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Ivanka, Don Junior, Tiffany... the new role of the 'royals' of the Trump dynasty in their return to the White House

Updated

With few exceptions, it seems that their children will hold fewer government positions than in their previous term, although they will have their own shares of power in the shadows

Donald Trump, left, Donald Trump Jr., center, and his daughter Ivanka Trump.
Donald Trump, left, Donald Trump Jr., center, and his daughter Ivanka Trump.AP

In a country obsessed with political dynasties, even if they are not real, the Trumps have never been equated with the Bushes, the Clintons, or, of course, the Kennedys. Nor have the former shown the slightest interest in succeeding those three families of American political nobility, nor vice versa.

Trump campaigned in 2016 against two of those dynasties: the Bushes (in the form of former Florida governor Jeb) and the Clintons (with Hillary). And he defeated both. The rise of another family that seemed promising in the Olympus of Washington, the Cheneys, was cut short by the base when they made the suicidal mistake of opposing Trump for his January 6, 2021 coup attempt after losing the elections. Liz Cheney went from being a potential candidate for the presidency of the House of Representatives (the second position in the presidential line of succession) to a political corpse.

The only exception to the rule is the president's nephew-grandson, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy 'junior', who has joined Trump. But it is no less true that this has cost him public excommunication from his family. In reality, RFK Jr. (as he is known in the United States) is nothing more than the exception to the rule, even though Trump is considered the 'de facto' successor of President Kennedy by a large part of his older voters and also by followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims that the future White House occupant is fighting alone against a network of pedophiles controlling the world.

And yet, the Trumps are - like it or not, even if they don't like it themselves - a dynasty. However, a very different dynasty from the others. The Kennedys, the Clintons, the Bushes, or the Cheneys projected an image closer to that of a European royal family, with their share of scandals, of course, but also with a sense of state and manners that pointed to that characteristic so ineffable of 21st-century royalty: discretion and the will not to get involved in useless disputes.

The Trumps, on the other hand, with their faces loaded with makeup (starting with the patriarch himself) and botox, their bodies molded by silicone, and their tendency to be photographed in settings with more chromed metal objects than the chest of a North Korean general in full dress uniform, break with that tradition. But their control of the United States government is much greater than that of any of their predecessors. Now, the new American royalty is preparing to return to the White House, with a distribution of roles very different from what they had in their first reign, from 2016 to 2020.

The family nucleus surrounding Trump seems to have undergone a significant change. His wife, Melania, is no longer with him. The relationship between the president and his wife never seemed good in his first presidency. In the second, apparently, it is non-existent. Throughout the electoral campaign, Melania only participated in two events. When Trump visited Joe Biden at the White House last week, she did not even show up.

The big question now is whether Melania Trump will move to Washington or stay in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. Or even if she will return to New York. When Trump was first elected, he delayed his move to the federal capital by six months, arguing that he wanted to stay in New York, where his son Barron - the only child he has with Melania - would finish the academic year. But Washington, the most Democratic city in the United States, shunned the Trumps in general and Melania in particular. The result was three and a half years of trips to New York, or relationships with New York friends whom she gave jobs at the White House. With one of the closest, Stephanie Wolkoff - a psychological and even physical copy of the first lady - the relationship ended in a falling out, with a book included in which the former friend criticized Melania harshly. It is understandable that she does not want to repeat the experience.

There is also another element that, they say, has caused an irreparable deterioration of the relationship between Trump and his wife: the lawsuits against the president-elect for his sexual escapades. This year, Trump has been definitively convicted of sexual abuse against writer E. Jean Carroll, and for violating electoral legislation in his relationship with the porn actress Stormy Daniels. This is not something that should have surprised Melania much. After all, Trump was married to his first wife, Ivana, when he got involved with what would be his second wife - Marla Maples - whom he later cheated on with Melania. Of all the things she could expect from her husband when she married him, fidelity was not one of them.

Almost as uncertain as Melania's role is that of Trump's favorite daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner. Officially, neither of them will be in the government, unlike in the first presidency. The couple will remain in Miami, where Jared manages an investment fund that, according to his enemies, is a kind of money laundering operation that countries and entities turn to for favors from the Trumps. This would explain the $2 billion that the Saudi sovereign wealth fund put into the entity in 2021, at the express order of the country's strongman and Jared's ally, Mohammed bin Salman, and the billion dollars that two other petro-monarchies, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, have now contributed.

But the fact that Javanka - as Trump's ideologue, Steven Bannon, derogatorily called the couple when they were in the White House - not having official power does not indicate that they will not have real power. Jared will have a lot of influence in Trump's Middle East policy, where he will try to forge a peace agreement between his financiers - the Gulf Arabs - and his family friend - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - which could include Israel annexing more Palestinian territories and the forced relocation of Palestinians to Jordan, something that Jordan does not want.

But the most striking absence is that of Ivanka's brother, Don junior, who was attributed a similar role to the one she had in Trump's first presidency. Don played a central role in this year's election campaign, and his character, much more combative and less aristocratic than his sister's, had gained him enormous popularity among Trump's base, who saw him as the legitimate successor to his father.

However, according to the financial news agency Bloomberg, Don junior will not enter politics, but rather join the 1789 Capital investment fund, specialized in investing in companies with conservative corporate culture and management models, which includes rejecting environmental protection policies, promoting minorities or women, or a pro-LGBTQ+ stance. Additionally, Don has a complicated family situation. Divorced and with five children, his relationship with his fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle - ex-wife of California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, one of the Trumps' biggest political enemies - is constantly plagued by persistent rumors of the president's son's infidelity. Like father, like son.

Now, the appointment of Florida Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State has led the most Trumpist sector of the party to urge the state's governor, Ron DeSantis, to appoint her as senator until the next elections in 2028. If Lara Trump succeeds in becoming a senator, her story will be one of how someone with no experience - or interest - in politics reached the highest positions of the American establishment thanks to a good marriage.

Finally, there is Tiffany, Trump's daughter with his second wife, model Marla Maples. Her father has never held her in high esteem, at least compared to the children from his first marriage. But her influence in the presidential circle has been steadily growing, serving as a stabilizing force against Eric and, especially, Don, who, at times, they say, get hot-headed and do not give the best advice to the patriarch. In any case, no one foresees her entering the government, among other things because she does not seem interested. Neither will Barron, who is studying in New York and also has an autism spectrum disorder, which greatly limits his participation in public events.