Ivanka Trump will lose White House status and job – what will she do next?

Trump isn’t just losing her status as first daughter, she’s also losing her job as ‘advisor to the president’

the guardian/Victoria Bekiempis

Ivanka Trump isn’t just losing her status as first daughter with her father Donald Trump’s defeat to Joe Biden – she’s also losing her job.

In her father’s White House, Ivanka Trump works as “advisor to the president”, purportedly focusing on “the education and economic empowerment of women and their families as well as job creation and economic growth through workforce development, skills training and entrepreneurship”.

Before that, she “oversaw development and acquisitions” for her father’s real estate company, the Trump Organization, and had a fashion clothing line. She also appeared as a boardroom judge on Trump’s reality show, The Apprentice.

But her role in the White House, and the fact that virtually her entire professional history is tied to her father, raise the question: What will she wind up doing?

While Ivanka could probably return to the Trump Organization, it may not be the most stable workplace when her father leaves office. The Manhattan district attorney’s office is seeking Trump’s tax returns in a “complex financial investigation”, previously citing public reports on “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization” in their request.

The New York state attorney general’s office is also investigating whether the Trump Organization and its agents wrongly inflated the value of Seven Springs estate, a property north of New York City. The state attorney general’s probe came after Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen told Congress that he had inflated his assets’ value, so as to get more favorable loans and insurance policies.

But a return to the world of fashion also appears unlikely. Indeed, Ivanka Trump’s eponymous brand is no more. She announced its closure in July 2018, citing “the work I am doing here in Washington”. The circumstances preceding the announcement, however, weren’t promising. Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom dropped her line in 2017, claiming “poor performance”. There was also a campaign targeting online retailers, asking them to drop the brand in protest of Trump administration policies.

A return to the world of fashion appears unlikely. Indeed, Ivanka Trump’s eponymous brand is no more. Photograph: Tork Mason/AP

There are, however, rumors claiming that Ivanka Trump may have some business opportunities in the pipeline. OK! magazine claimed that the Trump family had received “lots of reality TV offers” before voting had wrapped – and that Ivanka was especially sought after.

“You have to remember that reality TV made this family superstars. It was appearing on The Celebrity Apprentice next to their father, Donald Trump, that made Ivanka, Donald Jr and Eric into primetime stars,” an OK! source referred to as a “top TV insider” told the outlet. “For the kids to return to reality TV shouldn’t be a surprise and neither should be the fact that Ivanka is the family member that is getting the most offers, including interest from Dancing With the Stars.”

One purported “pal” cited by OK! Said: “She could have her own primetime cable show if she wanted it.”

Ivanka Trump’s recent statements suggest an ongoing interest in public life, potentially even politics. In an interview with RealClearPolitics last week, Ivanka said she’s “a pragmatist when it comes to everything”. Similar to her father’s belief that politics is about people rather than parties, Ivanka Trump reportedly said she identified as a “Trump-Republican”.

Asked if she would consider herself a populist, Ivanka Trump reportedly said: “I think a lot of these labels, to be quite honest, are really limiting in terms of what you call yourself or how you identify … but I don’t reject that label at all.”

In that interview, Ivanka Trump appeared for the first time to voice support of a key Republican policy plank as she came out anti-abortion.

“I respect all sides of a very personal and sensitive discussion,” she said when asked about abortion, “but I am also a mother of three children, and parenthood affected me in a profound way in terms of how I think about these things.”

“I am pro-life, and unapologetically so,” she reportedly said.

Regardless of what Ivanka Trump winds up doing, she will fare better than the millions of Americans who are unemployed during the pandemic. She and her husband, real estate scion-and-Trump adviser Jared Kushner, listed $36,151,214–$157,020,085 in their financial disclosures for 2019, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Attempts to reach the Trump Organization, and a longtime family lawyer, for comment were not immediately successful.

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Topics Ivanka Trump /Trump administration/US politics/US elections 2020/features