The truth about Ivanka's relationship with Melania
A presidential administration with two first ladies? Since Donald Trump officially took office in January 2017, viewers have observed a unique relationship between Ivanka Trump, Donald's star daughter, who followed in his footsteps as a real estate mogul in the Trump Organization - and Melania Trump - his third wife. , who was pushed into the limelight when she took office as the First Lady of the United States.
In fact, historians have claimed that the influential roles of Ivanka and Melania in the White House have overlapped much more than previous presidential administrations have seen. But that's just one of the many fascinating aspects of this duo's relationship, which has seemed to run between friendly and uptight, with neither woman talking much about the other in their public appearances and interviews. Considering that Ivanka and Melania are highly visible women who hold powerful positions in the most famous family in the country (well, aside from the Kardashian-Jenners, that is), it is perhaps only natural that Ivanka has a complicated relationship with her stepmother.
Get ready for a breakdown of the two wheels and most famous Trump women's deals.
The revealing age difference of Ivanka and Melania
Ivanka Trump and Melania Trump are only 11 years apart, although they lived very different lives before Melania became Ivanka's stepmother. Ivanka, Donald Trump's daughter and his first wife, Ivana, lived an enchanted life surrounded by the trappings of wealth. She attended private schools in New York and Connecticut, modeling while in high school, before graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 2004 and joining her father as vice president of the Trump Organization in 2005. By Gq Melania was born and raised in Slovenia before continuing to model in Milan, Paris, and later in the United States, meeting her future husband at a New York Fashion Week party in 1998.
The couple married in 2005, when Melania was 34 and Donald 58, with 23-year-old Ivanka reading Bible verses at her wedding ceremony. The year before the nuptials, Ivanka had praised her father's then-girlfriend Melania in a New York Magazine Interview. "She is very nice," Ivanka said. She… she is a good person, and we appreciate it. I think we're all getting to know her a little bit more now.
Ivana Trump weighed Ivanka's relationship with Melania
Ivana Trump, Ivanka Trump's mother and Donald Trump's first wife, offered a unique version of why Ivanka and Melania were able to have a cordial relationship. Between Ivana and Melania, Donald famously married his second wife, Marla Maples, after a cheating scandal that split his marriage and Ivana and exposed Ivana and Donald's three young children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump, to sensational scrutiny.
"[Ivanka] He likes [Melania] well, because she didn't make me break the marriage like the other one, I don't even want to pronounce her name," said Ivana El Atlántico, referring to Maples. In her 2017 memoir, Raising Trump, Ivana even recalled a time when Ivanka stood up for her to Melania, after hurtful comments Ivana allegedly made about Melania at a private lunch were posted on the New York Daily News. "Ivanka called me that day and said that Melania was upset about the article," Ivana recalled in the book. “I plastered Melania, saying, 'You've never done anything wrong to me and I've never done anything to you. You are in the family and I would never do anything against the family. Love, Ivana. That smoothed things out.
Ivanka and Melania have called each other 'friends'
Ivanka Trump and Melania Trump have referred to each other as "friends," rather than having a more traditional mother-daughter relationship. After all, Ivanka was 23 years old and already an executive in the Trump Organization by the time Melania married her father, Donald Trump, in 2005. Not to mention, Melania soon started her own family with Donald, with the birth of her son. , Barron, in 2006.
Speaking to Harper's Bazaar a decade later, Melania described Donald's children from her previous marriages, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump to Ivana Trump, and Tiffany Trump to Marla Maples, as "grown up." like his mother. I am her friend, and I am here when they need me. "
Similarly, in the recognition section of Ivanka's 2017 book Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success, she briefly thanked Melania, writing (via HuffPost), “You generously give of your time and attention and I appreciate your support and friendship. " When Ivanka publicly congratulates Melania, she often cites Melania's mothering abilities, calling her an "amazing mother with a heart of gold" in her book accolades. This was done to Melania's Ivanka in a 2016 interview with Gente, in which she again called Melania an "amazing mother." Ivanka's April 2017 Tweet celebrating Melania's birthday was equally brilliant, as she wrote that Melania was an "amazing stepmother."
Ivanka defended Melania after plagiarism controversy
When Melania Trump fought the controversy after allegedly plagiarizing parts of her speech from the Republican National Convention in 2016, Ivanka Trump publicly backed Melania, defending her in an interview with Gente. At the time, Melania was set on fire after parts of her speech were revealed to be similar to comments Michelle Obama made in 2008. With the Trump campaign denying that the speech had been plagiarized, Ivanka said on the way out that her stepmother is “Very smart, she's very warm, [and] she has an amazing heart.
In that same interview, Ivanka also defended Melania's decision to stay home with her son Barron Trump instead of campaigning with her husband, saying, "It's quite rare that candidate wives are not all in the way of the campaign. the days. And she made a decision that I totally respect that she has a young son, he needs stability, he needs routine. My father travels so frequently and she is an incredibly consistent, loving and trustworthy figure in Barron's life.
Ivanka, who is a mother of three with her husband, Jared Kushner, also cited Melania's choice as an influence on her own life. "She takes [Barron] to school every day, she picks him up every day," Ivanka said. "It is something really extraordinary and she is a great inspiration to me as she raised my own children in terms of family first and having the right priorities."
Experts have called Ivanka and Melania the ‘frosty’ relationship.
Given both women's reputations as clever saviors of their public images, Ivanka Trump and Melania Trump are not heading for the world to see them. And yet, despite statements from the White House stating that Ivanka and Melania "have always shared a close relationship and still do today," Vanity Fair, experts have continued to claim that the two are not particularly friendly, describing their relation to the output as 'frozen'.
Kate Bennett, author of the unauthorized 2019 Melania Trump biography Free, Melania, cited sources in a piece for CNN, which claimed the two women were "cordial, but not close." Experts also noted that her ascension to the White House had complicated their previously "warm" relationship.
Meanwhile, Vicky Ward - who wrote the Kushner, Inc., a book that detailed the rise to power of Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner - also told Stephen Colbert during a 2019 episode of The Late Show how Melania was the " only person, in my book, who has successfully faced Ivanka. ' Ward claimed that, in the early days of the Trump White House, Ivanka was "making all the plans" to solidify her power in the administration. However, Melania allegedly "put an end to Ivanka's plans very quickly," who apparently invaded the "territory" of the First Lady in the White House.
Tensions escalated when Ivanka and Melania booked separate African tours
Ivanka Trump and Melania Trump have relied on their separate teams to pursue their agendas in the Trump White House. However, their missions overlapped in an awkward incident in 2018, when it was revealed that both women were planning their own goodwill trips to Africa. The New York Times reported that Melania announced her African trip while Ivanka was still planning hers. Other similarities? Ivanka and Melania planned to showcase their own White House platforms during their respective trips with a video component.
Beyond her alleged "competing visits" to Africa, the document cited Ivanka's "friends" as stating that the first daughter was "remarkably bristly" with her White House job duties confused with the lighter responsibilities of The First Lady. As for Melania, Kate Bennett 2019 Free, Melania biography cited a source who claimed (via The New York Times), “[Ivanka's] trips were… too close for the comfort of Melania, who thought Ivanka was encroaching on her territory. .
In October 2018, Melania traveled to Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt. Highlighting her "Be Better" initiative and the foreign aid that the United States had provided to those countries, her African travels were the subject of a 20/20 Special. In April 2019, Ivanka made her own trip to the continent, advocating for an initiative by the Trump administration to benefit women in developing countries, with the White House simply sharing video of her visit.
Ivanka and Melania developed strange nicknames for each other
While Melania Trump's interviews as first lady have been few and far between, another unauthorized biography, The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump, made additional claims about her life in the White House in 2020. This included details about the seemingly not always friendly dynamic between Ivanka Trump and her stepmother.
In the book, author Mary Jordan wrote (via The New York Times) that Melania and Ivanka's relationship had its "tensions," claiming that Melania had been overheard referring to Ivanka as "The Princess." Melania was apparently not the only White House figure to speak of Ivanka in such terms, with a 2017 Vanity Fair report claiming that figures in the Trump administration called Ivanka a "royal princess" behind her back. Meanwhile Her Art of Treatment also suggested that Ivanka, when she was younger, called her softer-voiced stepmother "The Portrait," referring to her silent stature.
Detailing the differences between the public personae of Melania and Ivanka, author Kate Bennett Libre's Melania biography above noted how these two women were labeled by White House watchers. While melania was portrayed as a "vapid-model trophy wife" (via The New York Times), Ivanka was reportedly treated differently, depicted in the White House as a "smart career mother."
Ivanka and Melania took over the White House offices
Another Trump administration power struggle between Ivanka Trump and Melania Trump may have taken the form of a White House turf war. According to Mary Jordan's The Art of Her Deal biography (via The Washington Post), problems reportedly arose when Melania initially stayed behind in New York City after Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 election. This allowed her son Barron Trump to finish his school year, Melania also allegedly used this time to renegotiate her prenup with Donald before his arrival at the White House.
Meanwhile, with Melania back in the Big Apple, Ivanka reportedly moved quickly to flex her influence in the White House. "According to several people, [Ivanka] was looking at real estate in the east wing as well, the first lady's domain," Jordan wrote. "Among other proposals, Ivanka suggested changing the name of the 'Office of the First Lady' as 'First Family Office'."
Unfortunately for Ivanka, Melania's influence could still be felt in Washington, even from hundreds of miles away. "Melania did not allow that to happen," wrote Jordan. It was tradition, and she wasn't going to let her stepdaughter change her… Ivanka's office remained in the West Wing. Once the first lady settled in the White House, she allegedly repressed Ivanka by “[treating] the private residence as if it were her own home. Jordan explained, "Melania did not like it ... she ended the 'revolving door' by enforcing firm boundaries."
Did Melania make fun of Ivanka with that controversial jacket?
Melania Trump often makes headlines with her fashion choices, but few items caused a greater stir than Zara's green jacket that she infamously donned in June 2018 to visit children at a border detention center, printed with the text, "I don't really care, do I?" Melania's choice of outerwear was lashed out by critics as insensitive. At the time, the first lady's spokesperson dismissed the idea that her coat meant anything in particular, telling reporters, “It's a jacket. There was no hidden message.
However, the Free, Melania biography featured an alternate version of the jacket a year later, with Ivanka Trump cited as the alleged target of Melania's message. "I believed, and still do, that the jacket was a facetious blow on Ivanka and her almost constant attempts of hers to bond with herself for positive management talking points," wrote author Kate Bennett (via The New York Times).
As for Melania's explanation of her choice of jacket? She told ABC News in October 2018 that she did indeed intend to send a message, but revealed that it was "for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me." She added: “I want to show you that I don't care. You could criticize what you want to say, but it will not prevent me from doing what seems right to me.
Ivanka and Melania allegedly influenced Donald Trump politically
As two of the most powerful women in the Trump administration by proxy, Ivanka Trump and Melania Trump, CNN report, have spent their time in the White House "turning off the front seat as the two women in Trump's orbit," with both con success pursuing your own goals.
"In the case of Melania and Ivanka Trump, on the other hand, sometimes one of them is 'in front', and sometimes it is the other," Katherine Jellison, a professor at Ohio University, told The New York Times about their roles. duals in the White House. In the case of the Trump administration's controversial family separation policy on the southern border of the United States, the publication reported that Melania publicly spoke out against the policy, while Ivanka pressured her father privately to rethink his position. .
While Ivanka has used her role as a senior advisor to pursue political goals that involve women and the workforce, The Art of the Deal of her biography of her detailed the first lady's own powers to influence the president. . "Melania is far behind the scenes but she is incredibly influential," former communications director Sean Spicer said in the book (via The Washington Post). "She is not the one to come in and say: 'Hire this person, fire this person.' But she lets the president know what he thinks, and he takes her views very seriously from her, "with Trump" [tending] to agree with her.
