Donald Trump made plenty of news during his interview with Fox News on Monday night, but there was one offhand Trump remark that particularly caught the attention of his staffers: If Trump wins back the presidency, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump won’t serve in his White House.
That piece of news had entire continents of Trumpworld rejoicing in schadenfreude.
“There will be fewer Democrats around the second time!” one Trump adviser joked, saying there’s plenty of buzz in Trump’s inner circle about the declaration from the former president.
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“The guy is a double nepo baby,” the adviser added, taking aim at Trump’s son-in-law.
Similar exuberant sentiments were making their ways around Trump’s inner circle on Tuesday, with confidants sending Trump’s transcribed remarks about Kushner and his daughter around to each other.
“It’s probably better for them, the campaign, and ultimately the admin if it comes to that, to just go ahead and say they won’t be in there,” another Trump adviser told The Daily Beast, confirming that there was celebrating going on in Trumpworld.
A third Trump adviser said the “excitement” about Kushner being out of the mix stems from “frustration with Trump’s staffing.”
“The issue is not Ivanka and Jared, although they represent it. The issue is we must do a better job hiring,” the adviser said.
The public announcement that Kushner and Ivanka are now firmly on the outs in Trumpworld arrived at a noteworthy time. In recent months, Trump has welcomed back into his orbit Roger Stone and Steve Bannon—both of whom have been in extremely personal battles with Trump’s son-in-law for years. And Kushner has raised eyebrows recently for taking $2 billion from a Saudi-backed investment fund—a deal that a panel for Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund expressed concern over, according to The New York Times.
But beyond the “excitement,” there was some speculation about who really initiated the breakup between Trump and “Javanka.”
A Trump confidant said both Kushner and Ivanka didn’t want to be “part of his second run,” adding that the former president “wanted” the duo, but they declined.
“I believe that the president is trying to make it appear that it’s his decision, but it’s not,” this source told The Daily Beast. “Everyone in the inner circle knows. There is no way in hell they are going to be affiliated with Trump.”
Both an aide to Kushner and a longtime aide to Ivanka, who operate as their respective spokespeople, did not return The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
But the Trump confidant said Kushner and Ivanka were both “horrified” by Trump’s actions surrounding Jan. 6. As the insurrection played out in the Capitol, top Ivanka aide Julie Radford sent a text message to Hope Hicks saying she’d been “crying for an hour,” worried the riot might tarnish staff reputations.
While Kushner hasn’t been involved in Trump’s 2024 campaign, there has long been a mysterious question brewing around Trumpworld about whether he would reappear if Trump took back the White House.
Back in January, far-right radio host Stew Peters ambushed Trump attorney Christina Bobb with a question about Jared and Ivanka’s future and got her to deliver a less-than-artful answer. “It’s one thing to separate yourself from bad employees; it’s another for family,” she said before backtracking.
So when asked Monday, Trump tried to put the question to bed.
“No. I said that’s enough for the family. You know why? It’s too painful for the family,” Trump said. “My family’s been through hell.”
Not everyone in Trumpworld was ecstatic about Jared and Ivanka’s potential absence from the White House. Former Trump administration appointee Michael Caputo told The Daily Beast that “very few people” were “as devoted to the Trump agenda as Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.”
Caputo said if he were Jared and Ivanka, he would probably move on, too. “They have been terribly mistreated,” he said.
The couple’s influence in the White House was a source of fascination and dispute for four years. Initially, Jared and Ivanka were thought to be a moderating influence on Trump, two people who could rein in his basest instincts and keep the administration functioning. But with every scandal, it became clearer that Trump, not his eldest daughter or his son-in-law, was actually in charge.
The couple’s overestimation of their ability to influence and effect change became something of a meme. They were constantly said to be, “per sources,” pushing for Trump to do the right thing—like more forcefully denounce white supremacists, or not speak of a Muslim ban, or protect people with pre-existing conditions in Trump’s health care proposal.
And Jared and Ivanka were constantly taking up certain causes, believing—much like Trump—that they alone could fix it.
Kushner reportedly thought he could secure peace in the Middle East. And solve the opioid crisis. And health care for veterans.
But the couple did occasionally secure some victories. Perhaps Kushner and Ivanka’s biggest accomplishment was criminal justice reform—getting a sweeping bill, the First Step Act, signed into law.
And yet, even that achievement is now taking on a different hue, as Ron DeSantis tries to paint Trump as soft on crime.
Relatedly, another one of Kushner’s accomplishments—a pardon for Alice Johnson, which Kim Kardashian personally pushed for with the help of her then-husband, Kanye West, and his friend of over 20 years, Jared Kushner—is coming back to bite the former president.
On Tuesday night, Trump got tripped up during part 2 of his sit-down interview with Fox News—this time, over his idea of implementing a crackdown on drug dealers.
Baier pointed out that, under Trump’s new tough-on-crime stance, he would have sent Alice Johnson to death.
“She’d be killed under your plan,” Baier said.
Trump started his response with a question: “Huh?”
(He later claimed, under his plan, it would “depend on the severity” of the drug charges.)
