Free, Melania

by Kate Bennett

  It is a poorly kept secret that Ivanka harbors her own political ambitions. Trump has already endorsed her. “If she ever wanted to run for president, I think she’d be very, very hard to beat,” he said in a recent interview. Ivanka’s portfolio of political interests was initially affordable childcare and federal maternity leave. Now she’s more focused on women’s economic empowerment and promoting STEM for young women. She has claimed an area, particularly female-centric policy issues, that has traditionally been the purview of a first lady. Her initiatives were destined to cross over with those of Melania. And cross over they did, in a big way.

  In spring 2019, Ivanka took one of her first solo international trips … to Africa. Africa was coincidentally the continent Melania visited in fall 2018 on her first major solo international trip. Melania partnered with USAID during her visit, stopping in four countries: Ghana, Malawi, Kenya, and Egypt. She was joined by USAID administrator Mark Green. Ivanka, too, partnered with USAID and was joined by Green while visiting Ethiopia and the Ivory Coast. Melania’s trip was centered on helping children and delivering more financial support in the form of USAID programs. Ivanka’s trip was focused on women’s entrepreneurship and newly announced efforts to support female empowerment.

  The trips were, according to a source, a little too close for comfort for Melania, who thought Ivanka was infringing on her turf. The competition between the two feels almost unfair to inflate, just because they are women—catfight!—an all too common and unjust way to paint female relationships. But according to many sources, it’s a real thing.

  Ivanka and Melania would clash over the Africa trip. Melania took off with some fanfare, getting as many headlines about her visit as she could muster in the light of Trump’s usual usurping of the news cycle. The trip was a big deal for the first lady. Most of the first solo international trips of first ladies get coverage in the press. Patricia Nixon was the first first lady to make a solo visit to Africa, in 1972. Hillary Clinton’s first solo trip was also to Africa; she went for two weeks, taking Chelsea Clinton with her on a six-country tour. Michelle Obama’s first solo international trip was to Mexico. Melania would be carrying on a long-standing tradition of an American first lady spreading goodwill and, typically, the message of her formal platform around the globe. She spent her first full day in Ghana helping at a children’s hospital, holding babies, visiting with mothers, and passing out supplies.

  Meanwhile, back home, Ivanka Trump was doing something she normally doesn’t do: visiting hurricane survivors, holding babies, and passing out supplies. And the reason she normally doesn’t do these things is that normally Melania does. Ivanka not only stepped onto Melania’s turf but also went so far as to have a video made—which included footage of her high-fiving an African American toddler in her arms—and posted it to her Instagram with instrumental music.

  With the help of a White House staff videographer, Ivanka now has these videos made regularly. Often, she is speaking directly into the camera, explaining to the audience why whatever policy issue she is championing is so important, why she is passionate or “incredibly excited” about it. Sometimes she does a voice-over about a cause while video footage shows her laughing with students, walking through an automotive factory, taking photos with fans, or speaking at a podium. For her Africa trips, the videos would often incorporate slow motion to show her walking alongside the leaders of Ethiopia, learning how coffee is made, or dancing with locals. To put the videos in context, it would be like Obama’s top aide, Valerie Jarrett, making a video of her accomplishments after each domestic trip, speech, or policy announcement. Or Karl Rove posting for the public in slow motion each time he shook hands with a leader or had a meeting with the head of General Motors.

  So not only was Ivanka stepping into Melania’s area but the videos felt very much in the same vein as those done by Melania, who had found success months before with minivideo journals of her own events and visits to places that included shots of her with children edited together with a soundtrack of upbeat classical music. She shared them on her Twitter and Instagram accounts, and the views were often well into the hundreds of thousands.

  By several accounts, Melania was not happy about it. Ahead of the trip, the East Wing had delicately asked the West Wing to give Melania a wide berth during the five days she was in Africa and to try not to have the president (or Ivanka) do anything that might distract or draw attention from the activities Melania was doing while abroad. It was an ask that was not made with expectation it would actually work, and it was one Melania’s staff had rarely made before, but given the newsiness of the West Wing, they felt it was best to have the discussion and provide the information and the dates and make the formal request. From what I gather, no one on Melania’s team had high hopes that anyone would be able to control the news cycle based on Trump—unfortunately, with Trump, the news runs hot to liquid lava, so Melania is typically not covered in a way that would allow her to request a predesignated focus. Ivanka was the one they didn’t think they needed to worry about.

  “Her office let the West Wing know about the dates of Melania’s Africa trip well in advance of her going,” said someone with knowledge of the events. “It was fair. And she knew it wouldn’t necessarily stop the president from making news, but she didn’t think Ivanka would do something like that.” Trump’s then–chief of staff, John Kelly, was alerted to the striking similarities of Ivanka’s activities back home, and he stepped in to chide Ivanka’s staff for their choice of timing. Months later, after Kelly, like most, unceremoniously left the White House, having fallen out of favor with Trump and his daughter and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, he would give an interview, saying Trump’s family “were an influence that has to be dealt with,” before clarifying, “by no means do I mean Mrs. Trump—the first lady is a wonderful person.”

  To be fair, both Ivanka and Melania have tried very hard to like each other and achieve more than mere toleration. And for many years it worked. Melania didn’t have to try all that hard not to care when Ivanka would accompany her and Donald Trump to events, essentially third-wheeling on a date, and Ivanka would grin and bear it when Melania’s exotic beauty and glamour would outshine hers.

  Ivanka’s chief concern with her father and his girlfriends had always been whether they were with him for his money, which, of course, they often were. She wasn’t, however, concerned that they would siphon away her portion of the inheritance, even if she had genuine concern for her father. Ivanka was eleven when her parents divorced, and after the Marla Maples incident, tween and teenage Ivanka was intensely protective of her father. She had seen up close the type of woman to whom he was typically attracted, and many of them were truly only with him for a hit of the limelight, or in the hopes of getting a rent-free Trump apartment.

  She didn’t feel that way about Melania, which took some of the heat off the relationship. Also, Melania was age-appropriate in Ivanka’s eyes, even though she was twenty-six years younger than her father and only eleven years older than herself. Ivanka would joke when her dad was single that as long as his girlfriends never got any younger than her oldest brother, she was okay with it—but added in a flash of deadpan that Don Jr. was already in his twenties, so options were thinning out. She also got the feeling that this one was sticking around. While they were dating, Melania didn’t appear to mind being a tourist in a Donald Trump world, and Ivanka admired that about her. She saw, as did her dad, that Melania was genuinely charmed by him, strikingly independent, and low on the drama.

  But Trump’s ascendancy to the White House has let Ivanka’s ambition run rampant, seemingly without any check. To set herself apart, staff at the White House say Ivanka always likes to enter the room last at events, and she must always sit in the front row. I’ve personally seen her several times work a room like nobody’s business, pressing flesh with all of the charm and flattery that Washington types feed off. She’s keenly aware that she has an effect on people in person. She makes them feel as if she m
ay be flirting with them but, at the same time, is laser-focused on what they are saying and the intellectual exchange. She’s one part friendly vixen, one part hyperastute businesswoman. She gives everyone she talks to her full attention, often touching them in a familiar way, something a little more than a handshake, maybe a squeeze on the arm for you, senator, a laugh and a tap on the shoulder for you, congressman.

  Also, before many of the traditional “first lady” events, like the Easter Egg Roll, the lighting of the national Christmas tree, the Thanksgiving turkey pardon, and, really, any other ceremonial event where Melania will be entering last because she is accompanied by the president, Ivanka makes sure to get face time in beforehand. She’s not a sneak-to-her-seat-at-the-last-minute person. The night before the Thanksgiving turkey pardon in 2018, a story had broke about Ivanka’s unauthorized use of a personal e-mail account for work matters—an attention-getting headline considering her father’s constant hammering of Hillary Clinton’s personal e-mail habits. There was buzz in the press area about whether Ivanka would show for the pardon. I had no doubt she would. Sure enough, just as the rest of the guests were seated twenty rows deep in the Rose Garden and the media, sequestered in the far back section, had their cameras focused and their live shots up in the control room, in walked Ivanka with her three kids in tow. And in case anyone missed her, she wore a large velvet headband with gold polka dots. She walked boldly in front of the entire audience over to the two turkeys, awaiting their ceremonial pardon, treating her children to an up-close and personal meet and greet with Peas and Carrots. The president and Melania came out several minutes after Ivanka had taken her seat—in the front row.

  Of course, Ivanka has been busted a few times trying to assume the spotlight. Who can forget how she managed to sneak a spot at the table (without yet having a title or a security clearance) next to Angela Merkel on the German chancellor’s first visit to the Trump White House? Or, better still, when Ivanka plopped down in her father’s designated seat with other world leaders at the 2017 G20 summit? In a pink dress with big bows on the sleeves, Ivanka casually sat in her dad’s chair, right between the president of China and the prime minister of Great Britain. She had been sitting in the back, far too many rows back, apparently. When Trump got up to briefly step out, Ivanka walked the several feet down to the front and stepped in. She was crucified for it. Brian Fallon, Hillary Clinton’s former campaign spokesman, put it this way: “I’m sure Republicans would have taken it in stride if Chelsea Clinton was deputized to perform head of state duties.”

  The microscope on Ivanka can actually be unfair. “If she weren’t my daughter, it would be so much easier for her. Might be the only bad thing going, if you want to know the truth,” said Trump. But the scrutiny is also the result of her place in the administration. In holding herself apart from the rest of the administration, using her relationship as presidential offspring in tandem with her job as presidential adviser, Ivanka has created overlaps that have resulted in stinging criticism. (Bob Woodward, in his West Wing tell-all, Fear, recounted a fight between Ivanka and Steve Bannon. “‘You’re nothing but a fucking staffer,’ said Bannon during one shouting match. ‘I’m not a staffer! I’ll never be a staffer. I’m the first daughter—and I’m never going to be a staffer!’” she yelled back.)

  Ivanka’s stunningly poor sense of optics and fondness in interviews for using words the wrong way has given rise to a whole new bevy of critics, mostly media and elites who saw her as, well, fake. “The presidency of the United States is an incredible thing, you have an ability to effectuate change at the highest levels. There are issues I am deeply passionate about,” she said to a fashion magazine during the campaign. “Well, obviously, I’m a huge advocate for women and women’s issues, like child care. The cost of child care is incredibly onerous. It’s not sustainable or appropriate.”

  Melania noted all these gaffes—and did the opposite.

  At the start of Trump’s administration, and even at the nascent beginnings of his presidential campaign, Ivanka and Melania appeared to have quite positive feelings for one another. Ivanka said in an interview, “Melania is very smart, she’s very warm, she’s got an incredible heart. She’s always been very charitable and there are many organizations that she’s worked with. Not just for a season but over the course of many years and decades in some cases.”

  “I’ll leave it to her to put forth what her platform will be but I know that she’ll be a very powerful and impactful first woman,” said Ivanka in another interview, careful not to step on toes. “I know that anything she sets her mind to she does with her full heart so I have no doubt that when she decides which platform she’s going to prioritize, she’ll be incredibly effective in that regard.”

  In People magazine, Ivanka backed up Melania’s campaign strategy, or lack thereof, saying, “It’s pretty uncommon for wives of candidates to not be on the campaign trail every day. And she made a decision I totally respect.… My father’s traveling so frequently, and she is an unbelievably consistent, loving and reliable figure in Barron’s life.… She takes [Barron] to school every day, picks him up every day. It’s a really remarkable thing and she’s a great inspiration to me as I raise my own children in terms of family first and having the right priorities.” When Ivanka and Jared moved into their multimillion-dollar, eight-thousand-square-foot rental mansion in D.C.’s posh Kalorama neighborhood, they brought with them their two live-in nannies. That’s not to say Ivanka isn’t a hands-on mom; she is, but she has consistent help doing the day-to-day stuff that most working moms don’t have time or the money to do.

  However, the tide is shifting in the White House, with Ivanka’s realization, halfway through her father’s first term, that Melania is gaining steam. Ivanka Trump’s ubiquitous presence, TMI social media posts, and general Ivanka-ness haven’t helped her surpass her stepmother’s popularity. In the Trump orbit and beyond, in the sweet spot of the GOP base, people like the first lady, and it’s frustrating for Ivanka. And even those who loathe Trump, either for his politics or just because, are invariably intrigued by his wife.

  Without so much as a few words here and there, her stepmother has managed to become not only likable to the public but influential in the West Wing. In June 2018, when the border crisis was peaking and families were being torn apart, it was Melania behind the scenes who got in Trump’s ear to put a stop to it. “She was very involved with telling him it was wrong and had to end, fast,” a senior White House staffer tells me. “This wasn’t something she sat back about. She was all over it.”

  Melania was the first Trump family member to release a statement about the issue, which is important not just because the country was reeling from images of babies being taken from their parents but also because she was exhibiting feelings on a policy issue, something she had never done before so forcefully. “Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform. She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart.” It was clearly meant to stake claim to the topic, as well as to indicate that, whatever the president did or did not do, she was going to call it like she saw it. First ladies are usually hamstrung when it comes to issues like this—they are expected to be there to bolster compassion and sympathy for an administration, but there is politically little they can actually do to effect change.

  In fact, ever since images of separated families had begun to flood the news, Melania had been having intense talks with her husband in the residence each evening, telling him how upsetting it was and how poorly it would reflect on him if he neglected such an emotionally charged issue. “She told him he had to do more,” a White House aide says. “Whether he did it with Congress, or whether he did it on his own, it needed to stop, period.”

  But it was Ivanka who got a lot of the credit when Trump finally signed the executive order ending his own policy of separating fami
lies for detainment at the border. There was a coordinated communications office effort to get Ivanka some good press on this topic. She desperately needed it because days earlier she had posted a tone-deaf photo on her social media feeds. As the rest of the country was starting to hear stories about children of illegal immigrants being taken from their parents to god knows where for god knows how long, Ivanka put up a picture of herself holding her two-year-old son, Theodore, in his jammies, nuzzling him, with the caption, “my heart.” It was terrible, terrible timing. She was lambasted on cable news talk shows and on social media. “Isn’t it just the best to snuggle your little one—knowing exactly where they are, safe in your arms? It’s the best. The BEST. Right, Ivanka? Right?” tweeted actor Patton Oswalt sarcastically. “How lucky you are to live in a bubble” was another tweet. It was just one of several photos Ivanka shared during the period when immigrant family separations consumed headlines. Another shot showed a fun afternoon “date” with her daughter while Ivanka frolicked outdoors; one showed little Joseph in his car seat, clutching a hockey stick on the way home from his first NHL game, mom raving about how much he loved it, and the popcorn! “When you have babies being taken away from their mothers, you have to ask why the counselor to the president, who was brought in to help the president perhaps create good policies surrounding women, parental leave, and domestic policies is so tone deaf,” said MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski, who once considered herself Ivanka’s close friend.

  Ivanka had to act fast to dispel the bad press and quickly change the narrative, a trick she’d learned from her years in business and from being the daughter of Donald Trump.