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      The surest sign that Donald Trump is back? Ivanka is being seen in public with him | Arwa Mahdawi

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      There’s a decent chance that, come January 2025, Donald Trump will either be in the White House or in a prison cell. Last November, my money was on the prison cell. The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, was the Republicans’ golden boy and Trump was experiencing a major slump; for one thing, he had a mindboggling number of legal problems to deal with.He seemed to have lost his last crumbs of credibility: an embarrassing number of candidates he’d backed were defeated in the midterms, making the former president look like a loser and causing his allies to turn on him. “TRUMPTY DUMPTY” crowed the once-loyal New York Post on its front page. “Trump has no political skills left,” a Trump campaign insider said in messages seen by the Guardian. “His team is a joke. The ship is sinking.”First offboard that sinking ship? Ivanka Trump. The entrepreneur and women’s empowerment champion has always excelled in putting her own interests first. As soon as it seemed as if her dad had gone from a powerbroker to a liability, she fled to Miami with her family and kept a low profile. When Trump officially announced that he would be running for the 2024 nomination, Ivanka made sure that everyone knew she was staying out of it. “I do not plan to be involved in politics,” she said in a statement. She also skipped the official announcement at Mar-a-Lago.Several months on, the political landscape looks drastically different. DeSantis has gone from being feted as the future of the Republican party to being the butt of many jokes. His far-right policies may play to some voters’ fascist fantasies, but his creepy demeanour and Disney villain laugh have rendered him unelectable. There has been report after report about his odd behaviours – like consuming chocolate pudding cups with his fingers and eating “like a starving animal who has never eaten before”. DeSantis is off-putting, even to extremists.Trump, meanwhile, is back on top of the polls. A New York Times/Siena College poll published this week found that 71% of Republican voters still stand with the former president amid the multiple investigations he’s facing. That’s partly because many of them don’t seem to believe his many legal troubles are a big deal: 91% of people who have Fox News as their main source of information don’t think the former president committed serious crimes, the poll revealed. In any case, Trump is trouncing his competition and has a 37% lead over DeSantis. He’s the clear favourite for the Republican nomination.The biggest sign that Trump’s fortunes may be reversing, however? Ivanka and Jared Kushner, the most fair-weather of family, are now being seen in public with Trump again. “They’ve been spotted more frequently this summer,” one top campaign strategist told Vanity Fair. “They’ve made it clear they’re supportive. They pop into meetings to say hi.” The pair also set tongues wagging after they showed up at a recent screening of the child-trafficking movie Sound of Freedom that Trump hosted at his Bedminster golf club.Vanity Fair’s sources didn’t mince their words about why they reckon the power couple are suddenly so family-oriented. “Now that the president is 40 points ahead, of course Jared is pretending he’s involved,” a former Trump administration official told the outlet. “If he’s president again, Jared needs to protect his turf, especially in the Middle East.” We can’t have anyone else claiming the Middle East now, can we?One imagines that Ivanka also wants to protect her turf and finish what she started in 2017. The former first daughter had big dreams, after all. She was going to be the first female president! She was going to run the World Bank! She was going to empower every woman in the world, starting with herself! And then democracy got in the way.Unfortunately for Trump, democracy is still in the way. He may be the Republican favourite, but he still has to battle his way through numerous lawsuits and face off against Joe Biden (the presumptive Democratic nominee) to regain his place on the world stage. I won’t even begin to speculate about whether he might be able to pull that off, but I can tell you this: if you want to know how close Trump is to regaining power don’t look at the polls, look at Ivanka. If she’s keeping her distance, he’s in trouble. But if she’s cosying up to her dad? Then we’re all in a lot of trouble. More

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      After Ivanka Trump’s strategic exit, is Tiffany the new ‘first daughter’? | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Well, it looks like Melaniawatch is officially over. The former first lady has a habit of periodically disappearing, sparking fanciful theories that she has left her philandering husband and is crashing at the Obamas’ mansion to write a tell-all. Her latest vanishing act came, understandably, after Trump was arrested last week for hush money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. Melania was conspicuously absent from Trump’s arraignment and he failed to mention her in a speech where he thanked his entire family, and – bizarrely – praised his son Barron for being very tall. Like Jesus, however, Melania made a public reappearance on Easter Sunday.As soon as the where-is-Melania speculation was laid to rest, the what’s-Tiffany-up-to conjecture started. Eyebrows were raised when Trump thanked Tiffany, his youngest daughter, in his post-arraignment speech, because Trump famously has a habit of forgetting that Tiffany exists. Her siblings reportedly aren’t much kinder. According to Michael Cohen’s memoir about his time as Trump’s lapdog, Donald Jr, Eric and Ivanka (Trump’s children with his first wife, Ivana Trump) referred to Tiffany, who Trump fathered with his second wife, Marla Maples, as the “red-haired stepchild”. Cohen also claims the former president and Ivanka were rude about Tiffany’s looks.While Tiffany has always been on the sidelines in the Trump family, she has recently started to edge closer to the spotlight. Now that Trump’s eldest, Ivanka, is strategically keeping a distance from her disgraced dad, it looks like Tiffany is finally getting a little bit of her father’s attention. Publicly supporting him in his hour of need “could be her way to get closer to her father”, a source speculated to the New York Post in a recent piece titled “Is Tiffany Trump taking Ivanka’s place as Donald’s ‘First Daughter’?” Heartwarming stuff, eh? Sometimes it just takes being charged with 34 felony counts to bring a family together. More

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      Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner subpoenaed in January 6 investigation – report

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      Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner subpoenaed in January 6 investigation – reportSpecial counsel looking into Trump’s efforts to overturn 2020 election subpoenas former president’s daughter and son-in-law Former US president Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump have been subpoenaed by the special counsel Jack Smith to testify before a federal grand jury regarding the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing sources.Merrick Garland, the attorney general, appointed Smith in November last year to take over two investigations involving Trump, who is running for president in 2024.The first investigation involves Trump’s handling of highly sensitive classified documents he retained at his Florida resort after leaving the White House in January 2021.The second investigation is looking at efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election’s results, including a plot to submit phony slates of electors to block Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.Earlier this month, media outlets reported that the former US vice-president Mike Pence, the former national security adviser Robert O’Brien and Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, were subpoenaed by Smith in his investigations.Grand juries in Washington have been hearing testimony in recent months for both investigations from former top Trump administration officials.Smith’s office and Kushner did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. Ivanka Trump could not immediately be reached for comment.TopicsDonald TrumpJared KushnerIvanka TrumpUS politicsUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      Where was Ivanka when Donald launched his campaign? Looking after number one | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Where was Ivanka when Donald launched his campaign? Doing what Trumps do and looking after number oneArwa MahdawiThe former first daughter is no idiot. Why risk tainting her brand by associating with a loser? Just a few years ago Ivanka Trump reportedly had her heart set on being the US’s first female president. Now, however, she seems desperate to stay as far away from politics as possible. The former first daughter has made it clear that while Daddy may be running for office again, she has no intention of joining him on the campaign trail. She has already selflessly served the public once, you see, and the public didn’t sufficiently appreciate her sacrifices. Now it’s time for a little self-care. “I love my father very much,” Ivanka said in a statement following Donald Trump’s official 2024 announcement. “This time around, I am choosing to prioritise my children and the private life we are creating as a family. I do not plan to be involved in politics.” To really hammer things home she was conspicuously absent when Trump, surrounded by family, made his official announcement from Mar-a-Lago last week. Even Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner, was in attendance.Rumour has it that Trump isn’t happy his eldest daughter has decided to keep her distance. According to the New York Post, Trump spent much of Tiffany Trump’s recent wedding unsuccessfully trying to convince Ivanka, who has always been a big hit among his base, to join him for his campaign announcement – which I’m sure thrilled Tiffany, who has always seemed like the most neglected child. Ivanka, however, stood firm.00:52And why wouldn’t she? Ivanka may be many things, but she is not an idiot. The 41-year-old “Girlboss” entrepreneur has always spent a lot of time worrying about her personal brand. Hitching your wagon to Donald Trump at the moment? Definitely not good for the personal brand. Trump doesn’t scream “winner” right now: even many of his old allies have turned against him. The Rupert-Murdoch-owned-New York Post, for example, has spent the last couple of weeks gleefully trolling the former president. Two days after the midterms, it called him “TRUMPTY DUMPTY” on its front page. Even more humiliating was the way it chose to cover Trump’s run for president – “Florida man makes announcement” was the strapline that ran at the very bottom of the front page.At the moment, the consensus seems to be that Trump has lost his lustre and has zero chance of becoming president again. If Ivanka decides to side with her dad now she has nothing to gain. If she keeps her distance long enough, however, there’s a possibility she’ll be able to successfully rebrand herself, and all her liberal friends who turned their backs on her will invite her to dinner parties again. It’s a well-trodden path, after all: do a bunch of odious things when you’re in politics, get booted out of power, keep a low profile for a bit, then reinvent yourself by doing some high-profile charity work or appearing on a reality TV show. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ivanka’s PR people have been busy on the phone calling Volodymyr Zelenskiy (please, just one photo op!) and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (please, just a quick appearance on the podcast), in an attempt to ready her for a re-entrance to polite society.Speaking of odious people who have reinvented themselves: Michael Cohen, who was formerly Trump’s fixer and who has now successfully rebranded himself as a guy who gets paid to dish dirt on the Trump family on liberal cable news channels, has an interesting theory about Ivanka’s self-exile from politics. Cohen told MSNBC on Saturday that he reckons Jared and Ivanka have been working with the FBI and were the ones who informed the authorities about classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Ivanka’s involvement with the FBI, Cohen says, is why she’s not helping her father.I don’t know whether Ivanka is snitching to the FBI or not. But you know what I am very confident saying? Ivanka is busy doing what Trumps do best: looking out for number one. At the moment, that means staying away from her dad’s drama. If Trump’s fortunes change, however, and it looks like he might actually be on his way to the White House again, I have a feeling Ivanka might suddenly reassess her interest in politics.TopicsIvanka TrumpOpinionDonald TrumpUS politicscommentReuse this content More

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      Ivanka Trump says she will not be part of Donald’s 2024 campaign

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      Ivanka Trump says she will not be part of Donald’s 2024 campaignTrump skips father’s announcement and says she is prioritizing her family after serving as adviser during his presidency Ivanka Trump has decided to bow out of US politics and not actively join her father’s bid to retake the White House in 2024, saying she has chosen “to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family”.Donald Trump launched his 2024 bid for the Republican nomination on Tuesday night at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Members of his family, including his wife, Melania, and son Eric were present. Even Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner, was in attendance. But Ivanka was not.Trump announces 2024 run nearly two years after inspiring deadly Capitol riotRead moreIn a statement, Ivanka Trump said: “I love my father very much. This time around, I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family. I do not plan to be involved in politics.”She added: “While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena. I am grateful to have had the honor of serving the American people and will always be proud of many of our administration’s accomplishments.”Ivanka Trump and Kushner played key roles in Trump’s administration and became a lightning rod for anger at many of its excesses, in part due to their previous lives as mainstays of Manhattan’s elite social scene, which is heavily Democratic.00:52Since Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020, Ivanka Trump and her family have moved to an expensive mansion in Florida.She recently testified before the January 6 committee, the special congressional panel investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021 in which extremist supporters of Trump attempted to overturn his election defeat.Ivanka Trump was with her father in the White House that day and is one of more than 800 witnesses the committee has interviewed. Congressman Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman, described her testimony as not “chatty” but helpful.TopicsIvanka TrumpUS politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansUS elections 2024newsReuse this content More

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      Roger Stone calls Ivanka Trump an 'abortionist bitch' after not getting January 6 pardon – video

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      In a video shown to the January 6 committee, Roger Stone calls Donald Trump’s daughter an ‘abortionist bitch’ amid his fury at not being pardoned for his activities around the Capitol attack. The Republican operative also says Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s husband and, like her, an adviser to the former president in the White House, ‘has an IQ of 70’. The video was shot by Danish film-maker Christoffer Guldbrandsen and shown in Thursday’s dramatic hearing

      Roger Stone slammed Ivanka Trump after not getting pardoned, video shows More

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      Roger Stone slammed Ivanka Trump after not getting pardoned, video shows

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      Roger Stone slammed Ivanka Trump after not getting pardoned, video showsRepublican operative calls Trump an ‘abortionist bitch’ in video released by film-maker who provided footage to January 6 panel00:29In video released by a Danish film-maker who provided footage to the January 6 committee, Roger Stone, furious he will not be pardoned for his activities around the Capitol attack, is seen to call Ivanka Trump an “abortionist bitch”.Could Trump testify? Subpoena sets up prospect of dramatic political spectacleRead moreThe Republican operative also says Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s husband and like her an adviser to Donald Trump in the White House, “has an IQ of 70”.The video was shot by Christoffer Guldbrandsen, whose footage of Stone was shown in Thursday’s dramatic January 6 hearing. Then, Stone was shown saying: “I say fuck the voting, let’s get right to the violence.”The clip in which Stone rants about Ivanka and Kushner was selected but not shown by the committee. First reported by the Daily Beast, the clip shows Stone on the phone in the back of a car on a highway, visibly shaking with anger.“Jared Kushner has an IQ of 70,” he says. “He’s coming to Miami. We will eject him from Miami very quickly; he will be leaving very quickly. Very quickly.”Like Donald Trump, Kushner and Ivanka Trump moved to Florida after their time in Washington, rather than move back to New York.Stone continued: “He has 100 security guards. I will have 5,000 security guards. You want to fight. Let’s fight. Fuck you.”Stone added: “Fuck you and your abortionist bitch daughter.”Gulbrandsen, the Beast said, said there was “no doubt” who Stone was talking about.Stone is a strategist, author and self-confessed dirty trickster. He has long been associated with Donald Trump, through the businessman’s many flirtations with politics and since his election win in 2016.In 2019, Stone was indicted during the investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.Stone was convicted on seven counts of lying to Congress, obstruction of justice and witness tampering. The charges related to his links to Trump’s campaign and to WikiLeaks, which released Democratic party emails obtained by Russian hackers on the same day Trump was shown to have bragged about assaulting women.Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison. In December 2020, Trump granted him clemency.Gulbrandsen told the Beast the clip of Stone ranting on his phone was from 20 January 2021, the day of Joe Biden’s inauguration.Stone’s activities around the Capitol attack and links to the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, far-right groups involved in the riot, have been scrutinised by the January 6 committee. Stone appeared in front of investigators but invoked his fifth-amendment right against self-incrimination.06:25Gulbrandsen told the Beast: “Roger Stone has been holding out for a pardon till the very last minute. He had first written up a memo … with a plan about encouraging Trump to pardon the lawmakers who had voted against certifying [Biden’s win], and Roger Stone, and some of his clients.”The film-maker said Stone reduced his wishlist to pardons for himself and Bernie Kerik, a close associate, but was “very upset” when no pardon came.Gulbrandsen said: “Aside from Donald Trump [Stone] also held Jared Kushner responsible as being the guy who was the point man on the pardon.”The Beast has also reported that Gulbrandsen recorded Matt Gaetz, the Republican congressman from Florida, telling Stone “the boss still has a very favorable view of you”.Stone said: “I’ll go down hard, though. I’ll fight it right to the bitter end.”Gaetz said: “Yeah, but I don’t think you’re going to go down at all at the end of the day.”Guldbrandsen’s documentary, A Storm Foretold, has been extensively trailed and examined – but not yet released.TopicsRoger StoneUS Capitol attackJanuary 6 hearingsIvanka TrumpJared KushnernewsReuse this content More

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      Confidence Man review: Maggie Haberman takes down Trump

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      Confidence Man review: Maggie Haberman takes down Trump The New York Times reporter presents a forensic account of the damage he has done to AmericaMaggie Haberman, the New York Times’ Trump whisperer, delivers. Her latest book is much more than 600 pages of context, scoop and drama. It is a political epic, tracing Donald Trump’s journey from the streets of Queens to Manhattan’s Upper East Side, from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, his Elba. There, the 45th president holds court – and broods and plots his return.Kushner camping tale one of many bizarre scenes in latest Trump bookRead moreHaberman gives Trump and those close to him plenty of voice – and rope. The result is a cacophonous symphony. Confidence Man informs and entertains but is simultaneously absolutely not funny. Trumpworld presents a reptilian tableau – reality TV does Lord of the Flies.For just one example, Mark Meadows, Trump’s last White House chief of staff, is depicted as erratic and detestable. Then there’s the family. Haberman reports how, after the 2016 election, Melania Trump won a renegotiated pre-nuptial agreement. Haberman also describes Trump repeatedly dumping on his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. If only he looked like Tom Brady and spoke in a deeper register. If only Ivanka had not converted to Judaism.The abuse gets absurd – even a kind of baroque. According to Haberman, at one 2020 campaign strategy meeting Trump implied Kushner might be brutally attacked, even raped, if he ever went camping: “Can you imagine Jared and his skinny ass camping? It’d be like something out of Deliverance.”The reader, however, should not weep for Jared. In Haberman’s telling, he is the kid who was born on third base and mistakes his good fortune with hitting a triple. For his part, Kushner is shown trashing Steve Bannon, the far-right ideologue who was campaign chair and chief White House strategist but was forced out within months.Haberman catches Kushner gleefully asking a White House visitor: “Did you see I cut Bannon’s balls off?”To quote Peter Navarro, like Bannon now a former Trump official under indictment, “nepotism and excrement roll downhill”.As it happens, Bannon’s testicles grew back. Like Charlie Kushner, Jared’s father, he received a Trump pardon. Bannon also helped propagate the big lie that Trump won the election, stoking the Capitol attack.These days, Bannon awaits sentencing, convicted of contempt of Congress. He also faces felony fraud charges arising from an alleged border-wall charity scam. In Trump’s universe, there is always a grift.For Confidence Man, Haberman interviewed Trump three times. He confesses that he is drawn to her, like a moth to a flame.“I love being with her,” he says. “She’s like my psychiatrist”.The daughter of Clyde Haberman, a legendary New York Times reporter, is not flattered or amused. She sees through her subject.“The reality is that he treats everyone like they are his psychiatrists,” Haberman writes. “All present a chance for him to vent or test reactions or gauge how his statements are playing or discover how he is feeling.”Also, Trump and Haberman have not always had a rapport. When he was president, she would interview him and he would attack her. In April 2018, Trump tweeted that Haberman was a Clinton “flunkie” he didn’t know or speak with, a “third-rate reporter” at that. He called her “Maggot Haberman” and even contemplated obtaining her phone records to identify her sources.Trump is 76 but he remains the envious boy from a New York outer borough, face pressed against the Midtown glass. Haberman is not the only Manhattan reporter he has courted and attacked. In 2018, he threatened Michael Wolff for writing Fire and Fury, the Trump book that started it all. Later, he welcomed Wolff to Mar-a-Lago.Haberman vividly captures Trump’s lack of couth. For just one example, according to Haberman the president chose to enrich his first meeting with a foreign leader, Theresa May, by asking the British prime minister to “imagine if some animals with tattoos raped your daughter and she got pregnant”.Each of Trump’s three supreme court justices voted to overturn Roe v Wade. One might wonder how the young woman in Trump’s hypothetical would feel about that.Haberman also pierces Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns. All that talk about an “audit” was a simple dodge, birthed on a campaign plane.In the run-up to Super Tuesday, the crucial day of primaries in March 2016, aides confronted Trump about his taxes. The candidate, Haberman writes, “thought for a second about how to ‘get myself out of this’, as he said. He leaned back, before snapping up to a sudden thought.01:13“‘Well, you know my taxes are under audit. I always get audited … So what I mean is, well I could just say, ‘I’ll release them when I’m no longer under audit. ‘Cause I’ll never not be under audit.’”These days, the Trump Organization faces criminal tax fraud charges. Together with Ivanka, Don Jr and Eric, his children from his first marriage, Trump is also being sued for fraud by Letitia James, the New York attorney general.As a younger reporter, Haberman did two stints at the New York Post, Rupert Murdoch’s flagship US tabloid. Murdoch’s succession plans – it’s Lachlan, he told Trump – appear in Confidence Man. So does Tucker Carlson, the headline-making Fox News host and kindred spirit to Vladimir Putin.Trump made up audit excuse for not releasing tax returns on the fly, new book saysRead moreAccording to Haberman, Carlson met Kushner and demanded Trump commute Roger Stone’s conviction for perjury.“What happened to Roger Stone should never happen to anyone in this country of any political party,” Carlson reportedly thundered, threatening to go public.Stone has since emerged as a central figure in the January 6 insurrection. Apparently, he has a thing for violence. For some Republicans, a commitment to “law and order” is elastic.When it comes to the attempt to overturn the election and the Capitol attack it fueled, Trump’s fate rests with prosecutors in Washington DC and Fulton county, Georgia.That old campaign chant from 2016, “Lock her up”? It carries its own irony.
      Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America is published in the US by Penguin Random House
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