Jared and Ivanka reportedly plan to be out of the White House by 2018


First daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, have occupied a healthy portion of the media spotlight surrounding President Trump's administration. Kushner, the president's son-in-law, also serves as a senior adviser to Trump, while Ivanka occupies an office in the West Wing all her own.
The power couple were supposed to be "moderating influences" on the mercurial president, Vanity Fair reports. But in a long dissection of the couple's time in Washington, the magazine notes that neither Ivanka nor her husband have had much success in tempering Trump's more populist, right-wing instincts; after all, just look at his withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, his banning of transgender troops from the military, and his response to the white nationalist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Not only that, but the Washington elite haven't taken kindly to the couple, who combined to have zero existing policy experience when they took office:
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A key problem seems to be, as one Washington veteran told me, that Kushner and Ivanka don't have the necessary self-awareness — don't understand how to behave when you roll into Washington as the creature of someone else. Most such people take a seat a little off to the side, at least until they get their bearings. "What is off-putting about them is they do not grasp their essential irrelevance," this veteran told me. "They think they are special." [Vanity Fair]
That means the couple's jaunt in D.C. might be short-lived. Kushner and Ivanka may well be planning an exit for as early as next spring — especially if they "decide it's more important to protect their own and their children's reputations than it is to defend their indefensible father's," one Republican donor told Vanity Fair. The magazine cites a "well-connected strategist in New York" in reporting that the couple may be "eyeing a move at the end of the school year in 2018," though another source "close to" Kushner and Ivanka denies they've already planned their escape.
But as Vanity Fair distilled it: "If [Ivanka's] main value in Washington is her access to her father and she is unable to sway him, then she is simply a 35-year-old former real-estate and retail executive in over her head."
Read more about Kushner and Ivanka at Vanity Fair.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Kimberly Alters is the news editor at TheWeek.com. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
-
August 9 editorial cartoons
Cartoons Saturday's political cartoons include snake oil salesmen, Ghislaine Maxwell's new residence, and more
-
5 hastily redrawn cartoons about redistricting
Cartoons Artists take on Donald Trump's draughtsmanship, the White House ballroom, and more
-
Bonnie Blue: taking clickbait to extremes
Talking Point Channel 4 claims documentary on the adult performer's attention-grabbing sex stunts is opening up a debate
-
Trump officials reinstating 2 Confederate monuments
Speed Read The administration has plans to 'restore Confederate names and symbols' discarded in the wake of George Floyd's 2020 murder
-
Trump nominates Powell critic for vacant Fed seat
speed read Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers and a fellow critic of Fed chair Jerome Powell, has been nominated to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
-
ICE scraps age limits amid hiring push
Speed Read Anyone 18 or older can now apply to be an ICE agent
-
Trump's global tariffs take effect, with new additions
Speed Read Tariffs on more than 90 US trading partners went into effect, escalating the global trade war
-
House committee subpoenas Epstein files
Speed Read The House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena to the Justice Department for its Jeffrey Epstein files with an Aug. 19 deadline
-
India rejects Trump threat over Russian oil
Speed Read The president said he would raise tariffs on India for buying and selling Russian oil
-
NY's Hochul vows response to Texas gerrymander
Speed Read Gov. Kathy Hochul has promised to play ball with redistricting that favors the Democrats
-
Texas Democrats exit state to block redistricting vote
Speed Read More than 51 legislators fled the state in protest of the GOP's plan to redraw congressional districts