As Donald Trump’s presidency comes to an end, sources close to the outgoing President’s eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, has declared her already fragile bond with her stepmother, First Lady Melania Trump, is in ruins. Four years ago, the pair “both were aware and respectful of one another’s turf”, a report by CNN pointed out.
Now, the tension between the two is so bad, one source told the publication, there is little desire by either to even be in the same room.
“There’s been some finger-pointing,” someone with knowledge of the situation told the publication, in regards to the President’s behavior over the last fortnight.
Rumors of the two women’s ongoing feud have gained momentum since Mr Trump was elected President, with a book by Melania’s former friend, Stephanie Wolkoff, detailing how she thwarted Ivanka’s campaign to be the White House’s most important female.
Melania reportedly mockingly nicknamed her ambitious stepdaughter “Princess” behind her back, and the relationship is both strained and competitive, with aides working overtime to keep the two apart, Wolkoff claimed.
Instead, they’ve spent their final months in the White House “trying to keep the President from saying too little or too much, throwing themselves on a grenade they aren’t certain will detonate but not able to take the chance either way”, CNN White House correspondent Kate Bennett wrote late last week.
“The proof here about how worried (the family) is is how quiet they are,” another source said, noting not just Ms Trump’s, but her brothers’, “dialed-back bravado”.
Big sign the Trumps are really scared
Less than three days from resuming life as private citizens, Donald Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, are facing a cold new reality after the violent January 6 storming of the Capitol.
The couple, who have acted as senior advisers to the outgoing president, are no longer perceived as the liberal, moderating influences they were at the beginning of the 74-year-old’s term in 2016.
Instead, they’ve spent their final months in the White House “trying to keep the President from saying too little or too much, throwing themselves on a grenade they aren’t certain will detonate but not able to take the chance either way”, CNN White House correspondent Kate Bennett wrote late last week.
“They’re trying to keep what little is left for them in terms of sellable currency as Trumps,” one source told the publication, adding the change from “before insurrection” – when there were whispers of Ms Trump considering a future run for president herself – to “after insurrection” has “moved the needle on the state of the Trump empire from perilous to dire”.
“The proof here about how worried (the family) is is how quiet they are,” another source said, noting not just Ms Trump’s, but her brothers’, “dialed-back bravado”.
