Jared and Ivanka Think They Can Salvage Their Reputations by Pretending to Want Nothing to Do With Trump

When Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner decided to relocate their lives to Washington in 2017 and work in the White House, they clearly believed that eight years later, they’d return to New York and be feted not just as the king and queen of the city but as global icons. Michelle Obama would beg them to coauthor her next book. MoMa would call asking if it would be alright to rename the place the Javanka Museum of Modern Art. Every four years, people would plead with them to run for president. Jared would be introduced as “The man who finally achieved peace in the Middle East.” World leaders would no longer have expressions that said “Who let her in here?” when approached by the former first daughter at gatherings of actually important people. In short, they would have achieved the power and respect they undoubtedly thought they deserved.

Instead, thanks to attaching themselves to an unhinged bigot for four years, a global pandemic that Jared personally made worse, and a failed attempt to overthrow the U.S. government led by a fascist mob that Ivanka publicly praised before realizing how it looked, the duo’s reputations—never stellar to begin with—have been in the toilet since January. The situation is so bad that the couple—never ones for self-awareness—seem to understand how deeply loathed they are, hence their desperate attempts to improve their standing in society by pretending they want nothing to do with Donald Trump.

In a move right out of the same playbook they used during their time at the White House—wherein they would literally flee the scene any time Trump did something extra bad, and hope people would think they had nothing to do with it despite being senior advisers to the president, Jared and Ivanka are now reportedly trying to convince people who don’t know any better that they’ve all but cut ties with the 45th president over his erratic behavior and insistence that he won the 2020 election. Naturally, sources “familiar with the matter” have shared the couple’s alleged chilliness with Trump with CNN:

With each passing day away from Washington, former President Donald Trump’s grievances continue unabated. And those complaints appear to be driving away two of the people who were closest to him during his White House tenure: his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner…while he often has a rotating audience of cheering listeners, the gap between Trump and his daughter and son-in-law grows wider by the week, according to 12 former Trump White House officials, former administration officials, family friends, acquaintances and members of Trump’s team who spoke with CNN about changes to the former President’s current inner circle.

A large part of the reason for the separation is Trump’s constant harping on the past and his inability to move on. The former President has also started to question the role that Kushner—one of the few people who were able to stay close to Trump throughout his two presidential campaigns and White House tenure—has played in his presidential legacy.

Ivanka Trump has also struggled to undo the entanglements caused by the years at her father’s side in the White House, as she seeks a less complicated life for her family, according to two acquaintances.

Of course, despite allegedly wanting less to do with the ex-president, the two followed him down to Florida after leaving D.C., reportedly having purchased a $30 million property close enough to Mar-a-Lago that they could drop by for dinner with dad. And they’ll be spending the summer at the same Bedminster, New Jersey, club as Trump, where their accommodations are literally steps from his:

For the last week, Kushner, Ivanka Trump and their children have been on a summer road trip, from Miami to, eventually, Bedminster…. In Bedminster, the Kushner cottage and the Trump cottage are separated by mere tens of feet, about as close as the families have been for an extended period since the White House.