During the 2016 election campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump allegedly wanted to make his daughter, Ivanka Trump, the vice-president on the Republican ticket.
According to the book, “Wicked Game: An Insider’s Story on How Trump Won, Mueller Failed, and America Lost,” by Rick Gates, who is an ex-Trump aide, Trump said, “I think it should be Ivanka. What about Ivanka as my VP?… She’s bright, she’s smart, she’s beautiful, and the people would love her!”
A New York Times investigation into Trump’s taxes revealed last week that the president appears to have hired a member of the family as an advisor to avoid paying taxes.
According to the New York Times, in 2017, Ivanka Trump received $747,622 from a consulting company she co-owned. This payment, the Times said, “exactly matched consulting fees claimed as tax deductions by the Trump Organization for hotel projects in Vancouver and Hawaii… Helping to reduce Mr. Trump’s tax bills are unidentified consultants’ fees, some of which can be matched to payments received by Ivanka Trump.”
Ivanka promptly declined the VP offer as she did not want the job at that time.
“She went to her father and said, ‘No, Dad. It’s not a good idea.’ And he capitulated,” Gates said. Ultimately, Trump’s choice would be then-Indiana Governor Mike Pence.
However, the polling team thought that she could be fit for the VP job as she is more moderate than Trump. Paul Manafort, the former chair of President Trump’s campaign, even made polls on Ivanka as VP.
“She didn’t poll tremendously high, but higher than we expected, and that only added to the seriousness of her consideration,” Gates wrote.
This refusal of taking an important title within her father’s administration is not the first time it happened.
“Her father said he was tempted to give her the UN ambassadorship but he resisted because he would be accused of nepotism. A year later she turned down his offer to head the World Bank,” according to BBC.
According to the book, “Melania and Me,” by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former friend and aide to First Lady Melania Trump, “Ivanka wants to control her place within the administration.”
Most people within the East wing even nicknamed Ivanka “princess” as she gets everything she asks for, Winston Wolkoff wrote.
“A princess who wants to be queen,” she wrote.
During Trump’s January 2017 inauguration, Ivanka went as far as attempting to sabotage the first lady by standing next to her father, attempting to steal Melania’s spotlight as a power move, Winston Wolkoff said.
According to the Guardian, “Ivanka has not served in elected office but is widely thought to have political ambitions of her own, possibly in the 2024 presidential race.”
