Meet the Trumps hoping to be America’s first family again
Family back in the spotlight after Donald Trump announces another presidential run in 2024
Ivanka Trump refused to join Donald Trump on stage when he announced his third presidential run.
Ivanka was “pointedly absent from the campaign launch”, said The Independent, with the eldest daughter of the former president telling reporters afterwards that she did not want to be “involved in politics”.
The New York Post reported that Donald Trump “spent part of daughter Tiffany’s lavish Mar-a-Lago wedding” attempting to convince his eldest daughter to join him on stage when he announced his latest presidential run.
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But an insider source said that Ivanka Trump had resisted “his entreaties and was holding firm”. She feels she and her husband Jared Kushner “got burned in Washington” and “don’t want to go back and expose themselves and their children to another bitter campaign”, the source continued.
Despite Ivanka snubbing the event, Kushner did attend “despite previously indicating that he does not agree with Trump’s claims that he actually won the 2020 election”, added The Independent.
So who are the key players in the Trump family?
Ivanka Trump
Undoubtedly the most high-profile of his five children during Trump’s time at the White House, his eldest daughter Ivanka served as a top White House adviser alongside her husband, Jared.
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But her former role as a senior White House advisor isn’t one that she “wishes to resurrect” said CNN, who was told by a source close to the family that she would “never go back to that life”. “She knows it’s not something that would serve her or her family at this point,” said the source.
Another said that Ivanka had been “done” with Washington “since the day she left”, while a third source noted that if she had any interest in taking part in her father’s continued political ambitions, she would have joined him on the campaign trail during the US midterms – but she has not made any public appearances or endorsements.
Melania Trump
Despite appearing with her husband at the launch of his third presidential campaign, the former first lady is thought to hold similar reservations about the campaign trail to Ivanka.
“It hasn’t been a joyride for our great first lady either,” Trump told his supporters. “I go home and she says ‘you look angry and upset’”. “But she’s been a great first lady and people love her,” he added.
“She doesn’t like being in the news. She certainly doesn’t like her name being attached to the rants and ravings of her husband,” said Kate Bennett, a CNN correspondent and author of the 2019 book Free, Melania: The Unauthorized Biography.
“I don’t think she has any intention of being on the campaign trail,” added Bennett.
Tiffany Trump
The 29-year-old law graduate married her billionaire-heir boyfriend Michael Boulos at Trump’s lavish Mar-a-Lago home last weekend, and was “escorted down the aisle before 250 guests by her father” wearing a “custom dress designed by Elie Saab”, said The New York Times.
The only child from Trump’s marriage to TV star Marla Maples, she was frequently referred to as Trump’s “forgotten daughter” during his presidency, said CNN, but has frequently been at his side at key moments, addressing the Republican national convention when her father became the party’s official nominee, and appearing alongside him as he delivered his victory speech upon winning the presidency.
Nevertheless, she has “managed to keep a lower public profile than Trump’s other children have”, said The New York Times, and is “the only adult child of Mr Trump’s not to be sued by the New York attorney general, Letitia James”, who seeks to ban the Trumps from conducting any further business in New York.
Donald Trump Jr
One of the three children from Trump’s marriage to his first wife Ivana, the 44-year-old is a trustee and executive vice president of his father’s business, The Trump Organization.
The businessman, who took an active part in his father’s first presidential run, hit headlines in 2018 when he admitted meeting with a Russian lawyer to “to get information on an opponent” during the presidential campaign in 2016, but claimed it was “totally legal”.
CNN reported that Don Jr is keen to get out on the campaign trail for his father again, and has emerged from the shadow of his sister Ivanka and her husband Jared to become “a key figure in the future of Trumpian politics”.
Eric Trump
The youngest of Trump’s three children with ex-wife Ivana, Eric has also followed in the family footsteps and is an executive vice president at The Trump Organization.
And much like his older brother, Don Jr, he is said to “remain extremely active on the campaign scene and are believed to be encouraging Trump to go for a second term,” said the Daily Mail.
Eric Trump is also heavily caught up in the same legal troubles plaguing his father and elder brother and sister. In the case brought against the family by Letitia James, Eric is accused of using “fraudulent valuation methods and assumptions” to inflate the value of Trump properties in Las Vegas every year from 2013 to 2016.
Eric tweeted last week that James “is the most corrupt attorney general in New York history and is an embarrassment to prosecutors across this country”.
Ivana Trump
The first wife of Donald Trump and mother to three of his children – Ivanka, Don Jr and Eric – the former model and ski instructor died aged 73 in July this year.
The Guardian reported that she died after she “fell inadvertently and was found at the bottom of her home’s stairs”. New York City’s chief medical examiner said she died from blunt force injuries that were consistent with an accidental fall.
“She was a wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life,” Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social shortly after her death. “Her pride and joy were her three children, Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric. She was so proud of them, as we were all so proud of her.”