PHOTOGRAPH BY GILLIAN LAUB FOR TIME
HAS HER SAY
IVANA TRUMP
THE PRESIDENT’S FIRST WIFE WOULD LIKE SOME CREDIT
BY BELINDA LUSCOMBE
EVERY FAMILY IS A TINY NATION UNTO
itself, with its leaders, its laws and its
geopolitics. Each has its natural resources
and its internal challenges. The family of
President Donald Trump seems to have been
a place where its citizens Donald Jr., Ivanka
and Eric could flourish: for rich kids, they’re
remarkably industrious and polite. A new book
says that is due not to their founding father but
to their mother.
“Some people—including Hillary Clinton—
consider [the kids] to be Donald Trump’s
finest accomplishments,” writes Ivana Trump,
the President’s first and so far longest-
serving wife, in her new book,Raising Trump
(Gallery Books), which came out on Oct. 10.
“I believe the credit for raising such great kids
belongs to me.”
No other sitting U.S. President has ever had
an ex-wife write a book about their erstwhile
home life, the kind of father and husband he
was and the kind of fun the ex-wife went on to
have after he cheated and left.
Actually, no other U.S. President has had an
ex-wife who escaped the communist bloc by
means of a fake marriage; or sold her name-
brand products on TV in three countries; or still
openly feuds with the President’s second wife;
or fed his children sea urchins just harvested
from beneath her yacht and seasoned only with
a drop of champagne; or jokes that she prefers
younger men because she’d rather be a baby-
sitter than a caretaker; or buys lingerie in sets
of 12, which she sends to each of her homes
overseas because people steal it from her suit-
cases; or declares how much sex married people
are really having. (A few times a month.) And
never before has a First Lady publicly called a
forerunner’s behavior “attention-seeking and
self-serving,” as Melania Trump did this month.
Then again, this isn’t the first time precedent
has gone to the dogs during this presidency.
Ronald Reagan had an ex, but the marriage
was brief, and Jane Wyman was discreet.
Trump, who was married to the President for
14 years, is not the kind of ex who declines the
spotlight. If there’s credit to be had, she will
have some. And she wants credit, mostly, for
three things: Donald Jr., Ivanka (whose given
name is also Ivana) and Eric.
“When Donald started to campaign, he was
going on the debates, and [the kids] were going
with him to rallies. People came to know them,”
says Trump, 68, in her soft, Czech-inflected
voice. “On the street and in the airport, total
strangers were coming up to me, and they’d
say, ‘Ivana, how did you do it, to raise such a
fabulous kid?’ ”
According toRaising Trump (written with
Valerie Frankel, who helped Joan Rivers write
her memoir), she did it by making family strict
again. Trump is proud not to have breast-fed.
She’s an unabashed spanker. She believes in
routine, very full schedules and punctuality.
