Ivanka Trump, the first daughter of Donald Trump, and her husband Jared Kushner are an "unlikely couple" to back the Republican nominee in his presidential bid this fall, but they have no intention of doing anything but support the family, "their position and their fortunes," The New Yorker's Lizzie Widdiecombe concludes in a detailed exposé of the power-seeking combo.
"To publicly break with one's father — or father-in-law — isn't easy," Widdiecombe wrote. "And for Ivanka and Jared it would be more than just awkward. It would be intolerable: viewed as a betrayal, grounds for banishment and reprisal. They would lose their position and their fortunes.
"Doing so would require acting against their own self-interest, as well as the interest of their families. And that's not something that they tend to do."
The report appeared in The New Yorker's Aug. 22, 2016 issue and detailed how the pair are key players in Trump's campaign despite seemingly being at odds with it, particularly amid recent developments which have polarized voters and fly in the face of who the pair truly are.
"The harsher notes of the Trump campaign — its openly nativist and racist appeals — have called into question Jared and Ivanka's motives," she wrote. "The 'Mexican' judge, the Muslim ban, the 'joke' about killing Hillary Clinton: these incidents have won Trump plenty of fans, but they've appalled many people, including those in the social set that Ivanka and Jared inhabit. People in that circle have begun to wonder: Can they really be going along with all of this?"
The New York Observer, the paper Kushner owns, recently published a shot at Trump as "thin skinned," the candidate it endorses.
The New Yorker exposé also featured a story of former Rupert Murdoch wife Wendi Deng as being the catalyst who got Ivanka Trump and Kushner back together after a 2008 breakup. There have been rumors Mrs. Deng was dating Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Ivanka Trump posted a vacation photo with Wendi Deng on her Instagram account Sunday, signaling a possible Trump connection to Putin.
The New Yorker painted Kushner, whose family has donated to the Democratic party and the Clintons, as someone stubbornly loyal and is now clearly on the side of his father-in-law, his beliefs be damned.
"Despite Kushner’s mild-mannered behavior, friends say that he has a stubborn streak — once he’s made a decision, he tends to dig in," Widdiecombe wrote. "The disapproval heaped on his father-in-law by both liberal and conservative élites, rather than causing him to question himself and his choices, has only hardened his commitment."
Ivanka's family ties and loyalty run too deep to break, as the story wrote:
"Ivanka appears to take less delight in the campaign; by all accounts, she truly believes in the causes she championed at the Convention — paid family leave, government-subsidized child care. She also believes that the best way to enact them would be in a Trump Administration. According to friends, she disagrees with things her father has said during the campaign, but she prefers to register her complaints in private. Isn't that how any loyal daughter would behave?"
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