THE WEEK
Donald Trump’s family face a looming dilemma about if and when to return to his side as the former president closes in on the Republican nomination and old rivals and business leaders fall in behind him.
Despite the massed ranks of devoted followers that turn up to his rallies, Trump, who is currently neck-and-neck with Joe Biden in the polls to win the presidential election in November, cuts a relatively lonely figure on stage these days. In previous campaigns he was often joined by his wife Melania, daughter Ivanka, her husband Jared Kushner, and sons Donald Jr and Eric.
That he could end the year either preparing to re-enter the White House or locked up behind bars poses a challenge to those closest to him. Many of them have spent the past four years out of the limelight and away from what the BBC‘s Kayla Epstein calls the Trump “family circus”.
What did the commentators say?
The once-impossible return of Trump for a second term is “a nightmare scenario for many in the United States and beyond”, said The Telegraph, “but for some of his family members, it’s a murky dilemma”.
Ivanka, long believed to be her father’s favourite, and her husband Jared Kushner were conspicuously absent at his 2024 presidential announcement and have not appeared on the campaign trail since.
It is a similar story with Trump’s wife, Melania. The 53-year-old former model has “stayed under the radar” since leaving Washington in 2021, reported Yahoo News, largely focusing on their son, Barron, 17, who is currently applying for college. Except for a “few public events”, she has “stayed away from her husband’s numerous court appearances and avoided joining him on the campaign trail”, said Business Insider.
Her absence has increasingly become a talking point in Washington and even been picked up Trump’s political opponents, who have distributed flyers showing a picture of Melania with the captions “Missing” and “Have you seen this woman?”.
“The really key part here is those trials,” said The Telegraph, and “if she has to choose between returning to the White House, or watching her husband become a felon (and possibly a bankrupt one at that), she’ll take Option A any day”.
Ivanka faces a “similar quandary”, said the paper, and while Trump can still count on his two older sons, Donald Jr and Eric, neither have the star power of his wife or daughter.
What next?
All this matters because Trump’s immediate family are among the few people who can genuinely influence him.
Axios has claimed that Melania has weighed in on Trump’s choice of running mate, strongly advocating for former Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson, and even indicating that she might be more likely to hit the campaign trail if he was on board. Page Six has reported the former first lady is set to “step up top-tier diplomatic appearances in 2024” after Trump scored a Supreme Court victory in December in his federal election subversion case.
As for Ivanka, The New York Times said her role “in the family White House drama” was always to be “the rational actor, there to talk some restraint into her more bombastic, action-man dad”.
She benefited enormously from her father being in office, according to some estimates by as much as $640 million, “and for the four horrific years of his presidency, was uniquely positioned to stop Donald Trump and failed to do so”, said Slate. “Worse, she remains uniquely positioned to stop Donald Trump and fails to do so.”
Both Ivanka and Kushner took “senior advisory roles” in Trump’s first government, said The Hill, but “would not join him again in his administration if he returns to the White House”. The former president told Fox News last year that going back into politics would be “too painful” for his family.
But there have been rumours that Trump could appoint his son-in-law to a senior role in his next administration – possibly even secretary of state.
