Ivanka Trump Biography
Ivana Marie "Ivanka" Trump (/ɪˈvɑːŋkə/; born October 30, 1981) is an American businesswoman. Trump is the second child of Donald Trump (the 45th president of the United States) and his first wife, Ivana. She was a senior advisor in his administration (2017–2021), and also was the director of the Office of Economic Initiatives and Entrepreneurship.
Trump was an executive vice president of her family-owned Trump Organization. She was also a boardroom judge on her father's TV show, The Apprentice. Starting in March 2017, Trump left the Trump Organization to become a senior adviser in her father's presidential administration alongside her husband, Jared Kushner. While serving in the White House, she continued to operate her clothing brand business until July 2018, which raised ethics concerns, specifically conflicts of interest. She was part of the president's inner circle prior to becoming an official employee in his administration.
Early life and education
Ivana Marie Trump was born on October 30, 1981, in Manhattan, New York City, as the second child and only daughter of Donald Trump and his first wife, Czech-American model Ivana (née:Zelníčková). Her father has German and Scottish ancestry. For most of her life, she has been nicknamed "Ivanka", a Slavic diminutive form of her first name Ivana. Her parents divorced in 1990 when she was nine years old. She has two brothers, Donald Jr. and Eric, a half-sister, Tiffany, and a half-brother, Barron.
Trump attended Christ Church and the Chapin School in Manhattan until age 15 when she switched to Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut. When Trump was attending boarding school as a teenager, she began modeling "on weekends and holidays and absolutely not during the school year," according to her late mother, Ivana. In May 1997, she was featured on the cover of Seventeen which ran a story on "celeb moms & daughters".
After graduating from Choate in 2000, Trump attended Georgetown University for two years before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania, from which she graduated * laude with a bachelor's degree in economics in 2004. She was the first Jewish member of a first family, having converted before marrying her husband, Jared Kushner, in 2009.
Career
Business
After graduating from Wharton, her father's alma mater, Trump briefly worked for Forest City Ratner. As Executive Vice President of Development & Acquisitions of The Trump Organization, she was charged with the domestic and global expansion of the company's real estate interests. Trump led the Request for Proposal (RFP) with the GSA in February 2012, resulting in the final selection of The Trump Organization to develop the historic Old Post Office in Washington, D.C. She then oversaw the $200-million conversion of the historic building into a luxury hotel, which opened in 2016. Soon after joining the Trump Organization in an executive position, she started her jewelry, shoe, and apparel lines which were covered in magazines such as Harper's Bazaar, Forbes Life, Golf Magazine, Town & Country, and Vogue. She was featured on the cover of Stuff in August 2006 and again in September 2007.
Independent of her family's real estate business, Trump also had her own line of Ivanka Trump fashion items, which included clothes, handbags, shoes, and accessories, available in U.S. and Canadian department stores including Macy's and Hudson's Bay.
Trump in July 2007Trump formed a partnership in 2007 with Dynamic Diamond Corp., the company of diamond vendor Moshe Lax, to create Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry, a line of diamond and gold jewelry sold at her first flagship retail store in Manhattan. Her flagship moved from Madison Avenue to 109 Mercer Street, a larger space in the SoHo district in November 2011. Celebrities were spotted wearing her jewelry including Jennifer Lopez on the cover of Glamour and Rihanna on the cover of W Magazine. Her brand was named "Launch of the Year' in 2010 by Footwear News. Trump's brand also went on to win other awards. Members of 100 Women in Hedge Funds elected Trump to their board in December 2012. Her company eventually grew to over $500 million in sales annually. Trump closed down the company and separated herself from her business affiliations at the Trump Organization after she moved to D.C. to serve as a senior advisor to her father in the White House.
Between 2010 and 2018 Trump was also a paid consultant for The Trump Organization. This "non-employee" dual status has been questioned while reviewing taxes and financial disclosures.
Trump's flagship store on Mercer Street was reported to be closed in October 2015, and her brand was available at various retail locations including Trump Tower, Hudson's Bay, and fine-jewelry stores. She also had her own line of fashion items available in department stores. Her brand faced criticism for using rabbit fur and was involved in a design infringement lawsuit with Aquazzura Italia SRL, which was later settled. Ivanka Trump-brand shoes were supplied by Chengdu Kameido Shoes and Hangzhou HS Fashion. The Accessories Council Excellence Awards recognized Trump with the Breakthrough Award, presented by designer Carolina Herrera in 2015.
Between March and July 2016, Trump applied for 36 trademarks in China. Seven of them were approved between her father's inauguration in January 2017 and Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit in the U.S. in April. Three provisional trademarks for handbags, jewelry, and spa services were granted on the day Xi dined with President Trump and his family at Mar-a-Lago. According to a trademark lawyer, the process usually takes 18 to 24 months. A Chinese government spokesman said that "the government handles all trademark applications equally." The Washington Post reported in 2017, “an astounding 258 trademark applications were lodged under variations of Ivanka, Ivanka Trump and similar- sounding Chinese characters between Nov 10 and the end of last year... none appear to have a direct business link with the US president’s daughter.”
Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom dropped Trump's fashion line due to poor sales in 2017, and other retailers followed. Three members of China Labor Watch were arrested in China while investigating a company that produces shoes for American brands, including Trump's brand. Trump announced in July 2018 that she shut down her company after deciding to pursue a career in public policy instead of returning to her fashion business.
Television
Trump filled in for Carolyn Kepcher on five episodes of the fifth season of her father's television program The Apprentice, first appearing to help judge the Gillette task in week 2. Like Kepcher, Trump visited the site of the tasks and spoke to the teams. Trump collaborated with season 5 winner Sean Yazbeck on his winner's project of choice, Trump SoHo Hotel-Condominium. She replaced Kepcher as a primary boardroom judge during the sixth season of The Apprentice and its follow-up iteration, Celebrity Apprentice.
In 1997, at the age of 15, Trump co-hosted the Miss Teen USA Pageant, which was partially owned by her father, Donald Trump, from 1996 to 2005. In 2006, she was a guest judge on Project Runway's third season. She reappeared as a guest judge on season 4 of Project Runway All Stars in 2014 and 2015. In 2010, Trump and her husband made a cameo portraying themselves in Season 4 Episode 6 of Gossip Girl.
Modeling
While Trump was attending boarding school as a teenager, she also began modeling "on weekends and holidays and absolutely not during the school year," according to her mother, Ivana Trump. She was featured in adverti*ts for Tommy Hilfiger, Elle, Vogue, Teen Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Thierry Mugler, She also engaged in fashion runway work.:In May 1997, she was featured on the cover of Seventeen.:Trump has been profiled in many women's fashion magazines, including Vogue, Glamour, Marie Claire, and Elle. She was featured on covers such as Harper's Bazaar, Forbes, Forbes Life, Marie Claire, Golf Digest, Town & Country, Elle Décor, Shape, and Stuff magazine.:Trump was featured in Vanity Fair's annual International Best Dressed List in 2007 and 2008.
Books
In October 2009, Trump's first self-help book, The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life, was published; according to ghostwriter Daniel Paisner, he co-wrote the book. In May 2017, her second self-help book, Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success, was published; as a standard practice, she used the services of a writer, a researcher, and a fact-checker. The book debuted in the number four spot in the "Advice, How-To and Misc." category of The New York Times Best Seller list. Trump announced that she would donate the unpaid portion of her advance and all future royalties received from Women Who Work to the Ivanka M. Trump Charitable Fund, which says that it makes grants that empower women and girls. She donated $200,000 in royalties to the National Urban League and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Trump also funded a Women's Entrepreneur Center at the National Urban League in Baltimore, Maryland, after visiting the facility with Marc Morial, President of the National Urban League.
Trump campaign and administration
2016 presidential campaign and election
Trump introduced her father at Trump Tower in 2015 as he announced his candidacy for president of the United States. She publicly endorsed his presidential campaign and made public appearances supporting and defending him. However, she admitted mixed feelings about his presidential ambitions, saying in October 2015, "As a citizen, I love what he's doing. As a daughter, it's obviously more complicated."
Speaking at her father's presidential campaign in September 2016.In January 2016, Trump praised her father in a radio ad that aired in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire. She appeared by his side following the results of early voting states in 2016, in particular briefly speaking in South Carolina. She was not able to vote in the New York primary in April 2016 because she had missed the October 2015 deadline to change her registration to Republican.
Trump introduced her father in a speech immediately before his own speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention (RNC) in July. The George Harrison song "Here Comes the Sun" was used as her entrance music. She stated, "One of my father's greatest talents is the ability to see the potential in people", and said he would "Make America Great Again." Her speech was well received as portraying Donald Trump "in a warmer-than-usual light", according to The Washington Post. After the speech, viewers commented that the speech was "one of the best – if not the best – of the night," and that Trump is the "greatest *et Donald Trump has". Others said that her speech was the "high point of the convention".
An earlier Post article had questioned whether the policy positions Ivanka Trump espoused were closer to those of Hillary Clinton than to those of her father. After the speech, the George Harrison estate complained about the use of his song as being offensive to their wishes. The next morning, Ivanka's official Twitter account tweeted, "Shop Ivanka's look from her #RNC speech" with a link to a Macy's page that featured the dress she wore.
After her father's election, Trump wore a bracelet on a 60 Minutes segment with her family, which her company then used in a marketing effort. When asked about it, she pointed to a marketing employee at one of her companies.
In 2017, artist Richard Prince returned a $36,000 payment he received in 2014 for a work depicting Trump as a protest against her father. A coalition of New York art world figures unhappy with President Trump started an Instagram account called Dear Ivanka to protest against Donald Trump's presidency.
Trump attended the inauguration of her father as the 45th president of the United States, at the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. She partly negotiated rates of hotel rooms, rental spaces, and meals at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., on which her father's inaugural committee spent funds it privately raised (a standard practice for inaugural committees), WNYC and ProPublica reported in December 2018.
In May 2019, the United States attorney for the District of Columbia requested some do*ents about her and her sibling's role in her father's inauguration, although Trump did not have "any official role in running the committee".
Advisor to the President of the United States
In January 2017, Trump resigned from her position at the Trump Organization. The organization also removed images of Trump and her father from their websites, in accordance with official advice on federal ethics rules.
Trump (fourth from right) attending the signing ceremony for the INSPIRE Women Act on February 28, 2017, in the Oval Office of the White HouseAfter advising her father in an unofficial capacity for the first two months of his administration, Trump was appointed "First Daughter and Advisor to the President," a government employee, on March 29, 2017. She did not take any salary for the position and didn't receive any government health benefits during her four years at the White House. She also became the head of the newly established Office of Economic Initiatives and Entrepreneurship.
During the early months of her father's administration, some commentators compared her role in the administration to that of Julie Nixon Eisenhower, daughter of President Richard Nixon. Nixon's daughter was one of the most vocal defenders of his administration, and Ivanka Trump defended President Trump and his administration against a myriad of allegations. Washington Post opinion columnist Alyssa Rosenberg wrote, "Both daughters served as important validators for their fathers."
With Christine Lagarde and Angela Merkel at the W20 Conference Gala Dinner in Berlin, April 2017In late April 2017, Trump hired Julie Radford as her chief of staff. Before the end of the month, Trump and Radford had plans to travel with Dina Powell and Hope Hicks to the first W20 women's summit. The W20 was organized by the National Council of German Women's Organizations and the *ociation of German Women Entrepreneurs as one of the preparatory meetings leading up to the G20 head-of-state summit in July. At the conference, Trump spoke about women's rights. The US media reported that when she praised her father as an advocate for women, some people in the audience hissed and booed in response. The same month, Trump and then World Bank President Jim Kim aut*d an op-ed published in the Financial Times on women's economic empowerment, highlighting the critical role that women play in the development of societies and the business case for involving women in the formal economy. In July 2017, Trump attended the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, with President Trump and the United States delegation. She launched We-Fi (Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative), a United States-led billion-dollar World Bank initiative to advance women's entrepreneurship.
Ivanka, Kushner and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attend the opening of the U.S. Emb*y to Israel in Jerusalem on May 14, 2018.In August 2017, President Trump announced that Ivanka would lead a U.S. delegation to India in the fall in global support of women's entrepreneurship. In September 2017, Trump delivered an anti-human trafficking speech at the United Nations General *embly, calling it "the greatest human rights issue of our time". The event was hosted by British Prime Minister Theresa May, who personally invited Trump to a patriciate, in collaboration with Great Britain and Ireland.
President Trump, Ivanka and British prime minister Theresa May attend a business roundtable event at St James's Palace in London, June 4, 2019.Trump led the United States presidential delegation to the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games closing ceremony in February 2018. She dined with South Korean President Moon Jae-in at his residence, the Blue House.
President Trump, Ivanka and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the G20 Summit in Osaka, June 28, 2019She and her father attended the 2019 G20 Osaka summit in late June 2019; the French government released a video of her awkwardly inserting herself into a conversation with world leaders, leading to online parodies and memes.
In June 2019, Trump participated in talks between her father and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inside the Korean peninsula's demilitarized zone. She described the experience as "surreal".
Trump went on a worldwide tour in 2019 to promote her "Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative", in which she traveled to Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay, and Morocco, as well as attended the 74th United Nations General *embly. In 2021, a Government Accountability Office audit concluded that Trump's initiative, which spent $265 million a year of taxpayer money on 19 women's empowerment projects, failed to target the money towards projects that related to women's empowerment, and did not measure the impact of the spending.
In January 2020, Trump organized a Human Trafficking Summit at the White House where President Trump signed an executive order expanding his domestic policy office with a new position solely focused on combating human trafficking. In June 2020, Trump hosted an event at the White House with Attorney General Bill Barr, Special Advisor Heather C. Fischer, non-profit leaders, and survivors of human trafficking to announce $35 million in grant funding to aid victims of human trafficking.
Trump was credited with proposing the controversial photo opportunity for President Donald Trump holding a bible in front of St. John's Church, which required violently clearing peaceful protesters. She walked with her father to the site and carried the bible in her Max Mara purse.
In July 2020, Trump tweeted a picture of herself with a Goya Foods bean can, endorsing the product. The owner of Goya Foods had days prior praised President Trump, leading to a backlash against the company. Trump's tweet raised ethics concerns, given that Trump was at the time an official adviser in the White House, and employees in public office are not permitted to endorse products.
In September 2020, Trump joined Attorney General Bill Barr, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, First Lady Marty Kemp, and Tim Tebow in Atlanta to announce $100 million in grant funding for human trafficking.
While serving in her father's administration, Trump retained ownership of businesses, which drew criticism from government ethics experts who said it created conflicts of interest. It is not possible to determine the exact amount of Trump's outside income while working in her father's administration because she is only required to report the worth of her *ets and liabilities in ranges to the Office of Government Ethics. The incomes of Trump and her husband Jared Kushner ranged from $36.2 million to $157 million in 2019, at least $29 million in 2018, and at least $82 million in 2017. In 2019, she earned $3.9 million from her stake in the Trump hotel in Washington, D.C.
2020 presidential campaign
Campaigning for her father in October 2020In August 2020, Trump introduced her father at the 2020 Republican National Convention, by which he proceeded on the front lawn of the White House to accept the party's nomination before a crowd of supporters.
Capitol riot and post-presidential career
Trump refused to address the rally at the Ellipse on January 6, 2021, but was in attendance. During the ensuing riot at the U.S. Capitol, she encouraged her father to make a video on Twitter condemning the riots, acting as an intermediary between besieged U.S. officials and the President. (Donald Trump's video resulted in him being banned from the platform as he said "we love you" to the rioters.)
In June 2022, Trump told the panel of the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack that she did not believe the election was stolen and accepted William Barr's conclusion that voter fraud claims have "zero basis".
When asked about her father's 2024 bid for presidency in November 2022, she 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. 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 I will always be proud of many of our Administration's accomplishments."
Social and political causes
Trump (second from left in first row) at Seeds of Peace in New York City in 2009In 2007, Ivanka Trump donated $1,000 to the presidential campaign of then-Senator Hillary Clinton. In 2012, she endorsed Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. In 2013, Trump and her husband hosted a fundraiser for Democrat Cory Booker, and the couple bundled more than $40,000 for Booker's U.S. Senate campaign.
During her father's presidency, Trump transformed from a liberal to an "unapologetically" pro-life, "proud Trump Republican". At the 2016 Republican National Convention, she said of her political views: "Like many of my fellow millennials, I do not consider myself categorically Republican or Democrat." In 2018, Trump changed her New York voter registration from Democratic to Republican.
Philanthropy
In 2010, Trump cofounded Girl Up with the United Nations Foundation. Of the program, Trump said, "Girl Up 'for girls, by girls' approach encourages American girls to become forces of global change. I am proud to be working with Girl Up and girls in this country to help ensure that all girls – no matter where they are born – get the tools they need to be educated, healthy, counted and positioned to be the next generation of leaders."
Trump was a member of the board of the Donald J. Trump Foundation until it was dissolved after then New York attorney general Barbara Underwood filed a civil lawsuit against the foundation for "persistently illegal conduct" with respect to the foundation's money. In November 2019, Trump's father was ordered to pay a $2 million settlement for misusing the foundation for his business and political purposes. The settlements also included mandatory training requirements for herself and her two elder brothers.
Trump also has ties to a number of Jewish charities, including Chai Lifeline, a charity which helps to look after children with cancer. Other charities she supports include United Hatzalah, to which her father, Donald Trump, has reportedly made six-figure donations in the past. After she was appointed advisor to the president, Trump donated the unpaid half of the advance payments for her book Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success to the National Urban League and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. She further said that any royalties exceeding the advances would also be given to charity. In December 2022, she purchased generators for CityServe’s partner churches in Ukraine that were without power. That same year, alongside healthcare industry leaders, she organized five cargo planes of requested medical supplies including patient monitors, defibrillators, nebulizers, bandages, syringes, and first-aid kits for Ukraine with the support of the First Lady of Poland.
Personal life
With Kushner an event in North Charleston, South Carolina, February 2017Trump has a close relationship with her father, who has publicly expressed his admiration for her on several occasions. Ivanka has likewise praised her father, complimenting his leadership skills and saying he empowers other people. Sarah Ellison, writing for Vanity Fair in 2018, indicated Ivanka Trump was the family member that "everyone in the family seems to acknowledge" is her father's "favorite" child. This had been confirmed by the family members themselves in a 2015 interview with Barbara Walters on network television where the siblings were gathered and acknowledged this. According to her late mother, Ivanka speaks French and understands Czech.
In January 2017 it was announced that she and Kushner had made arrangements to establish a family home in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Federal filings implied that, in 2017, Trump and her husband may have *ets upwards of $740 million. They had previously shared an apartment on Park Avenue in New York City, which Trump chose due to its proximity to her work with the Trump Organization. The residence was featured in Elle Decor in 2012 with Kelly Behun as its interior decorator. Since leaving Washington in 2021, Ivanka and her husband have been residents of Surfside, Florida.
Relationships and marriage
Trump was in a near four-year relationship with Greg Hersch while in college. From 2001 to 2005, she dated James "Bingo" Gubelmann. In 2005, she started dating real estate developer Jared Kushner, whom she met through mutual friends. The couple broke up in 2008 due to the objections of Kushner's parents but reconciled and married in a Jewish ceremony on October 25, 2009. They have three children: daughter Arabella Rose, born in July 2011, and sons Joseph Frederick and Theodore James born in October 2013 and March 2016 respectively. In an interview on The Dr. Oz Show, Trump revealed that she had suffered from postpartum depression after each of her pregnancies.
Religion
Trump (far right) with (from center to right) her father, second stepmother, and husband at the Western Wall at Temple Mount in Jerusalem in May 2017Raised as a Presbyterian Christian, Trump converted to Orthodox Judaism in July 2009, after studying with Elie Weinstock from the Modern Orthodox Ramaz School. Trump took the Hebrew name "Yael" (Hebrew: יָעֵל, lit. 'ibex'). She describes her conversion as an "amazing and beautiful journey" which her father supported "from day one", adding that he has "tremendous respect" for the Jewish faith. She attests to keeping a kosher diet and observing the Jewish Sabbath, saying in 2015: "We're pretty observant... It's been such a great life decision for me... I really find that with Judaism, it creates an amazing blueprint for family connectivity. From Friday to Saturday we don't do anything but hang out with one another. We don't make phone calls." When living in New York City, she used to send her daughter to Jewish kindergarten. She said: "It's such a blessing for me to have her come home every night and share with me the Hebrew that she's learned and sing songs for me around the holidays."
Trump and her husband made a pilgrimage to the grave of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, a popular prayer site, shortly before her father's election victory. In May 2017, the couple also accompanied her father on the latter's first official visit to Israel as president. As part of the trip to Israel, her father became the first in*bent U.S. president to visit the Western Wall. Ivanka also visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in western Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem during the same trip.
Awards and nominations
In 2012, the Wharton Club of New York, the official Wharton alumni *ociation for the New York metropolitan area, gave Trump the Joseph Wharton Award for Young Leadership, one of their four annual awards for alumni. In 2015, she was honored as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. In 2016, she was presented with the Fashion Award for Excellence in Accessory Design. In January 2020, Trump received the "Friend of Israel Award" from the Israeli-American Council. The same year she was honored with the National *ociation of Manufacturers' Alexander Hamilton Award.
Cultural depictions
Further information: Cultural depictions of Ivanka TrumpMen dressed as Trump have attended protests against her father Donald Trump. On Saturday Night Live, Ivanka Trump has been portrayed by cast member Vanessa Bayer, as well as guest hosts Margot Robbie, Emily Blunt, and Scarlett Johansson. Former cast member Maya Rudolph, who played Trump on the show in 2005, impersonated her again on Late Night with Seth Meyers in 2017. Trump has also been portrayed on The President Show (2017) and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. In the eleventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race, a satirical version of her was portrayed by Mercedes Iman Diamond in "Trump: The Rusical". Madame Tussauds has a wax sculpture of Trump. Jennifer Rubell's 2019 art exhibition Ivanka Vacuuming featured a model resembling Trump vacuuming crumbs thrown by spectators.
Footnotes
References
Bibliography
- Kushner, Jared (2022). Breaking History: A White House Memoir (First:ed.). New York: Broadside Books. ISBN:978-0-06-322148-2. OCLC:1319741976.
External links
Ivanka Trump at Wikipedia's sister projects- Media from Commons
- Quotations from Wikiquote
- Ivanka Trump Store at the Wayback Machine (archived January 27, 2018)
- Ivanka Trump at IMDb
- Appearances on C-SPAN
