President Donald Trump can be forgiven for wanting to be surrounded with family for the first year of his White House tenure, given that he’s an extreme outsider with few friends in the Beltway. So when it was revealed early on that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump would be taking up residency in the West Wing, we were not surprised and were weren’t all that concerned. Yes, these two appear to come from a more liberal background and we’re not sure they helped Trump and Steve Bannon put forward the very exacting “Drain the Swamp” agenda promised last year, but we get it. When you’re in the trenches, you can’t be blamed for wanting your blood by your side. WE may not be able to fully trust Kushner and Ivanka, but we’re sure Trump does, and that matters.
Still, it may be time for Trump to go it alone and get back to the basics.
And if Newsweek is right (which we wouldn’t bet two cents on, if we’re being honest), he may be ready to do just that. According to their unnamed sources, Trump has told his daughter and her husband to move back to New York so they can get away from the punishing media spotlight.
“He keeps pressuring them to go,” a source told Vanity Fair.
Newsweek reports that similar stories have appeared in Politico, where Trump is said to have voiced his concerns to Ivanka as such: “Baby, you’re getting killed – this is a bad deal.”
And other outlets have reported that, with Chief of Staff John Kelly’s growing influence in the White House, Kushner’s role has been limited to whatever Middle Eastern affairs happen to be thrown on his plate. Frankly, we’re not convinced he’s really been doing that much – even before Kelly showed up. But Trump seems to like him and he’s obviously a package deal with Ivanka. Plus, Trump probably felt he owed his son-in-law a shot based on how he helped out during the campaign. Nonetheless, we’re in a different place and time now, and it’s time to get serious about Making America Great Again. And we’re not sure having two avowed liberal Democrats – family or not – hanging around the West Wing necessarily makes that any easier.
On the other hand, take it with a grain of salt. For whatever prestige Newsweek once had, they’ve burned it to a crisp in the Trump era, reporting one silly nonsense story after the next. If it makes Trump look bad, they’ll publish it.
But it cannot be denied that this administration has been in flux from Day One, so it wouldn’t surprise us if Ivanka and Jared head back to NYC before the snow is off the ground. And if it lets Trump stay focused on his powerful agenda, we say it’s all for the good.
