The Atlantic - October 2019

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the world to speak on pet issues. She appeared onstage with Angela Merkel

in Berlin, and addressed a conference on women’s empowerment in Tokyo.

On a trip to Africa, she wore flowy dresses as she laughed and danced (and

posed for photos) with Ethiopian women. She even began to claw her way

out of Upper East Side exile, thanks to her high-profile advocacy for the

Republican tax bill—which slashed rates for the rich, and the corpora-

tions they owned. “As people got richer, [Ivanka and Jared] started getting

welcomed back in by their old friends,” says Emily Jane Fox, a Vanity Fair

reporter who wrote a book about the Trumps.

But as Don’s visibility grew, the cold war between him and Ivanka inten-

sified. Now that each had their own teams of allies and advisers, they had

grown paranoid that the other’s henchmen were planting damaging stories

about them in the press. A few days before the midterms, McClatchy pub-

lished a story under the headline “Trump Kids on the Campaign Trail: Don Jr.

Wows, Ivanka Disappoints.” Ivanka’s camp was enraged, and suspected that

Don was behind the story. Later, Don confronted Ivanka over rumors that

her team was undermining him in off-the-record conversations with report-

ers. “Tell your people to stop trashing me to the media,” he said, according

to someone familiar with the conversation. (Spokes-

people for Don and Ivanka disputed this account and

denied that there is a rift between them.)

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position, Eric spent most of his days at Trump Tower.

Don was still technically on the company’s payroll,

but between hunting trips and campaign stops, his

presence in the office was irregular at best.

Running the Trump Organization during the

Trump presidency had turned out to be more diffi-

cult than Eric had imagined. After an initial burst

of postelection activity, many of the family’s most

ambi tious plans collapsed. They were forced to

scrap their American Idea hotel chain after eth-

ics concerns were raised. International building

projects were delayed amid outcry from watchdog

groups. Valuable retail space in Trump Tower sat

Trump and Don Jr. with Fred Trump (ɥʧLjǫȓȅ) in the Plaza Hotel in 1988