Ivanka Trump transfers family away from Manhattan

Ivanka Trump is preparing to move to New Jersey, anticipating rejection by the New York high society she used to inhabit.

Ivanka Trump is preparing to move to New Jersey when her father leaves the White House, anticipating rejection by the New York high society she inhabited before 2016.

As a senior adviser to President Trump as well as being his eldest daughter, Ms Trump, 39, has lived in Washington with her husband Jared Kushner, 39, who is also an adviser in the White House, for the past four years.

The couple, who married in 2009 and have three children, are said to be planning to upgrade their “cottage” at a Trump golf course in Bedminster, an hour’s drive from Manhattan.

Ivanka Trump (2R) during the presidential race with Donald Trump, Melania Trump (center left) and from right: Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Tiffany Trump. In the front row are Kai Trump and Donald Trump III, children of Donald Trump Jr. Picture: Getty Images.

Proposals submitted to town officials, uncovered by The New York Times, reveal plans to add a spa and yoga complex, move a heliport and insert four pickleball courts – a sport that combines elements of tennis, table tennis and badminton. They also plan to expand the main bedroom, bathroom and dressing room, and add two bedrooms, a study and a veranda.

The plans would make the house much more like their $15,000-a-month home in Kalorama, an enclave of Washington where Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, and the Obamas live.

The apparent decision not to return to New York, where Ms Trump grew up and where the couple lived before the family’s political rise, underscores how public perception of them has transformed in a short time.

Donald Trump Junior, Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump listen to Donald Trump give a joint press conference at the Foreign and Commonwealth office in London. Picture: AFP.

Initially the pair were seen as liberal, moderating influences on Mr Trump, working in the White House out of familial loyalty and a desire to moderate his excesses. Until 2018 they were both registered Democrats who donated to Democratic candidates. Ms Trump was close to Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of Hillary Clinton, Mr Trump’s vanquished rival in 2016.

But the couple cleaved closely to Mr Trump’s presidency, and Ms Trump became one of his most prominent surrogates, both at private fundraisers and at public rallies in territory that once would have seemed alien to her. Her social liberal bona fides were shrugged off: shortly before the election she declared herself “pro-life, and unapologetically so”.

As their image changed, so did their perception in Democratic Washington. At the Jewish private elementary school in Washington that their eldest two children started attending in 2017, other parents were generally public servants of the sort scorned by Mr Trump. Some said the children should be refused admission.

Ivanka Trump with Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Iowa. Picture: AFP.

The New York Times said it had been told by four parents that Ms Trump and Mr Kushner violated an “unspoken rule of the Washington private-school world” that parents with big security details should keep their disruption as minimal as possible. Instead at school events the family and their large entourage would typically take up the whole of the front two rows.

Last month, when Mr Trump contracted coronavirus and the festivities to promote Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court became a superspreader event, parents demanded that school officials find out whether pupils had been indirectly exposed. Ms Trump and Mr Kushner were said to have refused to say when their children had last seen their grandfather. A White House spokeswoman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, which had reported the story, that “they owe no one, especially idle gossips seeking press attention, an explanation”.

Ms Trump may be facing legal questions too. Two investigations in New York being conducted into President Trump are said to have broadened their inquiries to examine tax write-offs on consulting fees that went to Ms Trump.

In 2017 she reported receiving payments from a consulting company she owned that exactly matched tax deductions taken by the Trump Organisation for hotel projects. She said the investigations were a “fishing expedition”.

The Times