Politics can take a toll on even the strongest families. Now that her dad's back in office for a second term, let's look back on how it's all affected the life of Ivanka Trump.
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00:00Politics can take a toll on even the strongest families. Now that her dad's back in office
00:05for a second term, let's look back on how it's all affected the life of Ivanka Trump.
00:10Even before she became the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump has lived her entire life in the
00:15public eye. At just 9 years old, she became a target of the tabloids during her parents'
00:20infamous breakup, which played out in real time in the media and in movies.
00:24Don't get mad, get everything."
00:27So it's no surprise that as an adult, Ivanka has maintained a tightly controlled public image of
00:33herself and her marriage to fellow real estate mogul Jared Kushner. But certain cracks in her
00:38facade, like her much-memed meeting with Justin Trudeau and the time she forgot to wear her
00:43wedding ring on The View, have led to speculation about what's really going on with her marriage to
00:48Jared Kushner. Here are some clues. If you asked most married couples to compliment each other,
00:54one of the last things they would cite would be a resume item. But Ivanka Trump and Jared
00:58Kushner aren't most couples. Prior to joining Trump's administration, they were both leaders
01:03of powerful, multi-billion-dollar real estate organizations. Ivanka held a leadership role
01:08in the Trump Organization, and Jared was CEO of Kushner Companies, his family's real estate empire,
01:13as well as majority shareholder and publisher of The Observer. As you can imagine,
01:17these executive positions, while clearly rewarding, consume a lot of time and energy.
01:22Ivanka has said she works 12- to 14-hour days, and speaking to Harper's Bazaar,
01:27she boasted her pride in always arriving before everyone else at the office.
01:31That kind of drive must have been a huge turn-on for Kushner, who actually met Trump during what
01:36was supposed to be a business meeting. And that transactional nature has continued throughout
01:40their marriage. The couple's wedding program even allegedly included a marketing flyer for
01:45one of Donald Trump's golf courses, a claim which Ivanka denies. But it's kind of believable,
01:50considering how Kushner described their marriage to Vogue, saying,
01:54quote,
01:54"...I would say she is definitely the CEO of our household, whereas I'm more on the board
01:58of directors."
01:59Whoa. Calm down there, Casanova. Even their date nights are reportedly business-oriented,
02:04as he most likes to take her to his newest property acquisitions.
02:08Unlike her party girl half-sister Tiffany, Ivanka Trump has always seemed like an old soul.
02:13She told Purple magazine,
02:15quote,
02:15"...partying was never a major part of my life. I don't drink a lot. I've always preferred quiet
02:20settings, like dinners."
02:21It's probably the reason Ivanka and Chelsea Clinton have gotten along so well.
02:25"...our friendship didn't start in politics. It certainly is not going to end because of politics."
02:31Outside of that high-profile friendship, though, Ivanka was never really one for
02:35the scene. According to Esquire, Kushner tends to surround himself with older captains of industry,
02:40which was evident at his 35th birthday celebration in which one guest described
02:44the median age of partygoers as somewhere near 70. And this probably works just fine for Ivanka,
02:50who once said,
02:51quote,
02:52"...Jared and I will go walk around neighborhoods and look at properties that he owns and that I
02:56own. But that's fun."
02:58So, chances are, you won't find these guys at your friendly neighborhood kegger anytime soon.
03:03Though Ivanka is definitely more extroverted than her husband,
03:06neither she nor Jared come close to matching the huge personalities of their fathers.
03:11Donald Trump is obviously less poised than his daughter, and Charles Kushner,
03:15Jared's father, is also a tenacious businessman with a controversial personality.
03:19In fact, both Donald Trump and Charles Kushner have also been embroiled in their share of
03:23scandals, with Kushner actually serving two years in jail for a series of bizarre crimes
03:28including tampering with elections and arranging to blackmail his own sister.
03:32So, while they both stem from outlandish dads,
03:35Ivanka and Jared are actually pretty polished, all things considered.
03:38For all of the speculation and media scrutiny surrounding the Trump family,
03:42Jared and Ivanka's marriage actually shows no signs of strain. Granted,
03:46they play everything extremely close to the chest, but most normal marriages would falter
03:50under the stress of just the 24-hour media coverage, let alone the privacy intrusion
03:55of a presidential election. But Jared and Ivanka's marriage is anything but normal,
03:59and the introduction of the stressful world of politics has only seemed to strengthen their bond.
04:04Ivanka told Vogue that Jared is her ideal partner because his drive and ambitions match her own,
04:09saying,
04:10quote,
04:10"...his own dreams are bold, and I love that in someone."
04:13Of course, that's just one way to put it. Another source close to the couple,
04:17speaking to Esquire, described them a bit more cynically, saying,
04:21quote,
04:21"...power, power, power, power. Jared's got plenty of money,
04:26but the only way he can separate himself from his family is power.
04:29They're a great match because that's also what Ivanka is after."
04:33They grew up with two different moms, but the same billionaire father. So it's safe
04:38to say the relationship between Ivanka and Tiffany Trump, the only daughters of President
04:43Donald Trump, has been anything but conventional. Tiffany, the only child from Donald Trump's
04:48marriage to Marla Maples, grew up in Calabasas, California, about 3,000 miles away from her
04:54half-sister Ivanka's home in Manhattan's Trump Tower. Despite the distance, not sharing a mother
05:00and a large age gap — Ivanka is 12 years older than Tiffany — the two reportedly remained very
05:06close. Ivanka told People magazine,
05:08"...we would see each other on all of the holidays and talk to each other frequently.
05:12She's my little sister. I've been close to Tiffany her whole life and I really love her."
05:18Unsurprisingly, growing up in California greatly limited Tiffany's physical access to her father,
05:23and her father's fortune. As a result of the distance, Tiffany turned to her sister to ask
05:28for help getting her piece of the pie. In her book The Trump Card, Ivanka recalled a time in
05:33which Tiffany went to Ivanka for advice on how to ask their father for a credit card. Ivanka wrote
05:38that Tiffany just wanted some of the same privileges the rest of her siblings enjoyed,
05:42so Ivanka used her own influence on her father to push the request through.
05:47The art of that deal involved Ivanka convincing Donald Trump to give her a credit card with a
05:52small monthly allowance as a Christmas gift that year, and the strategy worked.
05:56It wasn't the last time Ivanka would step up to help her sister find her way into the
06:00glitzy lifestyle of her East Coast-based family. Some might assume that because of Donald Trump's
06:06major presence in New York City that he was the one who landed Tiffany an internship with Vogue
06:11magazine in 2011, but it was actually Ivanka who arranged the whole thing. Hey, what are big
06:17sisters for? For some, the presence of Ivanka and Tiffany in Donald Trump's presidential campaign
06:22was highly instrumental to earning him votes for the White House, particularly when it came
06:26to tempering the subject of his alleged scandals with women. Their shared time spent on the campaign
06:31trail may have also strengthened the relationship between the sisters, who appeared to be
06:35inseparable as they traveled across America on behalf of their dad. That said, the influence
06:40of the sisters was not completely equal the whole time. Ivanka is often described as playing an
06:45influential and powerful role on her father's life, so much so that some people even joked
06:51she'd be filling in as First Lady in the White House. Meanwhile, Tiffany was the only adult-age
06:56Trump kid who did not become part of Trump's transition team, and she wasn't even fully
07:00visible on the promotional front until later on in the game. It's no secret that Ivanka is presented
07:06as the golden child among her siblings. Trump himself has admitted to favoring his eldest
07:11daughter in the past, and so have Ivanka's brothers. Tiffany, meanwhile, appears to be
07:15playing catch-up when it comes to her relationship with her father, after years and years of literal
07:20distance. To this day, she's often referred to as the Forgotten Trump, much to her mother Marla
07:25Maples' dismay. With Ivanka at her side, though, there's a good chance Tiffany's not going to be
07:30forgotten again anytime soon. Before Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner became an instantly recognizable
07:36duo, Ivanka was an outsider to the Kushner clan, and it was no easy task to penetrate that fortress.
07:43So what's Ivanka's relationship with her in-laws like?
07:47The Kushners and the Trumps have one thing in common — real estate. Charles and Sarah Kushner
07:52made their fortune off of New Jersey real estate to the tune of approximately $2 billion,
07:57according to New York Magazine. Charles' parents were Holocaust survivors who escaped Poland and
08:03fled to the United States in 1949. They found a community of fellow survivors in Newark,
08:08and the area became deeply significant to the family. Of their four children,
08:12Charles showed intense motivation and drive, always keeping the family mantra close to heart
08:18— think like an immigrant, act like an immigrant.
08:20Charles and his father partnered on a real estate company that grew into an empire.
08:25While the Kushners' business skill certainly contributes to their story of power and
08:29authority in the United States, it's really their devotion to their Jewish faith that
08:34influenced their initial reluctance to accept Ivanka. The Kushners were extremely financially
08:39generous in supporting their Jewish community, as Esquire notes, and valued their elite status
08:44within that group. A source told New York Magazine that Charles loved that when he
08:48walked into a synagogue, the rabbis approached. Charlie saw himself as, quote, the Jewish Kennedy.
08:54But the Kushner story is not without scandal. Charles went to prison for illegal campaign
08:59donations and tax evasion after being indicted by Chris Christie.
09:04Once again, Charles, for all that you have done for the Democratic Party."
09:07He finished his sentence in 2006 and was pardoned by then-President Donald Trump in 2020.
09:14While Charles Kushner has four children, Jared Kushner, his eldest,
09:18seems to be the one Charles picked to carry on the family legacy. As New York Magazine notes,
09:24following Charles' imprisonment, Jared became the face of the family.
09:28When they bought the famous 666 Fifth Avenue, Jared told the outlet that he got the better
09:33Jared said of his dad,
09:35"'The only fight we had, he wanted me to take this corner instead of him.
09:39I think it's the better view, but my father insisted.'"
09:42"'My father's an incredible man. We're very,
09:44very close and he's always been a great mentor and friend.'"
09:47The two remain close, and Charles is extremely protective of his son,
09:51especially when it comes to the media. He said to Gabriel Sherman,
09:55the author of the New York Magazine article,
09:57"'Be nice to my son. We've been killed enough by the press. Just because I've been killed,
10:02don't kill him.'"
10:03While Charles is extremely protective of Jared, he's also full of praise for him. He said of Jared,
10:08"'He was the best son to his father in jail, the best son to his mother,
10:12who suffered terribly, and he was a father to his siblings.'"
10:15"'No matter what Charlie did, he was going to stand by his side,
10:18but I also think he needed Charlie's guidance at that point.'"
10:21There's an interesting parallel between the Kushner children and the Trump children.
10:25In speaking of Jared, The New York Times wrote that, like Trump's children,
10:29Kushner grew up in a life of extreme privilege. So how did Jared and Ivanka meet?
10:34Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner met through business. Friends in a real estate company
10:39set up a business lunch with the optimistic idea that they could put their combined financial
10:44experience to good use. Well, the meal went from business to personal. They started dating in 2007,
10:51and since they were both from famous families, their relationship quickly became noteworthy.
10:56The parallels between the two made the relationship seem that much more fitting.
11:00They were both 25, both had famous fathers often for contentious reasons, both were immersed in
11:05the world of real estate, and both had proven themselves on their own, though we're not saying
11:10that they're exactly self-made. Ivanka later reminisced to Vogue about that fateful lunch,
11:15and said of the friends who orchestrated the event,
11:18"'They very innocently set us up thinking that our only interest in one another would be
11:22transactional. Whenever we see them we're like, the best deal we ever made.'"
11:27While some saw Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner as a match made in heaven,
11:31Charles and Saral Kushner did not. In her 2019 book, Kushner, Inc., Vicky Ward writes about
11:36how Jared's parents were horrified by their relationship. Their reason, as Ward notes,
11:41was that they didn't like the idea of their son marrying outside of their faith. Ward goes on to
11:46say,
11:47The idea was particularly offensive to Saral, who had raised the children. They were her world,
11:52and her world was the closed, conservative Jewish culture she had grown up in.
11:57Jared was raised in the modern Orthodox tradition, which means that one lives within
12:01the secular world while still closely adhering to religious customs. For the Kushners,
12:06their faith came first, and they expected their children to adhere to this mindset as well.
12:11So it was actually Jared's mother, Saral, who told him to back off from his relationship with
12:15Ivanka, according to Esquire. Though it's much less circulated, the Trumps may not have always
12:21been pleased with Ivanka's choice, either. When he was president, Donald Trump reportedly said
12:26several times that he could have had Tom Brady for a son-in-law, but instead got Kushner. While
12:31there's no evidence that Brady and Ivanka dated, it shows both families weren't always happy with
12:36the situation. With so much pushback over their relationship, it might not be a huge surprise
12:42that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump broke up for a hot minute. The entire family, even Jared
12:48himself, was deeply immersed in Judaism. According to The New Yorker, when Jared was at Harvard,
12:53his loyalty to his family and faith came through equally. He called his parents every day,
12:58and on Fridays, he ate in a kosher dining hall. The Kushner family wanted Jared to marry a Jewish
13:03woman. Meanwhile, there's Ivanka, raised Presbyterian, who was often seen wearing a
13:08cross in her younger days. So Jared and Ivanka broke up in 2008, but it didn't last long.
13:15Only three months later, they reconnected at a party, which was hosted by Wendy Dang Murdoch,
13:20who was married to media mogul Rupert Murdoch from 1999 to 2013. As Ward notes,
13:26neither Ivanka nor Jared knew that they'd bump into each other at the event, but that was enough
13:31to get the ball rolling again. However, Ivanka still had a ways to go before she was accepted
13:37by the Kushner parents. Ivanka Trump agreed to convert to Judaism.
13:42It was really the only way a long-term relationship with Jared Kushner would work.
13:47Ivanka studied with Rabbi Haskell Luchstein, and it was something that seemed to be a positive
13:52experience for her. When she was in the process of converting, she told New York magazine,
13:56"'I am studying, and it's been an amazing and fulfilling experience for me.
14:00One of the jokes I first started making when Jared and I first started dating is,
14:04I'm a New Yorker. I'm in real estate. I'm as close to Jewish with an
14:08ish naturally as anyone can start off."
14:11While this might have been Ivanka's take, Charles Kushner wasn't easily convinced.
14:15Bob Sommer, the publicist for the Kushner companies,
14:18told Esquire that Charles put Ivanka to the test when it came to her conversion. He said,
14:24"'This wasn't like, talk to a rabbi, read a couple of paragraphs.
14:27It was hard and difficult, and it was on Charlie's terms.'"
14:30New York magazine noted, too, that Sarah Kushner took a long time to warm up to the idea.
14:36But Ivanka persisted and wound up proving herself to the Kushners.
14:39So finally, in 2009, they were ready to welcome her into their family,
14:44and Jared gave Ivanka a 5.22-carat diamond engagement ring.
14:48Their wedding marked a major turning point in Ivanka's relationship with the family.
14:53After an eventful and often challenging dating period, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner finally
14:59got married on October 25th, 2009. The wedding was as massive and expensive as one would expect
15:05of any Trump event. They hosted their 500 guests at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster,
15:10New Jersey. Best of all for the bride, the wedding marked a major turning point in Ivanka's
15:16relationship with her in-laws. After putting Ivanka to task in her conversion process to Judaism,
15:21Charles Kushner was allegedly extremely warm in his speech. A guest at the wedding told
15:26Esquire that Charles essentially said,
15:29"'Look, everyone thinks she's great, but being Jewish is just unbelievably important to us,
15:34and she's not Jewish. It's a problem for me, a genuine problem. Then I watched and got to see
15:39she's in love with my son, and it wasn't what I thought in the beginning. I feel right about it.'"
15:43It seems both Charles and Sarah were eventually delighted about the match.
15:48In her book, Kushner, Inc., Vicki Ward quoted Bob Summer, the family's publicist, who said,
15:54By the time the wedding took place, Charlie and Sarah were effusive about their new daughter-in-law.
15:59According to Summer, Ivanka had not just passed the tests — she had far surpassed Charlie's
16:04expectations. She had also charmed Charlie, who had proudly explained to a friend that she really
16:09wanted to be a Kushner. So with that momentous day, Ivanka was officially a member of the family.
16:15While the Kushners were initially skeptical about Ivanka Trump, the arrival of another
16:20woman in the family was evidence that Ivanka didn't need to take it personally.
16:24Jared Kushner's younger brother, Josh, began dating supermodel Karlie Kloss in June 2012,
16:30and the outlet notes that it's unclear where they first met. Their budding relationship
16:34became public when Josh attended the after-party for the Victoria's Secret fashion show.
16:39Kloss was a model for the brand for years and officially became an angel in 2013.
16:44However, when it came to being welcomed by the Kushner family,
16:48Kloss had an even harder time than Ivanka did. Ward wrote in Kushner Inc. that friends of the
16:53family refused to call her anything but, quote, the lingerie model. Ward wrote that Josh told
16:58others he wasn't allowed to bring Kloss to any family parties, and Charles and Sarah refused
17:04to even meet her for six years. Ward writes that Charles was hard on Josh, and he openly expressed
17:09his disdain for his son's choice, allegedly telling his son,
17:13"[Josh, we expect you to do the right thing. The person you are with is not the right person."
17:18Kloss, like Ivanka, ended up converting to Judaism to marry Josh,
17:22but it wasn't as easy an initiation as it was for Ivanka. In fact,
17:26Josh's relationship made Ivanka seem that much better in the Kushners' eyes.
17:31The Kushners eventually warmed up enough to Karlie Kloss that she and Josh Kushner married in 2018
17:37in a small Jewish wedding in upstate New York. There were only 80 people at the celebration,
17:42and while the Kushner parents finally acquiesced to the arrangement,
17:46they weren't completely happy about it. As Vicki Ward writes in her book,
17:50Despite Kloss' efforts, the fissure was not closed by the nuptials.
17:54Karlie and Sarah admitted to a friend that they had not been asked to play any part in
17:59planning the wedding. Interestingly, the sudden comparison between their two daughters-in-law
18:04made Ivanka Trump that much more appealing in their eyes. Ward wrote that if friends pointed
18:09out that they were being hypocritical, being hesitant about Kloss while gradually accepting
18:13Ivanka, they had a rebuttal ready, telling People that Ivanka was different. Ward explained,
18:19She was a Trump. She was also, like Jared, real estate royalty, and she'd attended an Ivy League
18:24school, the University of Pennsylvania. Kloss grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri,
18:29a suburb of St. Louis, and hadn't even been to college when she and Josh began dating.
18:33So oddly enough, it was a new Kushner relationship that made it clear
18:38how much Charles and Saral had come to like Ivanka.
18:41While Ivanka Trump is officially in the inner circle of the Kushner clan,
18:45she's had a tricky relationship with Kloss. Ivanka and Jared Kushner attended Kloss'
18:50wedding to Josh Kushner, but the two women have had a complicated relationship due to politics.
18:55Kloss is an outspoken Democrat, which created friction between herself and Ivanka and Jared,
19:01who both took on senior roles in Donald Trump's White House. On Watch What Happens Live with Andy
19:06Cohen, Cohen asked Kloss if she agreed with the family's politics.
19:10I'm sure I'm not the only person in this country who
19:13does not necessarily agree with their family on politics.
19:17Kloss wrapped up by saying that she voted as a Democrat in 2016 and planned to do the same in
19:222020. Ivanka has reached out with an olive branch a few times on social media. In March 2019,
19:29Ivanka posted a video on Twitter of Kloss hosting Project Runway and said,
19:33Gosh, Carly, it's happening. Amazing. Project Runway. Carly is host."
19:40However, Kloss didn't respond to this praise,
19:42nor does she follow Ivanka on Twitter or Instagram.
19:46After the riot on the U.S. Capitol Building in January 2021,
19:50Kloss tweeted a message directed at Donald Trump, writing,
19:53Accepting the results of a legitimate Democratic election is patriotic.
19:57Refusing to do so and inciting violence is anti-American.
20:01Someone commented,
20:02Tell your sister-in-law and brother-in-law.
20:04Kloss replied,
20:05I've tried.
20:07While the Kushners gave Ivanka Trump a hard time early on,
20:10it's not like either family can boast superiority. In many ways,
20:14their compared wealth and their scandals put them on equal footing.
20:18Charles Kushner served his time for tax evasion and illegal campaign contributions,
20:23as well as paying a sex worker $10,000 to sleep with a brother-in-law with whom he was feuding,
20:28having it filmed to send to his sister. The Trump family also has scandals,
20:32and like the Kushners, they center around the patriarch.
20:36Donald Trump has several allegations of sexual assault, all of which Trump has denied.
20:41His companies have also gone bankrupt several times throughout his business years,
20:45and then of course his term in the White House was checkered with controversy.
20:49Keeping all of this in mind, it's unrealistic for one family to lord superiority over the other.
20:55Mary Trump, who has now become an outspoken critic of her famous uncle,
20:59was critical of the Kushners' superior attitude at Ivanka and Jared's wedding.
21:03In her book Too Much and Never Enough, Mary Trump said she disliked
21:07Charles' jokes that Ivanka was barely good enough to join their family. She wrote,
21:12Considering that Charles had been convicted of hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law,
21:18taping their illicit encounter, and then sending the recording to his sister at his nephew's
21:22engagement party, I found his condescension a bit out of line.
21:26The Kushners were famous and powerful before Donald Trump became president,
21:31but his time in the White House pushed Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner
21:34into the political arena in a major way, by making them senior advisors.
21:39So what did the Kushners think of Trump in the White House?
21:42Charles opened up to The Real Deal in 2018 and said that while he was a Democrat in the past,
21:48he doesn't stand with either party anymore. He said,
21:51I don't share a lot of the Republican beliefs and values on a lot of issues.
21:55The Democratic Party that I supported for all the years is not the same Democratic Party of today,
22:01on a lot of issues that are very near and dear to my heart."
22:04He said that he'd likely register as an independent. That being said,
22:08Kushner did have considerable praise for Trump, saying,
22:11It's very controversial to say I do believe in President Trump. I think he's done a good job."
22:17Kushner added that he thinks Trump is a great leader.
22:20The praise did not go unnoticed, as Trump pardoned Kushner in 2020.
22:24The president spending his final days in office,
22:27wiping away the convictions of close allies and associates.
22:32Trump's statement read,
22:33Since completing his sentence in 2006, Mr. Kushner has been devoted to important
22:39philanthropic organizations and causes. However, after the riots at the U.S. Capitol in 2021,
22:45Kushner told The New York Times that Trump's behavior was beyond the family's control,
22:50so he clearly isn't one-sided.
22:52Because you'll never take back our country with weakness.
22:56You have to show strength and you have to be strong.
23:00With such an eventful courtship followed by an even more notable term in the White House,
23:04Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have been through it all,
23:07and Charles and Sarah Kushner have been there to support them.
23:11When Jared and Ivanka were living in Washington, D.C. during Donald Trump's presidency,
23:16Charles and Sarah came to visit them and their three children. The Daily Mail said that staff
23:21were loading up a car, implying that the whole family was leaving for a weekend getaway,
23:25and that Charles and Sarah were all smiles.
23:28After the Trumps left the White House following the inauguration of Joe Biden in January 2021,
23:34the entire Trump clan left for Florida. Ivanka and Jared bought a $24 million
23:39mansion in Indian Creek, and it looks like Charles and Sarah regularly visit.
23:44Jared's parents own a home in Florida and regularly stay there,
23:47so that they can be closer to their son, Ivanka, and their grandchildren.
23:51One obvious reason for the close bond between the in-laws and the young family is that Ivanka
23:57seems deeply immersed in the Jewish faith. She frequently shares images of her family
24:01actively participating in their religion, like when her children lit the menorah.
24:06Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner certainly have an eventful story together,
24:11but their relationship has grown beyond the early drama. Despite going through the
24:15ringer for their relationship, especially on Ivanka's side, they're remarkably similar.
24:20All press coverage of Charles Kushner's relationship with Jared indicates that the
24:24father openly praises his son and groomed him from all of his children for the role
24:29of carrying on the Kushner empire. Likewise, Ivanka, of all her siblings,
24:34seems to be the apple of Donald Trump's eye. The New Yorker goes so far as to say that Ivanka
24:40is Trump's favorite. Both Ivanka and Jared have a deep distrust of the media.
24:44The Washington Post noted in 2017 that Jared never talks to the press,
24:49and Jared himself told Forbes the same thing shortly after Donald Trump's election.
24:54Ivanka learned this at a much younger age, where, at 9,
24:57she was hounded by paparazzi following her father and mother's divorce. She told GQ in 2007,
25:04You know, the media is vicious. They're brutal, present company excluded. It taught me not to
25:09trust anyone. You can never let your guard down, and I never really have since that time."
25:14Clearly, they're both tight-lipped, so Jared and Ivanka seem like two peas in a gilded pod.
25:20Going by press coverage alone, Donald Trump's first wife, Ivana, and his daughter with her,
25:24Ivanka, couldn't appear more different. Sure, they're both blonde, glamorous Trump women,
25:28but for as polished and rehearsed as Ivanka comes across, her mother can be brash,
25:32irreverent, and controversial. So how does that work as far as their mother-daughter relationship
25:36goes? Though the K in her name is undoubtedly appreciated by copy editors everywhere,
25:41Ivanka was actually named after her mother, meaning they share the handle Ivana Marie Trump.
25:45Ivanka made the revelation on Twitter in 2010, explaining that Ivanka is actually
25:50the Czech baby name for Ivana. Her mom also spelled out the details in her 2017 memoir,
25:54Raising Trump. Ivana actually won the fight to name Ivanka,
25:57or at least that's what she claimed in an interview with ABC News.
26:01He wanted to call Ivanka Tiffany. And I said, well, my dead body, she's going to be called
26:05Tiffany. She's going to be named like Ivana Maria Trump. I decided all names."
26:10It's well known that Donald's approach to parenting is pretty hands-off. In 2005,
26:14he told Larry King what his role would be if he ever had children with Melania.
26:18I'm not gonna be doing the diapers. I'm not gonna be making the food. I may never even
26:22see the kids, frankly. Okay?" Ivana concurs with Donald in Raising Trump,
26:26claiming that although he was a good father to them, she's the one who deserves the credit
26:29for raising such great kids. She writes,
26:31"[I was in charge of raising our children before our divorce, and I had sole custody
26:35of them after the split. I made the decisions about their education, activities, travel,
26:39child care, and allowances."
26:41A Vanity Fair profile on the Trump half-sisters paints a slightly different picture. Ivana is
26:45described as not around much when Ivanka was growing up, due to her obligations as CEO for
26:49Trump's Castle Casino in Atlantic City. In her absence, the kids were attended to by a bodyguard
26:54and two nannies, one of whom Ivanka reverted to as a second mother and her closest confidant.
26:59In her own book, Women Who Work, which examines the balancing act modern women
27:03attempt to achieve between their professional and personal lives, Ivanka cites Ivana as a
27:07personal role model. It was my mother, unapologetically feminine in a male industry,
27:11who first embodied and defined for me what it meant to be a multidimensional woman,
27:14a woman who works at all aspects of her life.
27:17The praise doesn't stop there. In Raising Trump, Ivanka's words are often featured
27:21in block quotes like this one,
27:22"...I'm immensely proud of our mother and excited that she's written this book.
27:25She is an amazing mom, teacher, and inspiration to all of us."
27:29According to Vanity Fair, Don Jr. took Ivana and Donald's 1992 divorce the hardest,
27:34allegedly going so far as not to speak to his father for an entire year afterward.
27:38For Ivanka, who was just nine years old at the time, the fracture of her family was,
27:42of course, very personal, but also struck a fear within her that she would no longer
27:45be associated with the powerful family name. Looking back as an adult, Ivanka now believes
27:49that considering the circumstances of the high-profile split, her parents both did a
27:53great job shielding the kids from the negative aspects. She told People in 2016,
27:57"...they made a real effort to ensure that we knew that they would always be there for
28:00us and accessible to us, and it helped us through a difficult time."
28:04Though Ivana and Ivanka seem to have made great strides in maintaining their
28:07non-traditional family unit, neither has the time of day for the woman who they believe
28:10made it that way, Marla Maples, Donald's mistress-turned-wife and mother to his
28:14youngest child, Tiffany. In that same with ABC News, Ivana pulls no punches, referring
28:19to Marla only as,
28:20"...the showgirl."
28:21"...I never accept her apology. She ruined my family and my marriage."
28:25Ivanka's stance on her ex-stepmom is more reserved. When asked by People if she's close
28:29with Maples, Ivanka offered only a clipped response,
28:32"...I'm not. She was out in California and really my relationship is with Tiffany."
28:35In Raising Trump, Ivana recalls that Ivanka didn't bring home many suitors,
28:39and after Ivanka met Jared Kushner, who got Ivana's motherly seal of approval immediately,
28:43her dating life effectively came to an end. Ivana describes Jared as
28:47"...intelligent, good-looking, strong, and a great father."
28:49Ivana points out that Jared makes Ivanka happy, which is all she truly cares about,
28:53and that she views his frank honesty in every situation as a sign that he respects both his
28:57wife and his mother-in-law.
28:59"...It takes real guts to put my daughter in her place, right in front of his mother-in-law.
29:03And I'm not your typical mother-in-law. He's either very comfortable around me,
29:06or they're comfortable being complimentary and critical of each other, or all of the above."
29:11Ivana is quick to point out that Ivanka's elegance comes directly from her. In an interview with Time,
29:15she recalls how her daughter would
29:16"...sit on the bathtub rim watching her mom get dolled up every evening after ballet
29:20classes and art lessons at the Metropolitan Museum."
29:23So you could rightly assume that Ivanka's dyed-blonde locks,
29:25which Ivana also sports, were just another glamour mom hand-me-down.
29:28But in another story from Raising Trump, Ivanka herself reveals that it was only
29:32after she had dyed her hair blue as part of her punk phase in the 90s that her mom
29:36dragged her to a drugstore and corrected the unforgivable gap with a, quote,
29:39"...$10 box of Nice & Easy."
29:41Ivanka says she learned to love it.
29:42The color she picked out was actually three shades lighter than my natural color,
29:46and I have never looked back.
29:47Ivanka and Melania are just 11 years apart, though they lived very different lives before
29:53Melania became Ivanka's stepmother. Ivanka, the daughter of Donald and his first wife,
29:57Ivana, lived a charmed life surrounded by the trappings of wealth. She attended private schools,
30:03worked as a model in high school, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2004,
30:08before joining her father as vice president of the Trump Organization in 2005.
30:13According to GQ, Melania was born and raised in Slovenia before she pursued modeling in Italy,
30:19France, and later the U.S., meeting her future husband at a New York Fashion Week party in 1998.
30:26The couple wed in 2005 when Melania was 34 and Donald was 58, with 23-year-old Ivanka reading
30:33Bible verses at their wedding ceremony. The year before, Ivanka had praised Melania in a New York
30:38magazine interview, saying,
30:40"'She's really nice. She's a good person and we appreciate that.
30:44I think we're all getting to know her a little bit more now.'"
30:47Ivana Trump offered a unique take on why Ivanka and Melania were able to have a cordial relationship.
30:54In between Ivana and Melania, Donald famously married his second wife,
30:58Marla Maples, following a cheating scandal that split up his and Ivana's marriage and
31:04exposed Ivana and Donald's three children to tabloid scrutiny.
31:08Ivana told The Atlantic about Maples,
31:10"'Ivanka likes Melania fine. Because she didn't cause me to break up the marriage
31:15like the other one. I don't even want to pronounce her name.'"
31:18In her 2017 memoir, Raising Trump, Ivana even recalled a time when Ivanka stood up for Melania
31:25to her, after hurtful comments Ivana allegedly made about Melania at a private lunch were
31:31published in the New York Daily News. Ivana explained,
31:34"'Ivanka called me that day and said,
31:36Melania was upset about the article. I texted Melania, saying,
31:40"'You have never done anything wrong to me, and I never have to you. You are in the family,
31:45and I would never do anything against the family. Love, Ivana.'"
31:49That smoothed things over.
31:52Ivanka and Melania have both referred to one another as
31:55"'friends,' as opposed to having a more traditional mother-daughter relationship.
31:59After all, Ivanka was 23 and already a Trump Organization exec by the time
32:03Melania married her father in 2005. Not to mention Melania soon started her own
32:08family with Donald, with the birth of their son, Barron, in 2006.
32:12Speaking to Harper's Bazaar a decade later, Melania described Donald's children from his
32:16previous marriages as grown-ups, saying,
32:18"'I don't see myself as their mother. I am their friend, and I'm here when they need me.'"
32:22Similarly, in the acknowledgments section of Ivanka's 2017 book,
32:26Women Who Work, rewriting the rules for success, she briefly thanked Melania, writing,
32:31"'You give generously of your time and attention, and I appreciate your support and friendship.'"
32:36When Ivanka publicly compliments Melania, she often cites Melania's mothering skills,
32:41calling her a, quote,
32:42"'unbelievable mother with a heart of gold' in her book's acknowledgments."
32:45Ivanka's April 2017 tweet celebrating Melania's birthday was similarly glowing,
32:50as she wrote that Melania was
32:52"'an incredible stepmom.'"
32:54When Melania battled controversy after allegedly plagiarizing parts of her Republican National
32:58Convention speech in 2016, Ivanka publicly defended her in an interview with People magazine.
33:05"'That you work hard for what you want in life.
33:08That your word is your bond, and you do what you say and keep your promise.'"
33:14At the time, Melania came under fire after portions of her speech were revealed to be
33:18undeniably similar to remarks Michelle Obama delivered in 2008.
33:23"'You work hard for what you want in life.
33:26That your word is your bond, that you do what you say you're gonna do.'"
33:29With the Trump campaign denying that the speech had been plagiarized,
33:32Ivanka told the outlet that her stepmom is
33:35"'very smart, she's very warm, and she's got an incredible heart.'"
33:38In that same interview, Ivanka also defended Melania's decision to stay home with her son
33:43Barron instead of campaigning with her husband, saying,
33:46"'It's pretty uncommon for wives of candidates to not be on the campaign trail every day,
33:50and she made a decision I totally respect, which is that she has a young son,
33:54he needs stability, he needs routine. My father's traveling so frequently,
33:58and she's an unbelievably consistent, loving, and reliable figure in Barron's life.'"
34:03Ivanka, who's a mother of three children with her husband, Jared Kushner,
34:07also cited Melania's choice as an influence on her own life. She said,
34:11"'She takes Barron to school every day, picks him up every day. It's a really
34:14remarkable thing, and she's a great inspiration to me as I raise my own
34:18children in terms of family first and having the right priorities.'"
34:22Considering both women's reputations as savvy protectors of their public images,
34:26Ivanka and Melania don't butt heads for the world to see.
34:30"'There's one first lady, and Melania will be an unbelievable first lady. She's a remarkable person.'"
34:39And yet, despite White House statements claiming that Ivanka and Melania shared a close relationship,
34:44according to Vanity Fair, insiders have continued to allege that the two aren't
34:48particularly friendly, describing their relationship to the outlet as
34:52frosty. According to sources in a 2019 unauthorized Melania biography,
34:56Free Melania, the two women are cordial, but not close. The insiders also noted that their
35:01ascension to the White House had complicated their previously warm relationship. Author Kate Bennett
35:07even presented an alternate take on the real target of Melania's controversial,
35:11"'I don't really care' jacket. Bennett explained,
35:13"'I believe and still do that the jacket was a facetious jab at Ivanka and her near
35:18constant attempts to attach herself for positive administration talking points.'"
35:22Meanwhile, Vicki Ward, who wrote 2019's Kushner, Inc., a book that detailed Ivanka
35:27and Jared Kushner's rise to power, told Stephen Colbert in 2019 that Melania was,
35:32"...the only person who has ever successfully stood up to Ivanka."
35:36Ward claimed that, in the early days of the Trump White House,
35:39Ivanka was making plans to solidify her power in the administration. However,
35:43Melania allegedly put a stop to those plans,
35:46which reportedly encroached on the first lady's territory in the White House.
35:50While Melania's interviews as first lady have been few and far between,
35:55another unauthorized biography, The Art of Her Deal, The Untold Story of Melania,
36:00made additional claims about her life in the White House in 2020. This included details
36:04about the seemingly not-always-friendly dynamic between Ivanka and her stepmother.
36:09In the book, author Mary Jordan wrote that Melania and Ivanka's relationship had its
36:13tensions, claiming that Melania had been overheard referring to Ivanka as
36:17the princess. Melania apparently wasn't the only White House figure to speak about Ivanka in such
36:22terms, with a 2017 Vanity Fair report alleging that Trump administration figures called Ivanka
36:28Princess Royal behind her back. Meanwhile, The Art of Her Deal also suggested that Ivanka,
36:33when she was younger, called her soft-spoken stepmom the Portrait,
36:37referring to her silent stature. Detailing the differences between Melania and Ivanka's
36:42public personas, the Free Melania biography previously noted the way these two women
36:46were labeled by White House observers. While Melania was portrayed as a, quote,
36:51vapid model trophy wife, Ivanka was allegedly treated differently,
36:54depicted in the White House as a savvy career mom.
36:58Another Trump administration power struggle between Ivanka and Melania may have taken the
37:03form of a White House turf war. According to The Art of Her Deal, issues reportedly arose when
37:08Melania initially stayed behind in New York City following Donald Trump's 2016 election win. While
37:13this allowed Barron to finish his school year, Melania also allegedly used this time to
37:18renegotiate her prenuptial agreement with Donald before her White House arrival.
37:22In the meantime, with Melania back in the Big Apple,
37:25Ivanka allegedly moved quickly to flex her influence in the White House.
37:29Jordan claims in The Art of Her Deal,
37:31According to several people, Ivanka was eyeing real estate in the East Wing as well,
37:36the domain of the First Lady. Among other proposals,
37:39Ivanka suggested renaming the First Lady's office the First Family Office.
37:43Unfortunately for Ivanka, Melania's influence was still able to be felt in Washington,
37:48even from hundreds of miles away. Jordan wrote,
37:51"[Melania did not allow that to happen. It was tradition,
37:54and she was not going to let her stepdaughter change it. Ivanka's office remained in the West
37:58Wing." Once the First Lady took up residence in the White House, she allegedly cracked down
38:03on Ivanka, quote, treating the private residence as if it were her own home. Jordan explained,
38:08Melania did not like it. She put an end to the revolving door by enforcing firm boundaries.
38:14Donald Trump has five children, but there's only one he calls Daddy's Little Girl.
38:19The president's bond with his oldest daughter Ivanka has only strengthened as she's grown
38:24older. What's there to know about this dad-daughter duo? Here's the truth about
38:28Ivanka Trump's relationship with her father. A young Ivanka could always count on her father
38:33to answer her phone calls, no matter who he was meeting with in his office at the time.
38:37During a 2016 interview with CNN, Ivanka recalled phoning Donald up at 10 years old
38:42by calling collect to the Trump Organization from the janitor's closet at school,
38:47and hearing him put her on speakerphone in front of his peers. Ivanka explained,
38:52It was colleagues. It was titans of industry. It was heads of countries. He'd always tell
38:57everyone in the room how great a daughter I was, and say cute things, and ask me about a test I
39:03took. Discussing Donald's parenting style and the early years of growing his business, she added,
39:09He always made us his top priority. He wasn't always physically present,
39:13but he was always available. Ivanka previously told a similar story to Harper's Bazaar,
39:18recalling how she'd call Donald from boarding school and listen to her father describe her as
39:22the smartest and most beautiful to his important guests. She said,
39:27There's no doubting my father values beauty. But in my formative years,
39:31I never thought he valued it to the point that it should make me uncomfortable.
39:36As Ivanka grew older and became a public figure associated with her father's empire,
39:41Donald took more liberties in how he referred to his daughter in public,
39:44often joking about her beauty and figure. In 2016, CNN unearthed several examples of
39:50Donald making eyebrow-raising comments about Ivanka's appearance on Howard Stern's syndicated
39:55radio show. It began in 2004 when Donald agreed with Stern about his daughter being, quote,
40:02a piece of ass. In a subsequent 2006 appearance on The Howard Stern Show, the host asked,
40:08Did your daughter get breast implants? She looks more voluptuous than ever.
40:12In response, Donald said,
40:14No, she didn't get them. She's actually always been very voluptuous.
40:19She's tall, she's almost six feet tall, and she's an amazing beauty.
40:24Donald kept the praise coming in a joint appearance with Ivanka on The View that same year,
40:28commenting on the possibility of Ivanka posing for Playboy. He told the hosts,
40:34I don't think Ivanka would do that inside the magazine,
40:37although she does have a very nice figure.
40:40I've said that if Ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her, you know?
40:43Stop it! Oh, it's so weird!
40:46Donald echoed these claims nearly a decade later in a 2015 Rolling Stone interview,
40:51saying of Ivanka,
40:52Yeah, she's really something. And what a beauty, that one. If I weren't happily married and,
40:58you know, her father.
40:59Before attending business school, Ivanka had pursued a modeling career.
41:04In all, because I model because I love to model. And that's really all there is to it.
41:08Donald welcomed his daughter into his business fold as a protege of sorts,
41:11where she worked for a decade at his side at the Trump Organization.
41:15She joined the organization in 2005, joking to Harper's Bazaar two years later that she
41:20and her father had been spending way too much time together. Working as a vice president of
41:25real estate development and acquisitions alongside her dad and brothers, Ivanka also joined Donald
41:30on his reality competition show The Apprentice in 2006. As she told GQ in 2007, she had no
41:37interest in being a television star, but rather agreed to appear on the show to, quote,
41:41advance her ultimate goal of becoming a great developer. She added,
41:46I'm not a clone, and I'm not a minion, but I really believe I have this incredible opportunity
41:51to take a brand that's so strong, and it's so strong because of my father,
41:56and take it to the next level. That's why I did The Apprentice.
42:00Ivanka remembered how Donald would test her to make sure she actually wanted to follow in his
42:04footsteps, telling Harper's Bazaar,
42:07Even though he knew I always wanted to go into real estate,
42:10when I got an offer to work at an incredible fashion magazine, he would be like,
42:15Oh, that's so cool. Are you sure you don't want to go and do that?
42:19For a while, I was getting a little discouraged.
42:22Beyond Ivanka's featured role on The Apprentice,
42:25Donald had plans to turn his daughter into a bona fide TV star.
42:29In 2016, Jezebel uncovered details of a reality show called Trump Tower Girls,
42:34which was greenlit in 2013 by E! and developed by Trump Productions.
42:39The show would feature real estate brokers of Trump International Realty alongside beauty queens
42:44who competed in Trump International's beauty pageants, with Ivanka at the show's center.
42:48The series' aim was allegedly to give Ivanka her own reality TV vehicle, just like her dad.
42:54With the prize being a job at Trump International, promo materials reportedly claimed the woman would
43:01Whatever it takes to win the week's payday,
43:03anything from a chartered plane to Monaco to a seven-figure commission.
43:08The Ivanka-centered series never aired after the Trump family withdrew their involvement
43:13with the project, with a source alleging to Jezebel,
43:16When Donald ran for president in 2016, Ivanka emerged as an important asset to her father's
43:27campaign, with the reality star-turned-politician going on to win the race. When he met the cries
43:33of sexism on the campaign trail, Ivanka publicly touted her father as a feminist to The Sunday
43:39Times, claiming,
43:40People talk about gender equality. He has lived it. He has employed women at the highest levels
43:46of the Trump Organization for decades, so I think it's a great testament to how capable
43:51he thinks women are and has shown that his whole life.
43:55She also appeared in television ads selling her father to voting moms, saying,
44:00The most important job any woman can have is being a mother,
44:04and it shouldn't mean taking a pay cut. Donald understands the needs of a modern workforce.
44:09My father will change outdated labor laws so that they support women and American families.
44:15Ivanka would go on to enthusiastically stump for her father at the Republican National Convention,
44:20targeting female voters in her speech. She told the crowd,
44:24As president, my father will change the labor laws that were put in place
44:27at a time when women were not a significant portion of the workforce,
44:31and he will focus on making quality child care affordable and accessible for all.
44:37When Donald assumed the presidency, Ivanka joined her father's administration as an advisor.
44:43Despite their status as one of the most powerful father-daughter duos in the world,
44:47they still used pet names to refer to each other. On the 2016 campaign trail,
44:51Donald told attendees at an Iowa rally about a child care plan Ivanka had been pushing. He said,
44:57She is the one who has been pushing for it so hard. She said,
45:02Daddy, daddy, we have to do this. And it's true. She's very smart, and she's right.
45:08Footage later circulated of the president speaking in North Dakota in 2017,
45:12where he again cited his adult daughter's daddy nickname.
45:16She's so good. She wanted to make the trip. She said, Dad, can I go with you? She actually said,
45:20Daddy, can I go with you? I like that, right?
45:23Joking about the speech afterwards on The Late Show, host Stephen Colbert cracked about that
45:28Donald's comments,
45:29Not weird at all. All of Trump's advisors call him Daddy.
45:33He name-checked the then-press secretary.
45:36Sean Spicer was actually the one who started it.
45:39A 2019 profile of Ivanka in the Atlantic further shed light on the affectionate terms Donald and
45:45his daughter shared, noting that the president sometimes calls Ivanka
45:48Baby in meetings they attend together.
45:52While serving as a valuable advisor and representative of President Donald's
45:56administration, Ivanka has publicly advocated for his policies, while occasionally standing
46:01up for him in interviews. However, Donald's efforts to elevate his daughter into a world
46:06leader was met with ridicule in 2017, when Ivanka sat in for him in a meeting at the G20 summit.
46:13Among the critical voices was Democratic Representative Maxine Waters,
46:17who slammed the administration's decision to send Ivanka as a replacement, telling MSNBC,
46:24Here you have the President of the United States at the G20 Summit of International Leaders
46:29representing us as the leader of the free world, and so he's going to play politics
46:34and give his daughter a chance to have a place in the sun and to be seen at a
46:38very important meeting that she knows nothing about.
46:41Following the incident, Donald defended his daughter on Twitter, writing,
46:45When I left conference room for short meetings, I asked Ivanka to hold seat. Very standard.
46:53Ivanka later experienced another icy welcome at the 2019 G20 summit when video emerged of
46:58the first daughter inserting herself into a circle of world leaders, including the French president,
47:04the British prime minister, the Canadian prime minister,
47:07and the managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
47:10At the time, Ivanka's counterparts appeared to look uncomfortable with her presence.
47:15Ivanka is rarely a voice of public dissent within her father's presidential administration,
47:20but that doesn't mean she always agrees with Donald's policies.
47:24She told Axios that amidst her father's repeated attacks on America's free press,
47:28she did not view the media as the enemy of the people.
47:31Later, Donald responded to Ivanka's statements on Twitter, writing in part,
47:36She correctly said,
47:37No, it is the fake news, which is a large percentage of the media, that is the enemy
47:42of the people. In another Axios interview, Ivanka was asked about the administration's
47:47controversial policy of separating migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border,
47:52calling it a low point in her White House tenure. She said,
47:56I feel very strongly about that, and I am very vehemently against family separation
48:01and the separation of parents and children.
48:03Amid criticism that she was complicit in her father's controversial policies,
48:07Ivanka told CBS News,
48:09I would say not to conflate lack of public denouncement with silence. I think there are
48:14multiple ways to have your voice heard. So where I disagree with my father, he knows it, and I
48:19express myself with total candor." President Donald is undoubtedly close with his oldest daughter,
48:25with experts breaking down the many ways that Donald and Ivanka appear to communicate their
48:29trust and affection in public. Speaking to Refinery29 in 2018, body language expert Patti
48:35Wood observed that the first daughter frequently signals that she wants approval from her father,
48:40claiming,
48:41We see her desire to connect with him in many of the photos of them,
48:44while Donald sometimes reportedly asserts power over her.
48:48Wood claimed that Ivanka has often responded in ways that indicate, quote,
48:53she believes she has a certain power in the relationship. According to body language expert
48:58Judy James, Ivanka and Donald appear to mimic each other's actions, saying,
49:03It's a dynastic look, with some frequent mirroring between them to suggest like-minded
49:08thinking in professional scenarios, and the respect looks as mutual as the affection.
49:13James went on to say,
49:15There seems to be an emphatic sense of public posing between Trump and Ivanka,
49:20defining them as something of a power duo and reflecting the important role Ivanka holds in
49:26the president's White House team. This seems to signal this idea of him displaying a direct
49:31air that he trusts, promotes, and endorses.
49:36Donald Trump's three oldest children, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric, each hold a unique place in the
49:42dynasty built by their dad. But while they appear to be united in support of their father, their
49:47dealings between each other reveal a different family dynamic. The first three Trump kids were
49:53all born within seven years of each other — Don Jr. in 1977, Ivanka in 81, and Eric in 84 — and
50:01they grew up in Manhattan High Society, raised by their parents, Donald Trump, and his first wife,
50:07Ivana. But Ivanka didn't exactly have the same interests as most uber-rich heiresses growing up.
50:13Instead, she spent her time in her dad's office, telling Marie Claire,
50:16I'd sit on the floor and hear him bid out contracts. I just liked it. I always dressed
50:21like a girl and acted like a boy.
50:24I've never been very interested in being sort of a wild party girl, an it girl. My dad is very strict.
50:32Decades later, when all three siblings were adults working at the Trump Organization,
50:37the three of them operated as a unit. Ivanka wrote in her 2009 book, The Trump Card,
50:43Don, Eric, and I are always sizing up our competition on the other side of the table
50:48to determine which one of us might be best suited to a particular negotiation.
50:53My brother Don is always reminding me that you don't get what you don't ask for.
50:58But it appears that the competitive spirit isn't limited to the conference room.
51:03Challenge that I recognized early on was that we all, my father and my brothers,
51:08myself, have extremely strong personalities. We're very competitive.
51:12An often-told story in Trump family folklore involves Don Jr.,
51:16Ivanka, and Eric racing down the snowy slopes of Aspen. Of course, Ivanka competed against her dad,
51:23telling Marie Claire,
51:24It's in our blood. We're highly competitive.
51:27As the story goes, during one particular ski trip,
51:30a seven-year-old Ivanka was skiing down the hill when she felt something on her back.
51:34She told the outlet,
51:35I realized my dad had taken his ski pole, hooked the back of my jumpsuit,
51:40and was pulling me backward so he could basically slingshot himself over the finish line.
51:45It was all in good fun, but we're very much like that.
51:49Ivanka also looked back on the incident in a 2004 New York Magazine interview with the
51:54three oldest Trump kids, adding,
51:56We were sort of bred to be competitive. Dad encourages it.
52:00Ivanka and her younger brother Eric cultivated a special relationship that grew out of their
52:06parents' divorce. The siblings' family life blew up in 1990 when Trump's affair with Marla Maples
52:12went public. Donald eventually divorced Ivana in order to marry Marla.
52:16Donald and Marla then added another Trump kid to the family's brood,
52:20Tiffany Trump, who was born in 1993, one decade after Eric.
52:25Donald and Marla would go on to ultimately split in 1997.
52:29I'd rate myself less than a great husband.
52:32Eric admitted that his and Ivanka's bond deepened as a result of their parents' split,
52:37revealing to New York Magazine in 2004,
52:39Ivanka took me under her wing and raised me, took me shopping, tried to make me cool.
52:44Meanwhile, Eric characterized his older brother,
52:47Don Jr., as helping him navigate the breakup in a different way. He said,
52:51Donnie, in a way, is like a mentor. He kept tabs on everything that my
52:55grandfather taught him over the years and that I was too young to appreciate.
53:00Two decades after their parents' divorce, Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric had a new challenge
53:05to navigate in the public eye. Trump, who had since married his third wife, Melania,
53:10and added son Barron to the mix in 2006, spent the early 2010s building his political profile.
53:16Then, in June 2015, he announced his campaign for president with Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric
53:21looking on from the audience at Trump Tower in New York.
53:25As the family navigated Trump's run for office,
53:27Eric frequently offered kind words about his big sister to the press.
53:31In a 2016 Fox & Friends interview, Eric responded to Republican Senator Bob Corker's claims that
53:37Ivanka would be a strong vice presidential pick, saying,
53:41She's got beautiful looks, right? She's smart. She's got my vote.
53:45I'm proud of who I am. I'm really, really happy to be a Trump.
53:50Following their father's inauguration, Eric appeared on Fox Business in April 2017 to heap
53:55further praise on his sister, adding,
53:57She's beautiful in so many ways. She's smart. She's intelligent. She's full of class.
54:02And I think that's why people love Ivanka.
54:05Whether it was because of her position as senior advisor to the president or her status as Trump's
54:09highest-profile daughter, Ivanka received particularly harsh scrutiny following her
54:14father's election win. While Eric appeared on talk shows to defend his sister's name in the
54:18wake of criticism, older brother Don Jr. struck a different tone, suggesting in an interview with
54:24The Atlantic in 2019 that, while Ivanka was blessed with the ability to handle any environment,
54:29she perhaps didn't understand as well as he did how her life would change once their dad
54:34became president. As a 2017 Vanity Fair report said of Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner,
54:39they had become, quote,
54:41"...exiles on Pennsylvania Avenue."
54:43Don Jr. remembered Ivanka's life before the White House and claimed that many wealthy liberals who
54:48had previously occupied her New York social circle later turned on her. He told The Atlantic,
54:53She was loved by all the people in the world she wanted to be loved by.
54:56I just think I figured it out a little bit earlier than she did that people were going
55:00to see us differently after my father won."
55:03Eric remained at the Trump Organization when Ivanka left to join Donald Trump's White House
55:07administration, and he continued to offer public support of his sister and her work as an advisor
55:13to Donald, crediting Ivanka with changing their father's mind about a key policy decision.
55:17And I wanted to understand where I could be an asset to the administration."
55:24Speaking to The Telegraph in 2017, Eric brought up his father's decision to launch
55:29airstrikes in Syria, claiming that Ivanka may have used her point of view as a mother to sway
55:34her father into taking action against the Middle Eastern nation, which had recently launched a
55:38chemical weapons attack that killed scores of citizens, many of whom were children. Eric said,
55:43Ivanka is a mother of three kids, and she has influence. I'm sure she said,
55:48Listen, this is horrible stuff."
55:50For Ivanka's part, she quibbled with her brother's characterization of her sway over
55:54her father's decision, calling Eric's statement a, quote,
55:56"...flawed interpretation of her White House role."
55:59She told reporters via Politico,
56:01It was informed at the highest levels of military and state. I, of course,
56:04shared my perspective and opinion. It aligned with his own. His decision was
56:08incredibly well-informed and advised."
56:11Throughout the Trump presidency, rumors have circulated about bad blood between Don Jr.
56:16and Ivanka. In 2017, Vanity Fair claimed that the investigations into the administration's
56:21alleged dealings with Russia had caused a division in the Trump clan, citing White House gossip that
56:27Jared Kushner, who served as a White House advisor alongside Ivanka, had possibly leaked
56:32incriminating emails from Don Jr. to The New York Times to preserve his and Ivanka's own reputation.
56:38A 2019 report in The Atlantic painted a similar picture of sibling rivalry,
56:42describing a power struggle between Ivanka and Don Jr. as a, quote,
56:46"...cold war." Observing,
56:48"...they each had their own teams of allies and advisors. They had grown paranoid that
56:52the other's henchmen were planting damaging stories about them in the press."
56:56One such story was published by McClatchy in 2018 with the headline, quote,
57:01"...Trump kids on the campaign trail. Don Jr. wows, Ivanka disappoints."
57:05And, according to a source for The Atlantic,
57:07Ivanka's camp was enraged and suspected that Don was behind the story. Later,
57:12Don confronted Ivanka, saying,
57:13"...tell your people to stop trashing me to the media."
57:16Eric has continually stood by his big sister's side on several occasions when negative headlines
57:21about her have emerged. In early 2017, Ivanka was lambasted for being somehow
57:27involved in her father's alleged misconduct in a Saturday Night Live sketch.
57:31She's beautiful. She's powerful. She's complicit."
57:38Ivanka later appeared on CBS News to defend herself,
57:41and when her brother was asked about the interview, Eric defended his sister,
57:44telling Fox Business,
57:46"...you see so many critics out there, and I think it's a sad thing. Here's somebody who
57:50took their kids out of school and moved down to Washington, D.C., is there to support our father,
57:54is taking no salary, and is an amazing talent. And she can bring so many great things to Washington,
58:00D.C."
58:00"...she can be an immense, positive force in Washington, D.C., and
58:05she should be applauded for that and not criticized."
58:07When Ivanka's appearance at the 2018 Winter Olympics drew jeers from Olympics skier
58:12Gus Kenworthy and other Trump family critics, Eric appeared on Fox & Friends to strike back,
58:17offering,
58:18"...I think it's disgusting. That's not what the Olympics is about.
58:21Politics should not enter into the Olympics."