- A new book, Kushner Inc., which is out today, details the role that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump play in the Trump administration.
- "Javanka" were long touted as a moderating force in Donald Trump's campaign and a counterweight to his inflammatory, populist platform, but Ward reports that they "only pretended to be the good guys."
- Ward also reports that multiple people warned President Trump against hiring his son-in-law and daughter but that he had trouble telling Ivanka "no."
In her new book Kushner, Inc., Vicky Ward explores Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner's unpredictable path from New York's elite liberal circles to the White House, and characterizes the couple as under-qualified and over-confident dilettantes who pose a serious threat to the integrity of the United States. One of the many questions Ward, a Town & Country Contributing Editor, raises—and makes efforts to answer through interviews with a number of former and current "Javanka" associates—is what exactly the couple is aiming to get out of their new life in Washington?
Ward makes the point early in the book that according to her sources, it was clear from the first days of Trump's campaign that Ivanka and Jared did not believe in his populist platform, and were merely using his presidential bid as a springboard to bolster access to powerful and influential people. "The two of them see this as a networking opportunity,” a close associate tells Ward. Multiple White House sources also tell her that they believe Kushner ordered that White House visitor logs be closed in 2017, because “he didn’t want his frenetic networking exposed.”
Kushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump
This view of Javanka as cynical opportunists echoes throughout the book, but nowhere more memorably than in the chapter dealing with the fallout from Trump’s response to the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, VA in August of 2017. After the white supremacist rally devolved into violence and ended in the death of a counter-protestor, Heather Heyer, Trump infamously declined to take a firm stand against white supremacy, instead stating that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the clash between racist far-right activists and counter-protestors.
His statement provoked outrage and was widely condemned, and according to Ward’s account, Trump’s then-chief economic advisor Gary Cohn was ready to resign on principle. Cohn expected Jared and Ivanka to share his outrage (all three are Jewish), but instead the president's daughter and son-in-law reportedly told Cohn that he had misunderstood, insisting that Trump “didn’t mean any of it; he’s not anti-Semitic.”
Although Cohn did ultimately stay in his job—he would eventually resign in March, 2018—it was no thanks to Ivanka and Jared's efforts, Ward writes:
He was upset that they were not sufficiently upset. And he was upset that they seemed to think, as they always did, that this was one more public relations problem that needed to be massaged. In his mind, Kushner and Ivanka were not the Trump whisperers they claimed to be. They really were complicit. They only pretended to be the good guys.
But to what end? As Michelle Goldberg noted yesterday in The New York Times, casting Jared and Ivanka as "amoral climbers" doesn't entirely make sense, given that their first two years in Washington has represented more of a social dive than a climb. "Ward writes that Ivanka’s chief concern is her personal brand, but that brand has been trashed,” Goldberg notes, and indeed the book details the rapid decline of Ivanka’s fashion line, which she finally closed last summer. (Though she claimed the closure was to allow her to focus on Washington, a former colleague and friend of Ivanka’s tells Ward that declining sales was the real reason.)
Meanwhile, Jared’s involvement in multiple federal and state investigations has tanked his own reputation; per a Ward source, “No one will do business with him.”
Ward also highlights a scathing Vanity Fair article by Sarah Ellison from 2017 headlined "Exiles on Pennsylvania Avenue," which detailed how the couple had alienated new associates in Washington and old ones in New York alike. That the article was published in Vanity Fair was proof of the latter point, and represented an ominous moment for the couple's reputation, Ward writes:
Vanity Fair had been, to use Bannon-esque terminology, "their base." In their former lives, they'd attended the celebrity-filled parties hosted by the magazine. That it had turned on them was a sign of how anchorless they now were: scorned, according to Ellison, in both Washington and New York.
So given all of this, what is do Ivanka and Jared hope to get out of their time in Washington? Are they oblivious to the damage their White House roles have done to their reputation—or is this a sacrifice they're willing to make in pursuit of a long-term goal? Goldberg suggests that "the gravitational pull of their fathers" is a major factor in understanding their motivations, while Ward concludes her book on a reminder that Ivanka's ultimate goal appears to be a presidential run of her own. Ever since Trump won the Republican nomination, Ward writes, Ivanka has been positioning herself as his heir.
Ivanka Trump has made no secret of the fact hat she wants to be the most powerful woman in the world. Her father's reign in Washington DC is, she believes, the beginning of a great American dynasty. "She thinks she's going to be president of the United States," Gary Cohn told people after leaving the White House. "She thinks this is like the Kennedys, the Bushes, and now the Trumps."
So regardless of the beating their reputation has taken, Ivanka and Jared are clearly ambitious enough to believe that the price will be worth paying.
Here are a few other eye-opening excerpts from Ward's book, which is on sale today:
Though Ivanka holds special status as Donald Trump's daughter, she is not immune to criticism.
Ward writes that several confidantes, including Ann Coulter and Michael Cohen, warned Trump against hiring his children, and Trump had mixed feelings about the idea himself, but did so because he has difficulty telling Ivanka "no." Ivanka has reportedly irritated a number of White House staffers with her "reckless" habit of interrupting meetings and calls with foreign leaders—per one account, Trump himself has had to tell her to get off the line.
Trump initially had a different husband in mind for Ivanka.
Early in the book, Ward writes that although Trump liked Jared, he would often say among friends "Why couldn’t she have married Tom Brady?" noting that "Jared is half the size of Tom Brady’s forearm." Ward also claims that Jared's father, Charles Kushner, once said that Ivanka wanted to become a Kushner because "she’d never had a close-knit family; it appeared that she never felt her parents desperately desired her presence as the dinner table, or for that matter, ever wanted her with them.”
Ivanka and Melania Trump clashed early in Trump's presidency.
Ward recounts a specific incident during the transition when Ivanka had earmarked an office for herself in the East Wing, the traditional domain of the first lady. A transition official was reportedly surprised to note that "Ivanka, or someone acting on her behalf, had stenciled in the corner office of the East Wing as 'Trump Family Office' while Melania did not appear to have an office. According to an official quoted by Ward, "Melania put her foot down," and Ivanka was told to back off.
Emma Dibdin is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles who writes about culture, mental health, and true crime. She loves owls, hates cilantro, and can find the queer subtext in literally anything.
