All her adult life, Ivanka Trump worked for her father. When Donald Trump was a real estate mogul, Ivanka was designing his next hotel. When the now-elected president was on a reality show, Ivanka was in his boardroom. When Trump was running for office, his daughter was on his campaign. When she was president, she had an office in the West Wing.
But in January 2021, for the first time since she was 23, Ivanka Trump left Washington – and her job. Ivanka Trump is tired of politics and says she won’t return.
“I love my father very much. This time, I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family. I do not intend to get involved in politics,” he said in a social media post in 2022, after his father announced his third run for president.
That statement remains true after Donald Trump’s victory in 2024, say sources close to Ivanka Trump, as she and her husband, Jared Kushner, seek a relatively private life in Miami, Florida, where they have spent the last four years away from the public spotlight. .
And it marks a dramatic turnaround for one of the former and future president’s closest advisors, but an intentional turnaround after a difficult first four years in the White House.
Ivanka Trump has faced constant scrutiny and criticism for decisions made by her father that she herself was unable to fully influence or moderate. Ivanka was alienated by some liberal friends in her New York social circle and closed a relatively successful eponymous clothing and accessories brand by piggybacking on lingering ethical issues. Her departure from politics means her father is no longer her boss – and Ivanka is seeking a new path with a decidedly different lifestyle, which she considers possible because her family’s business has profited from the proximity of the presidency and her relationships. resulting.
“Politics is a very dark world. There’s a lot of darkness, a lot of negativity, and it’s completely at odds with what feels good to me as a human being,” Ivanka told “The Lex Fridman Podcast” in a three-hour conversation in July. “And you know, it’s a really difficult business. So for me and my family, it feels right not to participate [mais em eventos políticos],” he added in what was his most substantial public reflection on his time in Washington and his life thereafter.
Still, a private life may be difficult to achieve for a high-ranking member of the new U.S. presidential family, someone with a carefully cultivated personal brand and significant influence, beloved by many of the president-elect’s supporters and targeted by many of his detractors.
But Ivanka Trump remains very close to her father, with whom she speaks regularly, reveals a close source. And Ivanka will likely continue to advise him informally on a range of behind-the-scenes issues, the same sources assure CNN.
“She’s still his daughter and a trusted voice, so in that sense an informal advisor, as we all are with our family members,” says Maggie Cordish, a longtime friend who joined Ivanka in the West Wing for a year, working on paid family leave issues.
During his time at the White House, staff and advisors were careful to highlight his successes and advice to the president. There was a robust public relations effort, sometimes over those four years, to ensure that Ivanka received due credit for her work — and distance from less popular policies.
Ivanka Trump, Theo Kushner, Jared Kushner e Joseph Kushner (Getty Images)
Ivanka has publicly maintained a well-rounded portfolio in the West Wing, turning her focus to less polarizing issues such as criminal justice reform, combating human trafficking and workforce development.
“Ivanka proudly led the White House’s efforts and promoted the administration’s success” in these policies, acknowledges a Trump representative in statements to CNN.
Perhaps the work that left the most significant mark on Republican politics was her efforts to legislate paid maternity leave and a child tax credit for working families.
“She created these Republican issues. Really, they weren’t republican issues”, says a former colleague.
This time, sources said, the advice he gave his father will likely go unheeded.
A person familiar with her thinking said that if Ivanka decides to step in and have influence during her father’s second term, “that will never be something people see publicly.”
For his part, Kushner is also declining a formal role in the administration taking office in January, but is expected to be a key outside adviser to Donald Trump’s efforts in the Middle East, leveraging his close relationships with regional leaders. And Kushner also has significant financial interests in the region.
And In a sign of the president-elect’s implicit trust in his family members, Jared Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, was chosen as US ambassador to France.
From “heir apparent” to jiu-jitsu
Toward the end of Trump’s first term, Ivanka Trump emerged as a more combative figure, adopting a stance in line with her father’s while sharply criticizing what she called “partisan investigations.” Ivanka described herself as “avowedly” an opponent of abortion rights, and at the time, sources predicted a future run for political office, with one source who worked with the Trump family emphasizing that Donald Trump viewed his daughter as an “heir apparent.” when it comes to politics.
But the end of his first term marked a necessary change for the family: his father was practically exiled from Washington after January 6, 2021 and they left the drama of the nation’s capital behind in search of sunnier skies and a more welcoming political climate. from Florida.
His decision to leave political struggle may also have been shaped by more challenging personal moments over the past four years. Ivana Trump, his beloved mother, passed away unexpectedly at her home in New York in July 2022.
“The loss of a parent is one of the most painful passages in life for which we are never fully prepared. It reaches the core of your being. And it takes a long time to emerge from how it dislocates you,” Ivanka writes in an Instagram post, reflecting on her first holiday season since her mother’s death. Ivanka also cares for her 98-year-old maternal grandmother, known as “ Babi”, who lives with his family in Miami. And her husband has also faced health issues, revealing in his 2022 memoir that he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2019 and underwent surgery to remove the tumor. Kushner underwent a second thyroid surgery in August 2022, a source close to Reuters told Reuters at the time.
Donald Trump with his daughter, Ivanka Trump (Associated Press)
Several friends describe a gradual shift from Ivanka’s more public and aggressive stance to her current position, beginning with the family’s move to Miami in January 2021, where they settled into a beachfront condominium in the Surfside area before relocating. to a mansion in the exclusive enclave of Indian Creek Island.
Several friends also say Ivanka is at peace with her decision to step away from politics, telling CNN that she is prioritizing her family, trying to find some privacy and pursuing new interests.
“Her children are at an ideal time, where they are all at critical ages, they are pre-teens and teenagers, and it is [um período] short – is very brief. She loves being with her children, and has found a lot of peace and happiness in her private life,” Cordish said.
Ivanka Trump has enjoyed a wide range of new hobbies. Her social media posts are peppered with images of her and her family gardening, practicing jiu-jitsu at the Valente Brothers’ studio, learning to surf at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch, playing polo on horseback, riding motocross motorcycles and playing video games. board.
Ivanka told Fridman that her decision not to get involved in politics “was driven by the fact that she was a mother — really thinking about what they [os filhos] they need me now.”
“Today I know the price that my children would pay for me being totally emotionally involved, in terms of my absence at such a formative moment in their lives, and I am not willing to make them bear that price,” Ivanka acknowledged.
Family issues
Ivanka’s self-imposed withdrawal from public life was briefly interrupted in 2023, when she was forced to testify in the New York civil fraud trial against her father and his company, detailing her role in negotiating loans for Donald Trump’s purchases. from his resort in Doral, Florida, and the old Post Office building in Washington, DC.
While Donald Trump was on trial in a bribery case earlier this year, family members crowded into the courtroom to support him, but Ivanka Trump was notably not present. After her conviction, Ivanka traveled to New York to support her father but stayed out of sight at Trump Tower. Donald Trump has been found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records – a serious felony conviction for which he has yet to be sentenced. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing in all cases against himself.
Meanwhile, his brothers Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have fully embraced their father’s “Make America Great Again” movement, in part filling the vacuum created by their sister’s absence from the election campaign. Eric Trump’s wife, Lara Trump, became a prominent spokeswoman and co-chair of the Republican National Committee during her father-in-law’s political comeback. Since the election, he has said he is leaving the RNC and initially signaled his willingness to fill an expected vacancy in the Florida Senate, pending Senator Marco Rubio’s confirmation as secretary of state. But Ivanka withdrew from consideration on Saturday.
The four-year forecast
With the door firmly closed on a return to political life for now, Ivanka Trump will likely spend her father’s second term using her influence in new ways, including in the nonprofit space, focusing on food insecurity, supporting farmers and in disaster relief, said a source close to it.
“She is choosing to use her influence now on a more personal level” to “positively impact her own community,” the same source continues, adding, “Being able to have an impact in this way while also allowing her to prioritize her young children and her privacy, that’s where she wants to be.”
Ivanka has worked with victims of wildfires in Hawaii and hurricanes in North Carolina, volunteered with Ukrainian refugees in Poland, and packed boxes of food at a local kosher food bank.
Dave Donaldson, president of CityServe, a nonprofit where she volunteered, welcomed what he described as Ivanka Trump’s “portfolio of compassion.” “She will continue to work with us to help victims of disasters, wars – but why does someone need to be in government to do that? The reality is that most of the compassionate work being done around the world is outside of government,” Donaldson told CNN.
Ivanka frequently posts about her volunteer work on social media, while presenting a new version of herself to her followers with bright and refined photos.
“She is very aware of the brand, very aware of wanting to do something positive — and that’s not a bad thing — but she needs to build a little reputation to accomplish and achieve this greater objective”, admits an expert in crisis communication and reputation management . “I don’t doubt her sincerity, but if I advised her, I would just encourage her to take off some of the nail polish.”
Trump and Kushner have also returned to the world of real estate, developing luxury projects including a 566-hectare Albanian island that has generated some controversy.
“It’s amazing to bring all this talent together and be able to play and flex your real estate muscles again and have fun with it,” Ivanka told Fridman.
And Ivanka is making some “discreet investments in certain areas of interest,” says the source familiar with Trump’s daughter, declining to provide additional details when pressed.
