December 9, 2019 • 37 mins
From the minute her dad took office, Ivanka and her business affairs have been at the center of controversy. Even though Ivanka removed herself from her Ivanka Trump fashion company when she entered the White House as a formal Adviser in 2017, she was forced to close the brand in Summer of 2018 due to continuing questions of conflicts of interest. Brands such as Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Gilt dropped her products after a boycott-Trump movement in backlash to the president's policies on… everything. Fair, unfair, for politics to take a toll on her business? To discuss all of this and more, Bethany sits down with New York Times Magazine writer Vanessa Grigoriadis, who also hosts the popular new podcast Tabloid, currently focusing an entire season on trying to understand none other than Ivanka Trump.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Bethany McLean and this is making a killing interviews,
exploring the headlines you thought you understood and finding the
lessons we can all learn from them. Already in this series,
I've spoken with Sahil Patel about Netflix, Mike Isaac about Uber,
and Peter Robeson about Boeing. I'm at Bethany mactwelve on Twitter,
(00:22):
Avanka Trump's Twitter bio, read's wife, mother, sister, daughter, adviser
to potus on job creation and economic empowerment, workforce development,
and entrepreneurship. So here are the facts from the outside.
Avanca is a leading member of the Trump family, an
American businesswoman, and as adviser to the President. She's the
(00:44):
first first daughter in history with a West Wing office.
From the minute her dad took office, Avanca and her
business affairs have been at the center of controversy. Even
though Ivanka removed herself from her Ivanka Trump Fashion Company
when she entered the White House as a formal adviser
in twenty seventeen, she was forced to close the brand
in summer twenty eighteen due to continuing questions of conflicts
(01:07):
of interest. Brands such as Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Guild
dropped her products after a boycott Trump movement and backlashed
to the president's policies on well everything fair or unfair
for politics to take a toll on her business. Either way,
Business Inside of reports that Americans now have worse perceptions
of Ivanka Trump than almost any other brand in the US.
(01:31):
Out of sixteen hundred US brands, both Ivanka Trump and
Trump Hotels made the bottom ten. Wow, here's the rub
for many. Although she stepped away from the company, Ivanka
is not fully divested from the business, which is still
active online and still makes profits for Ivanca. In fact,
the Ivanka brand is expanding aggressively in foreign countries. Ivanka
(01:54):
recently received more than thirty four trademarks from China, which
are really hard for Americans to get, as the AP
reports Taken together, the trademarks could allow her brand to
market a lifetime's worth of products in China A. Vanka's
story seems to go hand in hand with several themes
we've explored this first season of Making a Killing Ambition. Corruption,
(02:17):
fraudsters versus visionaries, conflicts at the intersection between business and government,
how much or how little our CEOs and businesses are
on the hook to make the world a better place,
or is the purpose and an ambition of business just
to make the most money, no matter the cost. My
guest today is Vanessa Grigriatis, who has spent twenty years
(02:39):
covering the one percenters of New York City. She's a
contributing writer at The New York Times magazine and Vanity Fair,
among other things, and she's also host of the popular
new podcast Tabloid, which is currently focusing an entire season
on trying to understand none other than of Vanka Trump.
So welcome, Vanessa, Thank you so much. Any So, Avaca
(03:01):
started working for her father right after graduating, right well,
she viewed seriously as a business person. Well, she actually
took one year and she worked for somebody else, which
is shocking. You can't believe that she didn't just immediately
go for dad. But she was a party girl when
she was in high school and part maybe of college,
(03:21):
but then decided to really settle down and like take
business as her savior, her personal savior, or just as
her father claimed to have. Right this idea that if
I can just make myself into a big, flashy real
estate icon, everybody will love me and the world is
my oyster and let dada all those like high louten
(03:44):
phrases that they use all the time. So she was
taken seriously, I think because she was his daughter, and
people realized that if they got on her bad side,
she had a way of slipping information to him pretty easily.
How did that come to fruition? Are there specific examples
where people realize the kind of power she wailed it? Yeah?
(04:07):
I mean I think that there were certain people that
she pushed out of the Trump organization, and those people
say that basically, she didn't do it by throwing a
tantrum in Daddy's office, And she didn't do it by
putting out a spreadsheet that just would have all the
numbers that were right on her side and wrong on
their side. Whatever it was, it was just a slow
(04:30):
process of elimination, elimination. Did you hear this thing that
that person did? Huh? And you know, letting her father
just think upon it for a second and then letting
him sit with another piece of information and doing it
in a very silently machiavellian way. Did she and does
she have an ability to manipulate him? Do you think? Oh? Yes,
(04:52):
I absolutely do. I mean, look as much as anybody does.
I think that's what we know about her. As much
as anybody can get him to change his mind or
take a slightly different path than that base anal instinct
that he uses for everything. She's the one. Interestingly, she
wasn't as a kid. They were not that close. I
(05:13):
hear from my sources he was super absent. So I
think that she really started a relationship with him when
she was in high school and blossomed into a beauty,
and then he was much more interested in her and
taking her out to little events at take hotels and
say to other men, isn't my daughter Avanca beautiful? Don't
(05:34):
you think she's the most beautiful girl in the world?
Of that pattern that he does, but she's been able
to move him on tiny little things like once in
a while he'd be like, the immigrants are okay, and
then you kinda's influence you. I mean, if you look
at the reporting from Michael Wolf or from Bob woodword,
nobody's discounting that she does that and gets him to
(05:57):
move once in a while. It's just that she doesn't
get him to move on impoor in priorities for the country.
It's like things that are a little bit off center,
so like, who really cares he gave you a win
on that. Backing up to this idea of her transformation
from party girl into business person? Was it believed in
the circles that know her? Is it just what we
all do? We all make a transformation at some point
(06:18):
in our late teens early twenties from one thing to
the other. Did people look more askance at this one
or was it just okay, she's blossoming. I mean, look,
you hear different things from different people. I mean there
are some people who say, essentially like she was always
going to be this, She was always going to be
Avanka drump. Don't forget that her mother A Vanna trademarked
(06:39):
her name for a million different things like bronzer powder
and coolots. I actually had forgotten when she was thirteen,
so they always yeah, I mean A Vanna was on
QBC right once the divorce went through and Donald screwed
her out of tons of money. You know, it's thought
(07:00):
she got like what like fourteen million or something in
this house in Greenwich. I mean he was saying he
was a billionaire at the time. He was not a billionaire,
but he claimed to have way more, and he was
of course on his way into bankruptcy. So it was
like the late eighties or early nineties, so he was
on his way into bankruptcy. Everybody thought he had way more.
She thought he had way more, meaning a Vanna. So
(07:21):
it was this crazy divorce where basically in the end
she got very little, but had she waited like another year,
he would have been bankrupt. So who knows what she
would have gotten at all. Right, perhaps still that might
be the most telling evidence there is of what he
was actually worth, what he was actually worth exactly. So
basically she was on GUVC, you know, hawking all things Vanna.
So obviously she wanted to take care of her daughter,
(07:42):
Avanka and said, like, let's just trademark Avanka's name on
Junior's lipstick and Junior's swimsuits or whatever it was. So
I think there's a sense in which this was the path.
You know. What was so interesting from doing my podcast
show about Ava was that there are also people who
were very close to her who say that she was
(08:04):
really torn about a lot of this stuff and really
understood what her father was made of and understood that
she had to be like this perky, perfect blonde girl
with all this plastic surgery to fit in his ideals,
and that what they were selling was not on the
up and up as he said it was, and that
(08:28):
she did have a lot of turmoil in her twenties
about that, even though she did she worked for Rattner
for a year just basically learning the ropes of real estate,
and then chose to work for her dad. A friend
of her set like, why did she work for Ratner?
She always tried to say, like, I'm different, I don't
have to do it with my dad. But then the
Laura was always too and why why do you think
(08:51):
the last, Because it's like, if you're with him, everybody
kind of bows to you. Even if the people who
were working at the Trump organization in the two thousands
were not exactly the cream of the crop of the
real estate barons of New York City, you know, she
was in a position of power there that she certainly
she went down where she was like putting out muffins
(09:12):
and making xeroxes, and people just had to avow to her.
If you're given that opportunity to skip over those ugly
years in your twenties where you really just do carry
people's bags, and I suppose maybe it'd be a lot
to not take them. Right, So, what did you hear
about Ivanka and her father's real estate empire? Was she
an intrinsic part of it? She became more and more important.
(09:35):
I think that when she started, he did use her
like a pin up girl. She did a lot of
the infomercials, and she did a lot of ads, and
it was like, everybody, look at this beautiful hotel on
the South Shore. It's going to be the most amazing
hotel that anybody's ever seen, or all those crazy things
that they always see. But I guess the myths and
(09:56):
partially the reality is that she was kind of the
head of the marketing and that she was the head
of the design team. So very quickly once she came
in there, they started doing those international deals, right, which
were pretty shady, like the deal in Azerbaijan, and part
of that kind of deal, We're building this crazy hotel
(10:17):
in Baku and it's going to have all of these
exotic woods and wonderful gold finishes and blah blah blah blah.
And part of that deal is it's like this thing
is never really going to get built. It's just essentially
like a messy project that somebody is using to move
money from one place to the other, and you guys
(10:38):
are taking fees as hotel managers of the project, maybe
knowing that nothing's going to happen, or maybe you do know.
And that's specifically on that project, I think a question,
but on many of the projects as a questions, did
they know and when? So? When you said earlier that
you heard from people close to her that she was
squeamish about some of this, it's that sort of thing. Yeah,
(11:01):
I think that they felt that she was squeamish about
some of the licensing. On one hand, I interviewed somebody
who went to dinner with her in Jared, who said
Jared was puffing her up and saying like, isn't it
amazing the way she's building on her father's name and
she's building places all over the world and she's going
to create this empire. And then the guy who's telling
(11:24):
me the story said he was like, oh, well, great,
like where are you building hotels? And I uncle was like, yeah,
we're building a hotel in Georgia. And he was like, oh,
you mean like in Buckhead, and she was like, no,
like the Republic of Georgia. He was like, one point,
when the transfer is done in cash bonds to cashing
(11:46):
place in Brooklyn, do you question, like whether this is
a good idea. I mean, I don't know. I think
that Adam Davidson's point. These are basic due diligence things
that they could have done to figure out who their
partners were. And either they did the money that's coming
from right or you know, if they didn't do them,
it's their fault. And if they did do them and
(12:07):
they went ahead anyway, it's still their faults. So there's
no question that she was involved in a lot of
those international deals, because those are the deals that Trump
was doing, and the Trump soho those with the different
kind of sketchiness that was going on in those projects.
Certainly the Trump Mosco out she was involved. Avoga wants
(12:28):
everybody to think she's a really hard worker, and somebody
said to me, she's a hard worker the way people
in New York are hard workers, where it's okay, you
still went to the gym this morning, and you're still
going to go out to dinner tonight, So yes, you
worked really hard. You probably went out for lunch. Good
for you. The one thing that I can say in
her defense, and that I think is unfair, is that
(12:50):
people think of her like she's sitting in her bed
eating bond bonds all day, and that is that is
not her. She is ambitious, she is smart. Her friends
are smart, smart, smart, So yes, not successful lighting the
world on fire businesswomen, But how many of us do right?
(13:11):
Right exactly? I'm just saying, like she, I think the
stiffness and the roboticness that people see is not the
real person, But it doesn't cover up something with air
inside her head. And I think that's almost an unfair
way of looking at her. She is tactical, she is smart,
and she's not as knowledgeable as a human being should
(13:34):
be to be a senior advisor to the president. Which
is the real issue for her and everybody else in
this administration is like none of these people should be
in the White House. I don't see her as being
like so much worse than a bunch of the other
people that you are, right, diffright, And it sounds too
from what you're saying that while she was obviously given
huge advantages by her connection to her father, that also
(13:57):
came with a lot of baggage. I mean, it's it's
not a it's not us, it's the proverbial double edged sword,
right exactly. She was able to really become a more
visible businesswoman, but is she a better businesswoman? That was
one thing that was I kept asking myself, how can
somebody who is smart like this not know exactly what
her father was doing? And the answer has to be, like,
(14:18):
she did know and she didn't care, But we don't know.
We don't really know. We haven't had a big lawsuit
that really has laid out that. I mean, the Trump
soho is like obviously the closest one, or you do
know and you do care. But in certain families, those
bonds of familiar loyalty are just such that you can't
get past them. And I mean, the things is this
(14:38):
a real estate family, And growing up in New York,
I know lots of people who are in real estate
families and they might say they're going to do something different,
but they end up working for their dots. And so
I feel like that's a very special kind of legacy.
And certainly the Kushners, you know, really mirrored them in
some way. Perhaps if I were to try to cut
(14:59):
her mor I'd say, there's a reason we haven't had
somebody who's been in real estate in the presidency before, right,
because some of this goes with the territory. Yes, doesn't it? Sure? Absolutely, yeah,
it's not that it's not a clean, clean biz, right.
I was thinking about this, not just the foreign money,
but also this pro publica investigation that showed that she
(15:21):
was saying she'd sold hotel rooms that she hadn't in
that publicly said hotels were almost sold out or the
condos were almost sold out, when in fact the occupancy
was almost fifteen to twenty percent. Does that fall in
the same bucket of you probably knew, but you played
this game. I think so. I mean, I think there's
enough circumstantial evidence now to say that she learned from
her dad and she did basically the same tricks that
(15:44):
he did. And like for them, it was this idea
that all's fairer in the marketing world. I really actually
believe that they think of themselves as like master marketers.
In ways that they talk about themselves. They so often
use that phrase marketing. We do marketing, and in truth,
that is what they do. They sell this vision of
(16:07):
the family, and avankasen vision became slightly different from her
dad because it became this feminist, glowy instagram mommy women
who work and also our mommy's fashion lines saying, and
then her father is running for the presidency and there's
like the Access Hollywood tape, So that was a little
bit of cognitive dissonance. It's so interesting though, because I
(16:29):
did a previous podcast on the opioid crisis in the
Sackler family and when you think about the marketing of
OxyContin and how that was a manipulation of the available
science or a manipulation of the truth, and I'm not
sure anybody thought of it as wrong because it was
marketing and you take the available facts and you twist
them and you spin them and then you use them
to sell. And so in some ways there's an interesting
(16:50):
analogy here. Yeah, why did she do her Avanka Trump
business starting with the jewelry store and then the creating.
Was that an opportunity to define herself apart from her father?
Do you think? Yeah? I think people say that she
was always trying to do things supper from him. Also,
remember he didn't give her very much money. They didn't
cut the kids into a lot of the deals. So
(17:12):
what I had heard is that there was a small
trust that she got from the grandfather, but there was
basically no money going her way, so she really didn't
have a choice. She had to kind of build herself up.
I mean, was all an illusion that everything was going
well until basically the Apprentice gave second gave La Yeah,
get of a second Petina and like a little bit
(17:33):
of a breathing apparatus to the whole Trump thing. She
always felt that she had defend herself. I think that
she isn't that kind of daddy's girl where she's just
puts her palm out and give me the money. And
even when she was younger, he didn't give her a
credit card, so I think she was very used to
not having her own gigantic bank account, which from all
(17:56):
the everything that I look at, from all these public filings,
she still doesn't have a gigantic bank account of Jared
has all the money, so I think that's still kind
ways it's a replay, very much a replay, and her
relationship with Jared I think is totally fascinating, but he's
definitely was kind of from the real billionaire family, and
she was from the fake billionaire family. That is a
(18:18):
really interesting way to think about it. When you think
about her fashion business. Do you think about it as
viable business that was destroyed because she went into politics,
because she ended up in the White House and the
accusations of conflict of interests ended up taking down what
was a thriving business, or do you think it was
a business that was failing anyway. I don't think it
(18:38):
was failing. I think it was starting to show some
profit and I think it was okay. But the clothes
were you really shodily made. I think that her brand
was good to that point. She had the Apprentice lift
as well. People knew who she was, and she was
on the women who work idea, the pink huge feminist
(19:01):
idea a little bit before other people. So she was
she was on the right track there. She was putting
out a good storyline for the company. I have these
kids I work. Here's pictures of me in like some
off the shoulder lime green shift dress that you also
(19:21):
can wear seamlessly from work to dinner. And I'm, you know,
sitting here with my children. I mean the idea that
she would be like feeding her children in a photo
in a lime green dress that like, of course, would
not get any spots on it, or the visions that
were going through my head as I thought about that,
right exactly. I mean, she's all show for her. But
(19:44):
I don't think people thought that it was a disaster.
I think what was a disaster was combining that with
the Trump name, the Donald's name, and then everybody finding
out that, of course all these clothes are made in
sweatshops and cost five sense, and so those are the
two things that in the uncompromise the business. And also
she knocked off a bunch She had some really egregious
(20:08):
copyrights of shoes and different products where she was getting
sued by retailer who are like, um, this is my shoe,
my actual shoe. So it wasn't huge success story. What
about does it make you squeamish at all? Is there
is there something when you have her wearing one of
her dresses to the inauguration or having wearing a bracelet
(20:29):
that then people promote and her brand promotes and says,
look at her wearing Is it turning the White House
into QVC? Oh? Definitely. I mean I think she stopped
doing that because well, she had to shut down her
brand basically, but that was because people weren't buying, right,
But how did she do it in the first place?
I mean, how can you do in the first place? Yeah,
I think there was big learning curves and everybody at
the beginning thought this is great. I mean you have
(20:50):
to remote right. They didn't think they were going to win,
so they were like, oh my god, this is the
best branding opportunity ever, although she was also simultaneously, oh
my god, what's going to happen to my company because
this is maybe not the best branding for me. But like,
that was not a super happy time for Avanka, having
the whole world bash her dad, thinking that her business
(21:10):
is about to go to crap, and being nine months
pregnant on the campaign trail. I think that was not
the great, not the great moment for her. But all
worked out, whoa because she's got more money than ever before.
But yeah, but as a businesswoman, that's the thing is
is that what can she do under her name now?
And I'm not sure she can do that much. She
(21:31):
can't put out shoes again, she can't put out Ivanka
Trump housewears. Really, she's going to be kind of stuck
in the gross oligarch funded real estate space. I believe.
And why do you think she can't do it? Why
couldn't she relaunch a line? You can't do it in America? Right?
She can't do because her brand is too disliked, you think,
I think her brand is too disliked. I think if
(21:54):
she couldn't have a normal, small clothing company that would
do okay during her dad getting pressed every single man
out of the debt. I don't think she can have
a bigger company when she leaves, and she's going to
want to do something really big. And do you feel
bad for her at all? I mean, is this that
(22:15):
all the tale of somebody who worked really hard to
build a business, admittably taking advantage of opportunity she was given,
but had it taken away? Or is this somebody who
benefited from the position she was in and then put
herself in a position where she could lose everything she'd built.
I think that it's hard to feel bad for her.
I tried to take her seriously and as a person
(22:38):
and a child growing up with this person as your father,
So I did feel bad for her at certain times,
But ultimately you have to say like, you make your
own choices in life, and she's chosen to align herself
with him, come hell or high water. So I think
that she never would have gotten anything. Really without him,
(22:58):
she would have gotten She would have been fine. She
could have a great corporate lawyer. She probably could have
been a good marketer for the Disney Company. I mean,
she's smart, she could have done a bunch of different things.
But she never would have had the bold faced life
without him, and he gave her that, and for the
price of that was like her soul a little bit.
(23:21):
So I mean she's fully I think, just sold out
for him, whether or not her personal feelings are about
politics are somewhat different, and believe from things I hear
that they still are. Her anger at other people dissing
her family is so great that it's kind of clouded
her judgment on anything to do with social policies, or
(23:44):
doesn't she doesn't understand the anger. She feels radically defensive
than no. I mean, she's just as thin skinned as
he is, she just shows it differently. She can't take
criticism at all. So she was completely devastated by everybody
being so mean to her the first year, and now
she kind of lives in a bubble where she tries
not to look at all that stuff. One of the
(24:06):
most hilarious things I found is like I looked at
her Instagram account because I was just like, who does
she follow here? And she followed thirty seven fam accounts
of herself like the Ways of Vanka Avanca forever does
And I was like, a never ending reflection of yourself
in an Instagram mirror, right, Like, of course when she
goes on Instagram, she doesn't want to see people being
like dear Avanca, Like all those socialite girls posted like
(24:29):
dear Avanka, you follow me on Instagram? Like I want
to say that your father's disgusting. She unfollowed all of them,
But she's going to follow accounts where like they're pictures
of her like stepping off of Air Force one and
like she looks so pretty and she creates her own reality.
I mean, she just like him, She creates her own reality.
That's a very telling anecdote. Yeah, so what do you
(24:51):
think about the controversy about these licensing deals? So she
got these licenses in China that are really hard to
get at the same time as her business is being
closed down. Are people making too much of this, and
there for like voting machines and childcare centers, all this
sort of weird. She doesn't have a business in the
US after this is over, but she uses her name
(25:12):
for all sorts of money making ventures outside of the US.
I think that's probably part of what happens. But like
Paris Hilton is bigger in Japan than she is here.
There are people who do that, and like Jennifer Aniston
I'm sure is on like a billboard and saiduan like
province right now. So like, I think that what's weird
about it is the timing of those things that they
(25:32):
were clearly being done, like oh, we give to the
favored daughter, we'll give these fighting traf we'll give these trades.
Those just something. It's so blatant, and you would think
that if she was Chelsea Clinton, first of all, she
wouldn't have applied, But second of all, she would be like,
I'm going to give these back because I don't want
anybody to think that this political. But of course Avanca
(25:54):
is like, no, why would I give it back? I
got it, and of itself is really telling to It
does seem to me to be incredibly blatant. Even if
it was too totally separate tracks than just the appearance.
You just don't do that to you. Yeah, but they
think that they can talk their way out of anything
and cover up anything, and they have been able to
or or that people won't care, and that by the
(26:15):
time they're out of office and she's making money from
tildcare centers and wherever, it won't Ivanka Trump branded whatever,
it won't. It won't matter exactly, It just won't matter.
I Mean, it's the kind of thing of the Ukraine
impeachment scandal is like now, like you know, the Republicans
being like, how can you even remember? You can't even
keep these guys names straight. It's a most unsexy impeachment ever.
Whatever people are going to forget, you know, all unsexy
(26:38):
relative to Clinton's, right, I mean literally literally, So I'm
not sure that was exactly sexy, but whatever, We're not
going to go down that track. Yeah, but yeah, I
thought there's this great quote from this guy, know a
BookFinder who's the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics,
and he wrote about these licensing deals. It raises significant
questions about corruption, as it invites the possible ability that
(27:00):
she could be benefiting financially from her position in her
father's presidency, or that she could be influenced in her
policy work by country's treatment of her business right, and
both of those facets are true. And in a way,
it's the more you think about this, I mean you
sort of shrug your shoulders and you think licensing deals,
and then the more you look at it, the more
you think, no, no, it's just not okay. Yeah, And
(27:21):
that's just the things we know about. One can assume
that there's all sorts of stock swaps and under the
table stuff that's happened, or just like kind of wink
wink agreements. I mean, she and Jared have Now they're
on first name cell phone basis with all the leaders
of the world, all the leaders of major companies in
(27:43):
the world. Who knows what exactly they've been amassing. I
think it's very clear that they didn't go into politics
with a sense of social responsibility or even things they
really want to get done, other than Jared having obviously
an international interest in Israel place in the world. But
I talked to people who had had She used to
(28:04):
have these little dinner parties at her house and like
Chelsea Clinton even went once and it was very curated.
Ten people never any talk about politics. As somebody said
to me who used to be friends with her in
her twenties, used to go around in the car with
her and her dad and it's like I was like,
did they talk about politics? And she was like, no,
they just talked about other people's money, like that's what
(28:24):
they talked about. So I don't think she's not money
grubbing in the way that she's like, I need a Jaguar.
It's really about power, I think, for both of them,
and trying to have vengeance on the world that tried
to bring down their fathers, because I remember Jared's dad,
of course went to prison for this very sordid scheme
with his brother, and Ivanca watched people making fun of
(28:46):
Trump her entire life basically, So they really have this
idea of legacy and power and it goes way deeper
than just money, and I think it's almost hard for
people going to understand that. I don't think that's so
interestcause I think so many of these corporate scandals, it's
not money as greed, you know, money as the desire
to go buy a new car, have a private island.
(29:07):
It's not money as greed, it's money as ego, it's
money as power in this case, money as vengeance. Almost
totally right. And that's why I thought of Vanka's childhood
was so interesting because ultimately, really that adage that successful
people tend to come from these really messed up parents,
she too came from very withholding father. She too has
been always trying to get his praise. And it's not
(29:30):
the story that they say that she was the apple
of his eye forever and ever, and that's really what
drives her. And the relationship with Jared was very much
about see dad, I got a real real estate guy
because his family is really in real estate. They weren't
in licensing their names, right, That's about it. Yeah, yeah,
Oh that's interesting. I had not thought of that interpretation
(29:52):
of their relationship. And then what's going on now? She
talks a lot about wanting to cook meals for Jared
and how she learned how to cook for him blah
blah blah. And so they have kind of a traditional
male female relationship where he is more involved obviously in
like day to day administrative stuff in the White House.
And is it genuine? Do you think or is it
(30:12):
another form of branding. A lot of people who said
to me that they believe the only thing that's genuine
about the two of them is the relationship and that
they really are devoted to each other and they really
are like one mind and they consult each other. I mean,
it's the kind of Chivroy and Tom is that his name?
Like that? Yeah, her husband character on Succession. It's that
(30:33):
kind of idea right where they can't make moves without
consulting each other. But Ivanka and Jared are much more
canny and smart. So I don't know. I'm fascinated to
find out what she does after the White House. And
I was just going to ask it's so interesting because
you can't you almost can't even imagine what it would be,
(30:55):
what exactly could this possibly be? And I think some
people have talked talked about her going to Palm Beach
to basically, if she wants to run for office, she
can't run from New York, but she could live in
Palm Beach and she could run from Florida. That would
make a lot of sense. Maybe just going to Florida
in general, to Chilax for a couple of years. Let
(31:16):
everybody kind of to think, is that the new thing
to do when you find yourself with a demolished reputation
In New York Day, Sackler just moved for Florida baby. Okay,
Florida baby. Yeah, because of Florida, they don't care, you know,
like in Florida, like, as long as you like didn't
kill your mom, you're welcome at the country club. So
I mean. But also, she has a lot of friends
(31:36):
in Palm Beach. Her friends that she's still friends with
are a lot of them are like, we're doing that
wintertime Palm Beach thing with her. So you know, I
don't know. I can't imagine her trying to stand on
her own two feet and run for office. But there
are many people who believe the rumor that went around
(31:57):
that she and Jared had had a conversation about one
of them would run and decided it would be her
and she would be the first female president and blah
blah blah blah blah, and like it makes sense when
you think about it, because it isn't. She needs to
be the idea of her just retiring and being on
a yacht in the Mediterranean and just being part of
(32:18):
the crowd of rich people who have money but don't
have overt power. Doesn't seems highly It seems highly unlikely.
Given how given I think you're really wise point about
how she's sought to use money, then it seems highly
unlikely that that money alone would ever be enough exciting
for him either. Yeah, which, as if they're of one mind,
then he'd almost rather be in the background, right and
(32:40):
let her be the public persona exactly, but which is
also sort of a weird replay of her relationship with
her father in a way. Right, not to psychoanalyze too much,
but there's but there's something, there's something, there's something interesting there. Yeah. Absolutely.
Do you think there's any way that she would just
take her considerable acumen and smarts and just go do
(33:01):
something quiet, either public service oriented or some sort of small,
straightforward business. I really don't. I really don't. I think
she's addicted to attention. She's like a total narcissist. She
needs people to be talking about her. She needs to
be at the center of the chaos, whatever it is.
And I don't think that she would think that that
(33:22):
would make her father happy, Jill. I mean, it's a
really interesting question of what happens to the Trump organization.
The brothers aren't going to really run it. What is
Donald's going to do? I think international real estate expansion
is the most obvious. Now they can build hotels in
all these places, and they realize they got away with
it once, they can just keep going. Has there ever been,
(33:45):
as you've thought back through previous presidencies, has there ever
been such a nexus of business and political power before?
And it's sort of interesting because we talk a lot
about chronic capitalism, and you know, whether it's the bank
bailout in two thousand and eight, the unholy relationship between
the pharmaceutical industry and the government. But then we're kind
of living that with our president right in terms of
(34:07):
this use of the White House as part of his
brand and part of his daughter's brand. And I'm trying
to think if there's any kind of parallel in American
history for that intertwining of these. I really don't think
there is. For her, there was no daughter who had
an actual West Wing office, like there were daughters who
became very involved with our dads, and particularly if the
(34:27):
mom didn't want to deal or like stepped back a
little bit, being hostesses or even like running different initiatives.
But I think it's just part of what's happened with
this presidency is that we've crossed over into like the
capitalist presidency, and like more than that, it's the grifter presidency,
where there was really no interest except what they can
(34:51):
get out of this that you know, at least people
pretend that they have interests in actually helping people or
changing policies, like Trump's only interest in policies. Does like
get made a better real estate deal? Yep? Do I
get more money from that? And then yes, let's make
it an opportunity zoning. It's in many ways I'm thinking
(35:12):
about a sign at the times because they're so little
trust in business right now, precisely because it is so
people can see how deeply woven with interwoven with politics
it is and how corrupt that makes it. And so
in some ways it makes perfect sense that would have
a first family that's using their position in the White
House to benefit their business interests, because that's the kind
(35:33):
of ultimate apex of this thought. Right. Yeah. Absolutely, they're
like our fun house mirror in a way. They're like
reflecting back the most extreme version of what we're already
involved in That is a perfect note to end on
and thank you so much for being here. It was fun.
Thanks Bethany, what fun. Vanessa and I have known each
(35:55):
other for years via Vanity Fair, but we've never talked
about a story together. The conversation made me think about
the importance of foundations. Without a good foundation, there is
literally no stability. On one level, I feel for Avonca
it would be no fun to build a business just
to have it fall apart due to politics. On the
(36:16):
other hand, if you build a business based on something
that isn't entirely yours to begin with, namely your father's reputation,
and then you try to amplify it via effectively chrony capitalism,
well maybe it ended the way it should, at least
for now. Making a Killing is a co production of
Pushkin Industries and chalkin Blade. It's produced by Ruth Barnes
(36:39):
and Laura Hyde. My executive producers are Alison mcclein no
relation in Making Casey. The executive producer at Pushkin is
Mia Loebell. Engineering by Jason Rastkowski. Our music is by
Jed Flood. Special thanks to Jacob Weisberg at Pushkin and
everyone on the show I'm Bethany mclein. So much for listening.
(37:01):
Find me on Twitter at Bethany mac twelve and let
me know which episodes you've most enjoyed.
I'm Bethany McLean and this is making a killing interviews,
exploring the headlines you thought you understood and finding the
lessons we can all learn from them. Already in this series,
I've spoken with Sahil Patel about Netflix, Mike Isaac about Uber,
and Peter Robeson about Boeing. I'm at Bethany mactwelve on Twitter,
(00:22):
Avanka Trump's Twitter bio, read's wife, mother, sister, daughter, adviser
to potus on job creation and economic empowerment, workforce development,
and entrepreneurship. So here are the facts from the outside.
Avanca is a leading member of the Trump family, an
American businesswoman, and as adviser to the President. She's the
(00:44):
first first daughter in history with a West Wing office.
From the minute her dad took office, Avanca and her
business affairs have been at the center of controversy. Even
though Ivanka removed herself from her Ivanka Trump Fashion Company
when she entered the White House as a formal adviser
in twenty seventeen, she was forced to close the brand
in summer twenty eighteen due to continuing questions of conflicts
(01:07):
of interest. Brands such as Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Guild
dropped her products after a boycott Trump movement and backlashed
to the president's policies on well everything fair or unfair
for politics to take a toll on her business. Either way,
Business Inside of reports that Americans now have worse perceptions
of Ivanka Trump than almost any other brand in the US.
(01:31):
Out of sixteen hundred US brands, both Ivanka Trump and
Trump Hotels made the bottom ten. Wow, here's the rub
for many. Although she stepped away from the company, Ivanka
is not fully divested from the business, which is still
active online and still makes profits for Ivanca. In fact,
the Ivanka brand is expanding aggressively in foreign countries. Ivanka
(01:54):
recently received more than thirty four trademarks from China, which
are really hard for Americans to get, as the AP
reports Taken together, the trademarks could allow her brand to
market a lifetime's worth of products in China A. Vanka's
story seems to go hand in hand with several themes
we've explored this first season of Making a Killing Ambition. Corruption,
(02:17):
fraudsters versus visionaries, conflicts at the intersection between business and government,
how much or how little our CEOs and businesses are
on the hook to make the world a better place,
or is the purpose and an ambition of business just
to make the most money, no matter the cost. My
guest today is Vanessa Grigriatis, who has spent twenty years
(02:39):
covering the one percenters of New York City. She's a
contributing writer at The New York Times magazine and Vanity Fair,
among other things, and she's also host of the popular
new podcast Tabloid, which is currently focusing an entire season
on trying to understand none other than of Vanka Trump.
So welcome, Vanessa, Thank you so much. Any So, Avaca
(03:01):
started working for her father right after graduating, right well,
she viewed seriously as a business person. Well, she actually
took one year and she worked for somebody else, which
is shocking. You can't believe that she didn't just immediately
go for dad. But she was a party girl when
she was in high school and part maybe of college,
(03:21):
but then decided to really settle down and like take
business as her savior, her personal savior, or just as
her father claimed to have. Right this idea that if
I can just make myself into a big, flashy real
estate icon, everybody will love me and the world is
my oyster and let dada all those like high louten
(03:44):
phrases that they use all the time. So she was
taken seriously, I think because she was his daughter, and
people realized that if they got on her bad side,
she had a way of slipping information to him pretty easily.
How did that come to fruition? Are there specific examples
where people realize the kind of power she wailed it? Yeah?
(04:07):
I mean I think that there were certain people that
she pushed out of the Trump organization, and those people
say that basically, she didn't do it by throwing a
tantrum in Daddy's office, And she didn't do it by
putting out a spreadsheet that just would have all the
numbers that were right on her side and wrong on
their side. Whatever it was, it was just a slow
(04:30):
process of elimination, elimination. Did you hear this thing that
that person did? Huh? And you know, letting her father
just think upon it for a second and then letting
him sit with another piece of information and doing it
in a very silently machiavellian way. Did she and does
she have an ability to manipulate him? Do you think? Oh? Yes,
(04:52):
I absolutely do. I mean, look as much as anybody does.
I think that's what we know about her. As much
as anybody can get him to change his mind or
take a slightly different path than that base anal instinct
that he uses for everything. She's the one. Interestingly, she
wasn't as a kid. They were not that close. I
(05:13):
hear from my sources he was super absent. So I
think that she really started a relationship with him when
she was in high school and blossomed into a beauty,
and then he was much more interested in her and
taking her out to little events at take hotels and
say to other men, isn't my daughter Avanca beautiful? Don't
(05:34):
you think she's the most beautiful girl in the world?
Of that pattern that he does, but she's been able
to move him on tiny little things like once in
a while he'd be like, the immigrants are okay, and
then you kinda's influence you. I mean, if you look
at the reporting from Michael Wolf or from Bob woodword,
nobody's discounting that she does that and gets him to
(05:57):
move once in a while. It's just that she doesn't
get him to move on impoor in priorities for the country.
It's like things that are a little bit off center,
so like, who really cares he gave you a win
on that. Backing up to this idea of her transformation
from party girl into business person? Was it believed in
the circles that know her? Is it just what we
all do? We all make a transformation at some point
(06:18):
in our late teens early twenties from one thing to
the other. Did people look more askance at this one
or was it just okay, she's blossoming. I mean, look,
you hear different things from different people. I mean there
are some people who say, essentially like she was always
going to be this, She was always going to be
Avanka drump. Don't forget that her mother A Vanna trademarked
(06:39):
her name for a million different things like bronzer powder
and coolots. I actually had forgotten when she was thirteen,
so they always yeah, I mean A Vanna was on
QBC right once the divorce went through and Donald screwed
her out of tons of money. You know, it's thought
(07:00):
she got like what like fourteen million or something in
this house in Greenwich. I mean he was saying he
was a billionaire at the time. He was not a billionaire,
but he claimed to have way more, and he was
of course on his way into bankruptcy. So it was
like the late eighties or early nineties, so he was
on his way into bankruptcy. Everybody thought he had way more.
She thought he had way more, meaning a Vanna. So
(07:21):
it was this crazy divorce where basically in the end
she got very little, but had she waited like another year,
he would have been bankrupt. So who knows what she
would have gotten at all. Right, perhaps still that might
be the most telling evidence there is of what he
was actually worth, what he was actually worth exactly. So
basically she was on GUVC, you know, hawking all things Vanna.
So obviously she wanted to take care of her daughter,
(07:42):
Avanka and said, like, let's just trademark Avanka's name on
Junior's lipstick and Junior's swimsuits or whatever it was. So
I think there's a sense in which this was the path.
You know. What was so interesting from doing my podcast
show about Ava was that there are also people who
were very close to her who say that she was
(08:04):
really torn about a lot of this stuff and really
understood what her father was made of and understood that
she had to be like this perky, perfect blonde girl
with all this plastic surgery to fit in his ideals,
and that what they were selling was not on the
up and up as he said it was, and that
(08:28):
she did have a lot of turmoil in her twenties
about that, even though she did she worked for Rattner
for a year just basically learning the ropes of real estate,
and then chose to work for her dad. A friend
of her set like, why did she work for Ratner?
She always tried to say, like, I'm different, I don't
have to do it with my dad. But then the
Laura was always too and why why do you think
(08:51):
the last, Because it's like, if you're with him, everybody
kind of bows to you. Even if the people who
were working at the Trump organization in the two thousands
were not exactly the cream of the crop of the
real estate barons of New York City, you know, she
was in a position of power there that she certainly
she went down where she was like putting out muffins
(09:12):
and making xeroxes, and people just had to avow to her.
If you're given that opportunity to skip over those ugly
years in your twenties where you really just do carry
people's bags, and I suppose maybe it'd be a lot
to not take them. Right, So, what did you hear
about Ivanka and her father's real estate empire? Was she
an intrinsic part of it? She became more and more important.
(09:35):
I think that when she started, he did use her
like a pin up girl. She did a lot of
the infomercials, and she did a lot of ads, and
it was like, everybody, look at this beautiful hotel on
the South Shore. It's going to be the most amazing
hotel that anybody's ever seen, or all those crazy things
that they always see. But I guess the myths and
(09:56):
partially the reality is that she was kind of the
head of the marketing and that she was the head
of the design team. So very quickly once she came
in there, they started doing those international deals, right, which
were pretty shady, like the deal in Azerbaijan, and part
of that kind of deal, We're building this crazy hotel
(10:17):
in Baku and it's going to have all of these
exotic woods and wonderful gold finishes and blah blah blah blah.
And part of that deal is it's like this thing
is never really going to get built. It's just essentially
like a messy project that somebody is using to move
money from one place to the other, and you guys
(10:38):
are taking fees as hotel managers of the project, maybe
knowing that nothing's going to happen, or maybe you do know.
And that's specifically on that project, I think a question,
but on many of the projects as a questions, did
they know and when? So? When you said earlier that
you heard from people close to her that she was
squeamish about some of this, it's that sort of thing. Yeah,
(11:01):
I think that they felt that she was squeamish about
some of the licensing. On one hand, I interviewed somebody
who went to dinner with her in Jared, who said
Jared was puffing her up and saying like, isn't it
amazing the way she's building on her father's name and
she's building places all over the world and she's going
to create this empire. And then the guy who's telling
(11:24):
me the story said he was like, oh, well, great,
like where are you building hotels? And I uncle was like, yeah,
we're building a hotel in Georgia. And he was like, oh,
you mean like in Buckhead, and she was like, no,
like the Republic of Georgia. He was like, one point,
when the transfer is done in cash bonds to cashing
(11:46):
place in Brooklyn, do you question, like whether this is
a good idea. I mean, I don't know. I think
that Adam Davidson's point. These are basic due diligence things
that they could have done to figure out who their
partners were. And either they did the money that's coming
from right or you know, if they didn't do them,
it's their fault. And if they did do them and
(12:07):
they went ahead anyway, it's still their faults. So there's
no question that she was involved in a lot of
those international deals, because those are the deals that Trump
was doing, and the Trump soho those with the different
kind of sketchiness that was going on in those projects.
Certainly the Trump Mosco out she was involved. Avoga wants
(12:28):
everybody to think she's a really hard worker, and somebody
said to me, she's a hard worker the way people
in New York are hard workers, where it's okay, you
still went to the gym this morning, and you're still
going to go out to dinner tonight, So yes, you
worked really hard. You probably went out for lunch. Good
for you. The one thing that I can say in
her defense, and that I think is unfair, is that
(12:50):
people think of her like she's sitting in her bed
eating bond bonds all day, and that is that is
not her. She is ambitious, she is smart. Her friends
are smart, smart, smart, So yes, not successful lighting the
world on fire businesswomen, But how many of us do right?
(13:11):
Right exactly? I'm just saying, like she, I think the
stiffness and the roboticness that people see is not the
real person, But it doesn't cover up something with air
inside her head. And I think that's almost an unfair
way of looking at her. She is tactical, she is smart,
and she's not as knowledgeable as a human being should
(13:34):
be to be a senior advisor to the president. Which
is the real issue for her and everybody else in
this administration is like none of these people should be
in the White House. I don't see her as being
like so much worse than a bunch of the other
people that you are, right, diffright, And it sounds too
from what you're saying that while she was obviously given
huge advantages by her connection to her father, that also
(13:57):
came with a lot of baggage. I mean, it's it's
not a it's not us, it's the proverbial double edged sword,
right exactly. She was able to really become a more
visible businesswoman, but is she a better businesswoman? That was
one thing that was I kept asking myself, how can
somebody who is smart like this not know exactly what
her father was doing? And the answer has to be, like,
(14:18):
she did know and she didn't care, But we don't know.
We don't really know. We haven't had a big lawsuit
that really has laid out that. I mean, the Trump
soho is like obviously the closest one, or you do
know and you do care. But in certain families, those
bonds of familiar loyalty are just such that you can't
get past them. And I mean, the things is this
(14:38):
a real estate family, And growing up in New York,
I know lots of people who are in real estate
families and they might say they're going to do something different,
but they end up working for their dots. And so
I feel like that's a very special kind of legacy.
And certainly the Kushners, you know, really mirrored them in
some way. Perhaps if I were to try to cut
(14:59):
her mor I'd say, there's a reason we haven't had
somebody who's been in real estate in the presidency before, right,
because some of this goes with the territory. Yes, doesn't it? Sure? Absolutely, yeah,
it's not that it's not a clean, clean biz, right.
I was thinking about this, not just the foreign money,
but also this pro publica investigation that showed that she
(15:21):
was saying she'd sold hotel rooms that she hadn't in
that publicly said hotels were almost sold out or the
condos were almost sold out, when in fact the occupancy
was almost fifteen to twenty percent. Does that fall in
the same bucket of you probably knew, but you played
this game. I think so. I mean, I think there's
enough circumstantial evidence now to say that she learned from
her dad and she did basically the same tricks that
(15:44):
he did. And like for them, it was this idea
that all's fairer in the marketing world. I really actually
believe that they think of themselves as like master marketers.
In ways that they talk about themselves. They so often
use that phrase marketing. We do marketing, and in truth,
that is what they do. They sell this vision of
(16:07):
the family, and avankasen vision became slightly different from her
dad because it became this feminist, glowy instagram mommy women
who work and also our mommy's fashion lines saying, and
then her father is running for the presidency and there's
like the Access Hollywood tape, So that was a little
bit of cognitive dissonance. It's so interesting though, because I
(16:29):
did a previous podcast on the opioid crisis in the
Sackler family and when you think about the marketing of
OxyContin and how that was a manipulation of the available
science or a manipulation of the truth, and I'm not
sure anybody thought of it as wrong because it was
marketing and you take the available facts and you twist
them and you spin them and then you use them
to sell. And so in some ways there's an interesting
(16:50):
analogy here. Yeah, why did she do her Avanka Trump
business starting with the jewelry store and then the creating.
Was that an opportunity to define herself apart from her father?
Do you think? Yeah? I think people say that she
was always trying to do things supper from him. Also,
remember he didn't give her very much money. They didn't
cut the kids into a lot of the deals. So
(17:12):
what I had heard is that there was a small
trust that she got from the grandfather, but there was
basically no money going her way, so she really didn't
have a choice. She had to kind of build herself up.
I mean, was all an illusion that everything was going
well until basically the Apprentice gave second gave La Yeah,
get of a second Petina and like a little bit
(17:33):
of a breathing apparatus to the whole Trump thing. She
always felt that she had defend herself. I think that
she isn't that kind of daddy's girl where she's just
puts her palm out and give me the money. And
even when she was younger, he didn't give her a
credit card, so I think she was very used to
not having her own gigantic bank account, which from all
(17:56):
the everything that I look at, from all these public filings,
she still doesn't have a gigantic bank account of Jared
has all the money, so I think that's still kind
ways it's a replay, very much a replay, and her
relationship with Jared I think is totally fascinating, but he's
definitely was kind of from the real billionaire family, and
she was from the fake billionaire family. That is a
(18:18):
really interesting way to think about it. When you think
about her fashion business. Do you think about it as
viable business that was destroyed because she went into politics,
because she ended up in the White House and the
accusations of conflict of interests ended up taking down what
was a thriving business, or do you think it was
a business that was failing anyway. I don't think it
(18:38):
was failing. I think it was starting to show some
profit and I think it was okay. But the clothes
were you really shodily made. I think that her brand
was good to that point. She had the Apprentice lift
as well. People knew who she was, and she was
on the women who work idea, the pink huge feminist
(19:01):
idea a little bit before other people. So she was
she was on the right track there. She was putting
out a good storyline for the company. I have these
kids I work. Here's pictures of me in like some
off the shoulder lime green shift dress that you also
(19:21):
can wear seamlessly from work to dinner. And I'm, you know,
sitting here with my children. I mean the idea that
she would be like feeding her children in a photo
in a lime green dress that like, of course, would
not get any spots on it, or the visions that
were going through my head as I thought about that,
right exactly. I mean, she's all show for her. But
(19:44):
I don't think people thought that it was a disaster.
I think what was a disaster was combining that with
the Trump name, the Donald's name, and then everybody finding
out that, of course all these clothes are made in
sweatshops and cost five sense, and so those are the
two things that in the uncompromise the business. And also
she knocked off a bunch She had some really egregious
(20:08):
copyrights of shoes and different products where she was getting
sued by retailer who are like, um, this is my shoe,
my actual shoe. So it wasn't huge success story. What
about does it make you squeamish at all? Is there
is there something when you have her wearing one of
her dresses to the inauguration or having wearing a bracelet
(20:29):
that then people promote and her brand promotes and says,
look at her wearing Is it turning the White House
into QVC? Oh? Definitely. I mean I think she stopped
doing that because well, she had to shut down her
brand basically, but that was because people weren't buying, right,
But how did she do it in the first place?
I mean, how can you do in the first place? Yeah,
I think there was big learning curves and everybody at
the beginning thought this is great. I mean you have
(20:50):
to remote right. They didn't think they were going to win,
so they were like, oh my god, this is the
best branding opportunity ever, although she was also simultaneously, oh
my god, what's going to happen to my company because
this is maybe not the best branding for me. But like,
that was not a super happy time for Avanka, having
the whole world bash her dad, thinking that her business
(21:10):
is about to go to crap, and being nine months
pregnant on the campaign trail. I think that was not
the great, not the great moment for her. But all
worked out, whoa because she's got more money than ever before.
But yeah, but as a businesswoman, that's the thing is
is that what can she do under her name now?
And I'm not sure she can do that much. She
(21:31):
can't put out shoes again, she can't put out Ivanka
Trump housewears. Really, she's going to be kind of stuck
in the gross oligarch funded real estate space. I believe.
And why do you think she can't do it? Why
couldn't she relaunch a line? You can't do it in America? Right?
She can't do because her brand is too disliked, you think,
I think her brand is too disliked. I think if
(21:54):
she couldn't have a normal, small clothing company that would
do okay during her dad getting pressed every single man
out of the debt. I don't think she can have
a bigger company when she leaves, and she's going to
want to do something really big. And do you feel
bad for her at all? I mean, is this that
(22:15):
all the tale of somebody who worked really hard to
build a business, admittably taking advantage of opportunity she was given,
but had it taken away? Or is this somebody who
benefited from the position she was in and then put
herself in a position where she could lose everything she'd built.
I think that it's hard to feel bad for her.
I tried to take her seriously and as a person
(22:38):
and a child growing up with this person as your father,
So I did feel bad for her at certain times,
But ultimately you have to say like, you make your
own choices in life, and she's chosen to align herself
with him, come hell or high water. So I think
that she never would have gotten anything. Really without him,
(22:58):
she would have gotten She would have been fine. She
could have a great corporate lawyer. She probably could have
been a good marketer for the Disney Company. I mean,
she's smart, she could have done a bunch of different things.
But she never would have had the bold faced life
without him, and he gave her that, and for the
price of that was like her soul a little bit.
(23:21):
So I mean she's fully I think, just sold out
for him, whether or not her personal feelings are about
politics are somewhat different, and believe from things I hear
that they still are. Her anger at other people dissing
her family is so great that it's kind of clouded
her judgment on anything to do with social policies, or
(23:44):
doesn't she doesn't understand the anger. She feels radically defensive
than no. I mean, she's just as thin skinned as
he is, she just shows it differently. She can't take
criticism at all. So she was completely devastated by everybody
being so mean to her the first year, and now
she kind of lives in a bubble where she tries
not to look at all that stuff. One of the
(24:06):
most hilarious things I found is like I looked at
her Instagram account because I was just like, who does
she follow here? And she followed thirty seven fam accounts
of herself like the Ways of Vanka Avanca forever does
And I was like, a never ending reflection of yourself
in an Instagram mirror, right, Like, of course when she
goes on Instagram, she doesn't want to see people being
like dear Avanca, Like all those socialite girls posted like
(24:29):
dear Avanka, you follow me on Instagram? Like I want
to say that your father's disgusting. She unfollowed all of them,
But she's going to follow accounts where like they're pictures
of her like stepping off of Air Force one and
like she looks so pretty and she creates her own reality.
I mean, she just like him, She creates her own reality.
That's a very telling anecdote. Yeah, so what do you
(24:51):
think about the controversy about these licensing deals? So she
got these licenses in China that are really hard to
get at the same time as her business is being
closed down. Are people making too much of this, and
there for like voting machines and childcare centers, all this
sort of weird. She doesn't have a business in the
US after this is over, but she uses her name
(25:12):
for all sorts of money making ventures outside of the US.
I think that's probably part of what happens. But like
Paris Hilton is bigger in Japan than she is here.
There are people who do that, and like Jennifer Aniston
I'm sure is on like a billboard and saiduan like
province right now. So like, I think that what's weird
about it is the timing of those things that they
(25:32):
were clearly being done, like oh, we give to the
favored daughter, we'll give these fighting traf we'll give these trades.
Those just something. It's so blatant, and you would think
that if she was Chelsea Clinton, first of all, she
wouldn't have applied, But second of all, she would be like,
I'm going to give these back because I don't want
anybody to think that this political. But of course Avanca
(25:54):
is like, no, why would I give it back? I
got it, and of itself is really telling to It
does seem to me to be incredibly blatant. Even if
it was too totally separate tracks than just the appearance.
You just don't do that to you. Yeah, but they
think that they can talk their way out of anything
and cover up anything, and they have been able to
or or that people won't care, and that by the
(26:15):
time they're out of office and she's making money from
tildcare centers and wherever, it won't Ivanka Trump branded whatever,
it won't. It won't matter exactly, It just won't matter.
I Mean, it's the kind of thing of the Ukraine
impeachment scandal is like now, like you know, the Republicans
being like, how can you even remember? You can't even
keep these guys names straight. It's a most unsexy impeachment ever.
Whatever people are going to forget, you know, all unsexy
(26:38):
relative to Clinton's, right, I mean literally literally, So I'm
not sure that was exactly sexy, but whatever, We're not
going to go down that track. Yeah, but yeah, I
thought there's this great quote from this guy, know a
BookFinder who's the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics,
and he wrote about these licensing deals. It raises significant
questions about corruption, as it invites the possible ability that
(27:00):
she could be benefiting financially from her position in her
father's presidency, or that she could be influenced in her
policy work by country's treatment of her business right, and
both of those facets are true. And in a way,
it's the more you think about this, I mean you
sort of shrug your shoulders and you think licensing deals,
and then the more you look at it, the more
you think, no, no, it's just not okay. Yeah, And
(27:21):
that's just the things we know about. One can assume
that there's all sorts of stock swaps and under the
table stuff that's happened, or just like kind of wink
wink agreements. I mean, she and Jared have Now they're
on first name cell phone basis with all the leaders
of the world, all the leaders of major companies in
(27:43):
the world. Who knows what exactly they've been amassing. I
think it's very clear that they didn't go into politics
with a sense of social responsibility or even things they
really want to get done, other than Jared having obviously
an international interest in Israel place in the world. But
I talked to people who had had She used to
(28:04):
have these little dinner parties at her house and like
Chelsea Clinton even went once and it was very curated.
Ten people never any talk about politics. As somebody said
to me who used to be friends with her in
her twenties, used to go around in the car with
her and her dad and it's like I was like,
did they talk about politics? And she was like, no,
they just talked about other people's money, like that's what
(28:24):
they talked about. So I don't think she's not money
grubbing in the way that she's like, I need a Jaguar.
It's really about power, I think, for both of them,
and trying to have vengeance on the world that tried
to bring down their fathers, because I remember Jared's dad,
of course went to prison for this very sordid scheme
with his brother, and Ivanca watched people making fun of
(28:46):
Trump her entire life basically, So they really have this
idea of legacy and power and it goes way deeper
than just money, and I think it's almost hard for
people going to understand that. I don't think that's so
interestcause I think so many of these corporate scandals, it's
not money as greed, you know, money as the desire
to go buy a new car, have a private island.
(29:07):
It's not money as greed, it's money as ego, it's
money as power in this case, money as vengeance. Almost
totally right. And that's why I thought of Vanka's childhood
was so interesting because ultimately, really that adage that successful
people tend to come from these really messed up parents,
she too came from very withholding father. She too has
been always trying to get his praise. And it's not
(29:30):
the story that they say that she was the apple
of his eye forever and ever, and that's really what
drives her. And the relationship with Jared was very much
about see dad, I got a real real estate guy
because his family is really in real estate. They weren't
in licensing their names, right, That's about it. Yeah, yeah,
Oh that's interesting. I had not thought of that interpretation
(29:52):
of their relationship. And then what's going on now? She
talks a lot about wanting to cook meals for Jared
and how she learned how to cook for him blah
blah blah. And so they have kind of a traditional
male female relationship where he is more involved obviously in
like day to day administrative stuff in the White House.
And is it genuine? Do you think or is it
(30:12):
another form of branding. A lot of people who said
to me that they believe the only thing that's genuine
about the two of them is the relationship and that
they really are devoted to each other and they really
are like one mind and they consult each other. I mean,
it's the kind of Chivroy and Tom is that his name?
Like that? Yeah, her husband character on Succession. It's that
(30:33):
kind of idea right where they can't make moves without
consulting each other. But Ivanka and Jared are much more
canny and smart. So I don't know. I'm fascinated to
find out what she does after the White House. And
I was just going to ask it's so interesting because
you can't you almost can't even imagine what it would be,
(30:55):
what exactly could this possibly be? And I think some
people have talked talked about her going to Palm Beach
to basically, if she wants to run for office, she
can't run from New York, but she could live in
Palm Beach and she could run from Florida. That would
make a lot of sense. Maybe just going to Florida
in general, to Chilax for a couple of years. Let
(31:16):
everybody kind of to think, is that the new thing
to do when you find yourself with a demolished reputation
In New York Day, Sackler just moved for Florida baby. Okay,
Florida baby. Yeah, because of Florida, they don't care, you know,
like in Florida, like, as long as you like didn't
kill your mom, you're welcome at the country club. So
I mean. But also, she has a lot of friends
(31:36):
in Palm Beach. Her friends that she's still friends with
are a lot of them are like, we're doing that
wintertime Palm Beach thing with her. So you know, I
don't know. I can't imagine her trying to stand on
her own two feet and run for office. But there
are many people who believe the rumor that went around
(31:57):
that she and Jared had had a conversation about one
of them would run and decided it would be her
and she would be the first female president and blah
blah blah blah blah, and like it makes sense when
you think about it, because it isn't. She needs to
be the idea of her just retiring and being on
a yacht in the Mediterranean and just being part of
(32:18):
the crowd of rich people who have money but don't
have overt power. Doesn't seems highly It seems highly unlikely.
Given how given I think you're really wise point about
how she's sought to use money, then it seems highly
unlikely that that money alone would ever be enough exciting
for him either. Yeah, which, as if they're of one mind,
then he'd almost rather be in the background, right and
(32:40):
let her be the public persona exactly, but which is
also sort of a weird replay of her relationship with
her father in a way. Right, not to psychoanalyze too much,
but there's but there's something, there's something, there's something interesting there. Yeah. Absolutely.
Do you think there's any way that she would just
take her considerable acumen and smarts and just go do
(33:01):
something quiet, either public service oriented or some sort of small,
straightforward business. I really don't. I really don't. I think
she's addicted to attention. She's like a total narcissist. She
needs people to be talking about her. She needs to
be at the center of the chaos, whatever it is.
And I don't think that she would think that that
(33:22):
would make her father happy, Jill. I mean, it's a
really interesting question of what happens to the Trump organization.
The brothers aren't going to really run it. What is
Donald's going to do? I think international real estate expansion
is the most obvious. Now they can build hotels in
all these places, and they realize they got away with
it once, they can just keep going. Has there ever been,
(33:45):
as you've thought back through previous presidencies, has there ever
been such a nexus of business and political power before?
And it's sort of interesting because we talk a lot
about chronic capitalism, and you know, whether it's the bank
bailout in two thousand and eight, the unholy relationship between
the pharmaceutical industry and the government. But then we're kind
of living that with our president right in terms of
(34:07):
this use of the White House as part of his
brand and part of his daughter's brand. And I'm trying
to think if there's any kind of parallel in American
history for that intertwining of these. I really don't think
there is. For her, there was no daughter who had
an actual West Wing office, like there were daughters who
became very involved with our dads, and particularly if the
(34:27):
mom didn't want to deal or like stepped back a
little bit, being hostesses or even like running different initiatives.
But I think it's just part of what's happened with
this presidency is that we've crossed over into like the
capitalist presidency, and like more than that, it's the grifter presidency,
where there was really no interest except what they can
(34:51):
get out of this that you know, at least people
pretend that they have interests in actually helping people or
changing policies, like Trump's only interest in policies. Does like
get made a better real estate deal? Yep? Do I
get more money from that? And then yes, let's make
it an opportunity zoning. It's in many ways I'm thinking
(35:12):
about a sign at the times because they're so little
trust in business right now, precisely because it is so
people can see how deeply woven with interwoven with politics
it is and how corrupt that makes it. And so
in some ways it makes perfect sense that would have
a first family that's using their position in the White
House to benefit their business interests, because that's the kind
(35:33):
of ultimate apex of this thought. Right. Yeah. Absolutely, they're
like our fun house mirror in a way. They're like
reflecting back the most extreme version of what we're already
involved in That is a perfect note to end on
and thank you so much for being here. It was fun.
Thanks Bethany, what fun. Vanessa and I have known each
(35:55):
other for years via Vanity Fair, but we've never talked
about a story together. The conversation made me think about
the importance of foundations. Without a good foundation, there is
literally no stability. On one level, I feel for Avonca
it would be no fun to build a business just
to have it fall apart due to politics. On the
(36:16):
other hand, if you build a business based on something
that isn't entirely yours to begin with, namely your father's reputation,
and then you try to amplify it via effectively chrony capitalism,
well maybe it ended the way it should, at least
for now. Making a Killing is a co production of
Pushkin Industries and chalkin Blade. It's produced by Ruth Barnes
(36:39):
and Laura Hyde. My executive producers are Alison mcclein no
relation in Making Casey. The executive producer at Pushkin is
Mia Loebell. Engineering by Jason Rastkowski. Our music is by
Jed Flood. Special thanks to Jacob Weisberg at Pushkin and
everyone on the show I'm Bethany mclein. So much for listening.
(37:01):
Find me on Twitter at Bethany mac twelve and let
me know which episodes you've most enjoyed.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.