Against a backdrop of sustained criticism, Donald Trump has employed his daughter Ivanka Trump in the unpaid role of "assistant to the President." The move is designed to satisfy critics who opposed Ivanka’s West Wing office and security clearance: she had been advising her father without being bound by the transparency laws that cover federal employees.
Now the criticism is that Ivanka’s role – to quote Barack Obama’s ethics lawyer – is a "violation of nepotism laws." The Trump family need not worry, because the US Department of Justice has already asserted that these laws don’t apply in the context of Ivanka’s husband Jared’s role as a senior advisor to the President because: “In choosing his personal staff, the President enjoys an unusual degree of freedom, which Congress found suitable to the demands of his office.”
Trump still has hundreds of key positions in the US government to fill, and it is increasingly obvious that the delay may be because he just doesn’t have enough adult children to fill them. Ivanka isn’t just the latest member of Trump’s Kakistocracy ("government by the worst people") - she has assumed the role of Trump’s first lady.
Eleven years ago, Trump remarked that “if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her,” but it isn’t for Trump’s long history of weirdly sexualised comments that his daughter should be seen as the First lady.
The role of Flotus (First Lady of the United States) as an informal diplomatic, political and ceremonial assistant to the President has been filled by Ivanka from day one.
The 35-year old former model turned fashion entrepreneur sat in on Trump’s first meeting with another head of state when the President-elect met Japan’s Shinzo Abe in November. Conveniently for Ivanka, she was finalising a clothing deal with a Japanese company at the time. Since then, Ivanka has also participated in a meeting with Germany’s Angela Merkel, and was photographed “swooning” at Justin Trudeau during US-Canada talks. Ivanka tweeted a picture of herself sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office with her dad and Trudeau behind her, un-ironically captioned “a great discussion with two world leaders about the importance of women having a seat at the table!” As the son of a former PM himself, Trudeau could have given Ivanka some tips on struggling to the top from such a challenging background, but even Trump’s harshest critics might want to stop and think before they criticise Ivanka’s role too strongly: she may yet be a force for good.
Read more: Melania Trump - the First Lady in our nude photo shoot
Despite both Trump and Ivanka lying when they promised not to “turn the White House into a mom and pop store” - to quote Trevor Noah - there may be a silver lining to the nepotism. Ivanka’s cum laude degree in economics and her global deal-making experience (yes, mainly for her dad) mean that she shouldn’t be dismissed as just another blonde idiot in the White House. As Trump’s most influential adviser, Ivanka has reportedly fought to defend some of the protections for LGBT people created by Barack Obama. She is also understood to have pushed her father to cut words critical of the Paris climate agreement from an executive order. Having met with Al Gore at Trump Tower last December there are hopes that she is more environmentally aware than her dad. For critics of the Trump presidency, her influence seems minimal, but given what we know about her, it is credible that she may be trying to restrain some of her father’s more dreadful impulses.
The First Lady wasn't always the president's wife
Traditionally, the First Lady is the President’s wife. Since the late 1800s, the role has become increasingly formalised. The unpaid role now comes with an office and a staff. Coincidentally, Ivanka’s office is set to take the space occupied by the First Lady, but it is a role that has not always been occupied by the President’s wife. Thomas Jefferson – a widower - put his eldest daughter in the role, and John Tyler asked his daughter in law, because his wife had suffered a stroke. Of course, Melania Trump isn’t bed-bound or dead, she’s just bizarrely reclusive.
Melania Trump hasn’t always been as publicity shy as she is today. Once upon-a-time she posed topless for a nude photoshoot with GQ magazine, but today the most private First Lady in modern history ignores the public’s demand that she move to Washington, and remains ensconced in Trump Tower. Despite a quarter of a million petitioners demanding that Melania move into the White House, the Slovenian-born model spends her days taking little Barron Trump to his $45,000 a year New York school.
Surrounded by the secret service - who have given Melania the codename “Muse” - NYC traffic is gridlocked as Melania’s security requirements, mean that streets are sequentially shut down for her to take Barron to the school gates. Bloomberg’s live tracker of the farcical costs to the city of protecting Trump Tower stands at over $36 million dollars. Taxpayer’s money is being wasted to protect a family that can’t bring itself to all live under one roof. The Washington Paul Schwartzman has said that “the First Lady is invisible” and there are no signs that she is enthusiastic to play the public, ceremonial role that Ivanka seems so keen to steal.
So Ivanka’s role as the de facto First Lady isn’t ahistorical, nor does she seem to be in any direct competition with Melania Trump for the limelight. Ivanka’s job allows Donald Trump to spend more time with the daughter he describes as "voluptuous." But, while Trump might objectify his daughter, the rest of us shouldn’t underestimate her ambition to use the role as a way to build her own public platform. If she does hold ambitions about running for office herself, Ivanka would do well to try and exercise a little more influence over her father’s disastrous Presidency. Trump’s nepotism might have given Ivanka an epic head start in life, but her brand is now inextricably tied to his.
