Ivanka, the powerful right eye of Donald Trump
Five years ago Vogue magazine featured Ivanka Trump as "the ultimate businesswoman." Donald Trump's daughter was the mirror of success in which thousands of middle-class women in the United States looked at themselves. She went to the most exclusive parties, had a clothing firm, lived in a very expensive apartment in New York and was in charge of managing part of her father's real estate empire. Two years later, in 2017, Ivanka enjoyed another kind of ‘success’: she replaced her father at one of the meetings of the G20 leaders in Hamburg as an advisor to the president.
That the businesswoman has always been the president's right eye is vox pópuli and Donald Trump has been in charge of remembering it on several occasions. For example, the lapidary phrase in which he said that if Ivanka were not her daughter "he would be dating her." When the tycoon decided to run for the White House, he used his daughter during the campaign as a moderate figure and to try to win votes from middle-class working women.
It is clear that the formula worked and in the last four years it is said that Ivanka has persuaded her father on some issues - such as the use of a mask - although she is proud of the administration's policies.
Ivanka knows what privilege is from the cradle. The now adviser to the president is the result of the marriage between Donald Trump and his first wife, Ivana, and she was born in 1981 in New York. Her education was most elitist: first Choate Rosemary Hall boarding school in Connecticut and then Chapin School in New York, one of the schools that the author of Gossip Girl used as a reference to describe the rich children of Manhattan. Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, whom she married in 2009, made a cameo appearance on the series.
In his youth, Trump worked as a model and walked for brands such as Vivienne Westwood or Tommy Hilfiger. In his university journey, names with pomp and good grades also stand out; she was a model student. Ivanka studied first in Georgetown, the same center where Felipe VI was trained, and later in Wharton, the university where her father attended.
From there, Ivanka's career could be defined with one word: ambition. In 2007 she launched her jewelry brand Ivanka Trump Jewelery which was the germ of what would later become a global brand with footwear, bags and clothing. The brand had a turnover of 100 million euros a year but it ended up causing several headaches. Several retailers stopped selling her products due to their ideology and the policies of her father, and she was forced to close the firm due to a conflict of interest due to her position in the White House.
The shadow of Donald Trump
Long before Trump became president of the United States, Ivanka was already his shadow. The businesswoman held the vice presidency of The Trump Organization and she was in charge of presenting it at the Republican National Convention to formalize his candidacy.
At that time there was already speculation with what was confirmed in the first months of Trump's presidency: Ivanka had more prominence than Melania and acted as if she were the first lady. Her intention at first was to become vice president, but since March 2017 she has to "settle" for being an advisor to the president. Never before has a daughter come this far and she has never before had an office in the West Wing of the White House and access to classified information. In addition, she is not alone: her husband Jared Kushner is also part of her team and Trump has entrusted her with such delicate matters as a proposal for peace between Israel and Palestine. Everything stays at home.
The president has not cut a hair when it comes to delegating his daughter on important issues. Just a couple of months after being appointed as an advisor, Ivanka replaced her father at one of the tables at the G20 meeting in Germany. It was a panel on women. The businesswoman, who declares herself a feminist, is supposed to help her father in matters that guarantee the same job opportunities for men and women. Ivanka published just five months after arriving at the White House a self-help book for working women for which she pocketed more than 26 million euros.
The daughter of the most powerful man on the planet has traveled half the world representing the values of the Trump administration. From the UK to North Korea, where Ivanka and Jared walked the demilitarized border between the two Koreas. They have also used their nine-year-old daughter, Arabella, in diplomatic matters. Little Kushner greeted Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to the United States by singing various songs in Mandarin. The video of the moment was shared by her mother on her Twitter. Months later Trump traveled to the Asian country and took a new recording of his granddaughter greeting the authorities and singing again in Mandarin.
Last year, Ivanka returned to the G20 summit with her father and her presence once again aroused international criticism. Those days, some images published by the French government in which Trump is seen in a huddle with some leaders and the director of the ECB Christine Lagarde went viral, without paying too much attention to him.
Ivanka Trump appears to be trying to get involved in a talk among Macron, May, Trudeau and Lagarde (IMF head).
— Parham Ghobadi پرهام قبادی (@BBCParham) June 29, 2019
The video is released by French Presidential palace. pic.twitter.com/TJ0LULCzyQ
his father as the management of the coronavirus crisis or the separation of families on the Mexican border. After an Instagram campaign denounced her passivity, Ivanka wanted to make it clear that she did not necessarily agree with her father and she implied that she would try to persuade him. She didn't make it.
Beyond trying to influence the president's decisions, Ivanka is using politics for his personal gain and to secure a future in Washington. According to Michael Wolff, author of the book Fire and Fury, the Kushner couple would have reached an agreement to, if the circumstances arise, present Ivanka's candidacy for president of the United States.
In August, the first daughter again made clear her prominence and she was in charge of presenting Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention to formalize his candidacy for reelection. Her speech rivaled that of her father in applause, who once rose to the rostrum and invited her daughter to stand up several times to the cheers of the public.
Her strained relationship with Melania
Ivanka and Melania Trump don't usually appear together much, except in the acts they share with the president. It was what happened at the Republican National Convention. There, in front of hundreds of people, Melania dedicated a peculiar gesture to Ivanka when she finished her speech.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and the first lady did not seem very comfortable. In recent weeks, new information about her relationship has emerged after Melania's former adviser, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, published a book recounting her experience in the White House. According to the text, Melania calls Ivanka "the Princess" because she acts like royalty and she refers to the Kushner marriage as "snakes."
The thing is not there. Apparently, the first lady would have launched an "operation" to try to leave Ivanka in the background during Trump's inauguration. Melania wanted Ivanka's face not to slip into any shot during the live broadcast while the cameras focused directly on her husband. She and she got it: the face of the president's favorite daughter was only seen if she zoomed in.
