As Ivanka Trump raises her kids in Miami and tries to venture back into American high-society, with the help of celebrity friends Kim Kardashian and Lauren Sanchez, she has denied having any interest in helping her father campaign for president or in returning to the world of politics.
But as Donald Trump secures his spot as the Republican front-runner, his beloved oldest daughter may find it difficult to resist the potential allure of going back to work in the White House, if he were to be re-elected. Or perhaps, Ivanka Trump could enjoy proximity to power in other ways, with Vanity Fair reporting on speculation that her business mogul husband, Jared Kushner, is in the running to be named Secretary of State in a second Trump term.
Whatever Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner say publicly about being focused on their post-Jan. 6 lives in Miami, it’s hard to believe that Trump’s socially ambitious daughter would turn down a chance to again be at the center of national prominence if her father managed to overcome his various legal and political challenges and return to the White House.
But how would her stepmother, former First Lady Melania Trump, feel about that?
WASHINGTON, DC – AUGUST 27: U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump is introduced by his daughter and White House senior adviser, Ivanka Trump, as he prepares to deliver his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination on the South Lawn of the White House August 27, 2020 in Washington, DC. Trump gave the speech in front of 1500 invited guests. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
According to a new book, Melania Trump spent her four years as first lady waging a war for control in the White House against her stepdaughter, the New York Post reported.
The two women had a four-year “internal power struggle,” which started as Ivanka tried to assume the role of first lady when Melania didn’t immediately move into the Executive Mansion at the start of Trump’s term, according to the Post’s early viewing of Katie Rogers’ forthcoming book “American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden.”
Ivanka Trump had plans “to more or less” eliminate the first lady’s position by taking over her office in the East Wing, so it could be “geared to serving the entire first family, not just the first lady,” Rogers, a New York Times White House reporter, wrote, according to the Post.
Trump also pushed for Ivanka to take one some of the duties of first lady, alongside his Slovenian-born third wife, telling reporters early in his tenure that his daughter would be “helping her and working with her,” Rogers reported.
But Melania Trump pushed back against her stepdaughter’s interventions and dubbed her “The Princess,” according to Rogers. After Ivanka took the job of her father’s White House senior adviser, despite a lack of government experience, she and her stepmother largely steered clear of one another.
But tensions between them occasionally flared, including when the Trump administration faced massive backlash in June 2018 for its policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the Mexican border. The women “were locked in a quiet competition for press coverage” at the time, Rogers reported, according to the Post.
US First Lady Melania Trump departs Andrews Air Rorce Base in Maryland June 21, 2018 wearing a jacket emblazoned with the words “I really don’t care, do you?” following her surprise visit with child migrants on the US-Mexico border. / AFP PHOTO / MANDEL NGANMANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images
Indeed, their rivalry sparked one of Melania Trump’s most notorious acts as first lady, Rogers explained, according to The Post. The first lady was somehow sending a message to her stepdaughter when she wore her polarizing “I really don’t care, do you?” jacket ahead of her June 2018 visit to see detained migrant children
Pope Francis (C) walks past US First Lady Melania Trump (R) and the daughter of US President Donald Trump Ivanka Trump (L) at the end of a private audience at the Vatican on May 24, 2017. (ALESSANDRA TARANTINO/AFP/Getty Images)
Sources told Rogers that Melania Trump also thought it was inappropriate for Ivanka and her two adult brothers, Don Jr. and Eric Trump, as well as their partners, Kimberly Guilfoyle and Lara Trump, to be so heavily involved in the work of the White House.
“If she ever waged a battle over the issue, it is one she clearly lost: For four years, it was hard to see where the operations of the family business stopped and the Trump administration started,” Rogers wrote, according to the Post.
A 2018 biography of the Trumps said that Donald Trump and his children always saw themselves as American royalty and as “a modern version of the Kennedys.”
Ivanka Trump was particularly enamored of this idea, according to the book, “Born Trump: Inside America’s First Family,” by Vanity Fair writer Emily Jane Fox. Like Melania Trump, Fox also attributed “princess” aspirations to Trump’s beloved oldest daughter.
When it came to her father’s 2017 inauguration, Ivanka was swept up in the potential pageantry and symbolism of the occasion, Fox wrote. She told friends she wanted a “princess moment” at the inauguration, Fox said.
“I told her it’s an inauguration, not a coronation,” one friend told Fox. “The sentiment was that Americans wanted a royal family.”
