017, caused Stephanie to fall from grace and this marked the end of her friendship with Mrs. Trump, whom she accuses of not supporting her.
"From betrayed to traitor", many now say with scorn from Stephanie, who reveals intimacies of the life of the enigmatic first lady, among which stands out her scuffle with Ivanka, Trump's main government adviser along with her husband, Jared Kushner .
Each has given a nickname to the other. Melania called Ivanka "the princess", because of the pretense that she gives herself to her; while the stepdaughter calls the first lady "the portrait," perhaps alluding to the effect of botox and facelifts on the expression of Donald Trump's third wife. But the malevolent nicknames don't make the fight as lively as the dirty plays they go to to make life miserable.
The origin of everything is that Ivanka not only behaves like a princess, but "she is a princess who wants to reign", says Winston, and from the day her father won the elections she set out to be the only visible female figure in the palace , to displace Melania in her duties and to take center stage.
It should be remembered that in the United States there is no president without a first lady, a character who has taken on the appearance of an institution in the country, to the point that, historically, the east wing of the White House is reserved entirely for her, while in the west the Presidency and its dependencies function.
Well, according to the new book, one of Ivanka's first plans was to take away that right from her stepmother. "In my daddy's administration, the office of the first lady will become the office of the Trump family," said Winston, who at that time was already working for Melania. During those initial days of the government, the latter had not yet settled in her official residence, since she, among other reasons, preferred to wait for her to finish the school year of her son, Barron Trump, in New York .
But Stephanie Winston was officiating as her bishop, and she was able to see that Jared Kushner and his collaborators were prowling the vacant rooms of the east wing, with the clear objective of taking them. "That's ridiculous! You have to do something ”, Melania replied when she was informed and her friend dedicated herself to marking the doors of the spaces with post-its so that“ the enemy ”would believe that they were already assigned.
Days before, as expected, Ivanka had not concealed her intention to steal the show at the expense of Melania in the acts of possession of her and began to bombard with all kinds of ideas. Melania, with the help of Stephanie, who was her right hand in the preparations, responded with a strategy that they called "Block Ivanka", which she fulfilled her mission.
In the pretense of joining the president and his wife on the customary walking tour from the Capitol to the White House, along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, with her husband and children, Stephanie excluded her car from the caravan, lest it be it happened to get off and do her “performance” as a princess.
Another tradition is that the new presidential family poses days before the transmission of command for a portrait. When Ivanka asked to adjust the time of the session with an email saying to Stephanie: “Do you think that is possible?”, Melania dictated the answer: “No, it is not possible”, and Ivanka was excluded from the photo .
But the most certain blow of the boycott happened during the proper rite of possession in the Capitol. Ivanka sent Stephanie photos of Barack Obama's inaugural session, with his wife Michelle and his daughters Malia and Sasha. "It's nice that (the president) is surrounded by his family."
To absolutely contradict him, Stephanie did two things. For one thing, she went to the trouble of studying where Trump and Melania would sit, as well as the camera angles from the TV show. “With the help of a sketch we were able to know which faces would be visible when Donald and Melania were in their positions”, as Winston explains in his book, they squared the chairs so that Ivan ka would be covered by the first lady and that's how it was.
At the time of the swearing in with the Bible, "we put Barron between Donald and Melania and made sure that it was Don Jr. (another of the president's sons) and not Ivanka who stayed with the first lady."
The fight for the territory was not reduced to the halls of the east wing but to the private dependencies of the government house. On one occasion, Melania, furious, bombarded a collaborator with messages demanding to know who had authorized Ivanka to use the residence's movie theater: “It's my house. Does she hang out in my New York apartment when she feels like it? Do not!".
Stephanie Winston assures that Melania suspects that her stepdaughter was behind the disappointment of her speech at the 2016 Republican Convention. As recalled, it turned out to be a plagiarism of an address by her predecessor, Michelle Obama. Who wrote the piece was Rick Gates, deputy head of the Trump campaign and who, as is well known, was controlled by Ivanka.
Another evil in which the hand of Trump's daughter is presumed was when it was leaked to the press that he, Melania and Barron were watching the film Finding Dory in the palace cinema, while throughout the country protests against the presidential ban on people from Muslim-majority countries from entering the country.
"It never ends," says Winston about the intrigue between the two women, as Ivanka does not miss the opportunity to thwart any initiative of Melania and her environment, using her influences and even her mother, Ivana Trump, a foul-mouthed woman. arrogant like his ex, who provoked his daughter's rival during an interview on the occasion of the launch of his book Raising Trump.
She assured that she had a direct line with the White House, but that she did not use that prerogative so as not to cause "any kind of jealousy" and finished off with some daring phrases: "I am basically the first lady Trump, I am the first lady" .
Melania, who is so discreet, responded, through her spokeswoman, who told reporters: “The first lady plans to use her position to help children and not to sell books. There is no substance to this statement from an ex-wife, just a selfish attention-seeking. " The first lady's examiner believes that while Ivanka is really obsessed with Melania, she is often annoyed or amused by her attitudes, but doesn't get her up all night.
After her failed attempt to prevent Donald from appointing her daughter to such a high position in his administration, she resigned herself to the fact that she, Jared Kushner and their collaborators control the White House with the tricks of the "snake gang. "(That's what he calls them), which they are, the book concludes.
