Team Trump: Who’s in, who’s out – the new power list

Donald Trump’s most trusted advisers are always his family. And this time around there are fresh faces, including his youngest son, Barron, and granddaughter Kai, primed to spread the Maga message to Gen Z.

Ever since the revolting colonists gave that tyrant King George the boot, there has been a dynastic vacuum at the apex of American society. “We were educated in royalism – no wonder if some of us retain that idolatry still,” observed Thomas Jefferson, the third
US president, arguing for the Bill of Rights to entrench republicanism in succeeding generations of free Americans.

But the yearning for pomp, circumstance and intrigue in public life remained, with the royal burden falling mainly on the first family of the “elective king”, as Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president, called his job.

Who better to assume that role than the wealthy clan of a thrice-married, vainglorious peacock with his own distinctive golden crown?

King Donald, 78, more reminiscent of a Tudor monarch than of any White House predecessor, makes no pretence at dull democratic purity as he exploits the vast powers of patronage that anti-royalist Jefferson and the other founding fathers bestowed on the commander-in-chief (a phrase borrowed from Charles I). As with other dynastic presidencies — notably the Kennedys when JFK made his brother attorney-general — Trump’s greatest and perhaps only real trust is reserved for his own extended family, who will all feature in the four-year psychodrama of the 47th presidency.

Melania Trump

Donald’s queen is determined to do more to shape her own image after the misfires of the first term, epitomised by the infamous “I really don’t care, do U?” emblazoned coat she wore when visiting a detention centre for migrant children in 2018.

Perhaps one reason Melania felt so misunderstood was that she did almost nothing to explain herself to the American public. She appears determined to rectify that this time around, and monetise it too.

The 54-year-old Slovenian former model has just published a bestselling autobiographical book, Melania, lifting the veil slightly to explain the “magnetic energy” she felt the first time she met Trump, revealing how he romantically handed her his number when his Fashion Week party date was momentarily distracted. “His polished business look, witty banter and obvious determination fascinated me,” she writes.

Who can blame her. Millions of American voters agreed – twice.

Melania has emerged to give several interviews to promote the book, as well as her line of jewellery, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Christmas tree decorations, telling Fox & Friends in December that, “I’m putting my office together and also organising the residence… From day one everybody’s in and we start working.”

She may have been stung into action by unfavourable reviews of her first tenure. A survey of historians by New York’s Siena College Research Institute placed Melania last among all first ladies based on 10 categories including accomplishments, integrity and leadership.

“In any ranking, someone has to bring up the rear,” says Don Levy, director of the institute. “For now it looks like these historians may have assessed Melania Trump’s contribution in part based on their view of her husband.”

Her Be Best campaign to promote youth wellbeing and awareness of cyberbullying was similarly judged bottom among the initiatives of the most recent ten first ladies, although it did lead to her Fostering the Future scheme, which is set to be a focus of her second term.

“After I left the White House in 2021, I established my two… blockchain platforms where I create art and collectibles,” she said. “With that, I established the Fostering the Future initiative, providing financial support for children from the foster care community. I have many students now in universities, and they are doing very well.”

While Melania says that her sales support her charitable work – a shimmering blue 3D rose design is available on the Solana blockchain for US$150 ($265) – researchers can find no trace of any non-profit organisation linked to her fundraising efforts or any data on the beneficiaries.

Melania’s biggest new step into the spotlight is also her best earner: she signed a US$40 million deal with Amazon for a documentary on her life and further film projects over the next four years. A little side benefit is that the lavish fee agreed by Jeff Bezos helped thaw relations between the world’s second-richest man and the incoming president, so everyone wins.

Barron Trump

The young son Melania fought to shield during his father’s first term is billed for a cameo appearance in the documentary. Now that the 18-year-old has matriculated at New York University’s Stern School of Business, Melania will be dividing her time between the first lady’s offices in the East Wing of the White House, Mar-a-Lago in Florida and Trump Tower in the city she much prefers to anywhere else, where Barron will be living. He will also have a room in the White House residence for when he visits. Barron now stands 6ft 9in tall, as if having a Secret Service detail tagging along on campus were not enough to make him stand out. Melania’s more public profile may really be another strategy to take attention away from her son and give him some cover to enjoy his university days as far as possible. “I don’t think it’s possible for him to be a normal student,” she has said. “His experience at college is very different than any other kid. I am very proud how he is handling it. He is very strong.”

Barron emerged as a Gen Z adviser to his father during the election, directing him to appear on various youth podcasts to help reach first-time voters. But he eschewed the opportunity to step into the limelight, turning down the offer to be a delegate for Florida at the Republican convention last summer. He has never given an interview. The air of mystery developing around him is something Melania recognises from her own enigmatic first term.

Ivanka Trump

The message on Melania’s coat that the media read as disdain for migrants was, it is claimed, not actually aimed at them at all but rather at the golden princess of the Trump family. Melania “spent her four years in the White House waging a war against Ivanka Trump” in an “internal power struggle”, according to American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden by the New York Times reporter Katie Rogers. The only family member to have an office in the West Wing during Trump’s first term, this time the 43-year-old first daughter has forsaken politics for a more secluded family life with her husband, Jared Kushner, and their three children, aged 13, 11 and 8. They even skipped Trump’s annual New Year’s Eve party at Mar-a-Lago, preferring Aspen, Colorado, where the couple partied with Jeff Bezos.

“This time around, I am choosing to prioritise my children and the private life we are creating as a family. I do not plan to be involved in politics. While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena,” Ivanka posted when Trump launched his re-election campaign. Last July she told Lex Fridman Podcast, “Politics is a rough, rough business, and I think it’s one that you also can’t dabble in. I think you have to either be all in or all out… There’s a lot of darkness, a lot of negativity, and it’s just really at odds with what feels good for me as a human being.”

Two weeks later she rushed to her father’s side at his Bedminster residence in New Jersey after an assassin’s bullet grazed his ear. “Two years ago today, my mom passed away. I believe she was watching over Dad last night during the attempt on his life,” Ivanka wrote on X. While they still talk, Ivanka’s public acceptance that Joe Biden won in 2020 broke an article of faith in Trumpworld that the election was rigged, confirming her political excommunication.

Jared Kushner

While many assume that Ivanka’s husband is also in self-imposed exile, the truth is more complicated. Kushner, 44, will not resume his first-term role as a formal adviser to his father-in-law but has not entirely disappeared. One of his duties – as director of the Office of American Innovation, liaising with the tech industry – has been informally usurped by Elon Musk.

Yet Kushner retains formidable connections around the Middle East, which sprang from family connections with Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu, but which came to include a relationship so close with Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman that they message informally on WhatsApp. Kushner was instrumental in the Abraham Accords, the formal recognition of Israel by the UAE and Bahrain, and Trump’s second-term ambitions to bring Saudi Arabia into the deal could hinge on Kushner’s covert participation.

His diplomatic efforts from 2017-2021 were followed by great business rewards, securing US$2 billion from the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) for the private equity company Affinity Partners, which he founded six months after leaving the White House. In December, he announced a further $1.5 billion from the Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi-based asset manager Lunate. US Senate finance committee chair Ron Wyden, a Democrat, last year warned, “A potential future Trump administration will have financial motives to make foreign policy decisions that may be counter to the national interest to ensure Kushner and Ivanka Trump continue to collect millions of dollars in fees from foreign governments through Affinity.”

Donald Trump Jr

The dauphin of the court of King Donald spent the Biden years working tirelessly for his father’s re-election and, in turn, earning the approval that was in short supply while Ivanka was the dynasty’s next-gen MVP.

Don Jr became the most sought-after speaker on the Maga circuit after the dear leader himself. Junior, 47, was too easily dismissed as the doltish heir during Trump’s first term, more interested in shooting off powerful weapons and his mouth than in good governance. But not for nothing has he been described as the “Trumpiest Trump”. He actually lives the lifestyle that epitomises his father’s movement: gun owner, hunter, conspiracy theorist and tech bro who will not take up a role in the White House because he prefers money-making projects like 1789 Capital, a Palm Beach-based venture capital company that invests in enterprises with conservative principles, where he is a partner. After the election, Trump Jr also joined the board of the Orlando drone company Unusual Machines, sending its shares soaring. Together with younger brother Eric, he remains titular head of the Trump Organization and they have also launched World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company with its own token, WLFI. Last week it was down 83 per cent from its launch value.

Although remaining on the outside, Junior’s tentacles reach deep into the White House. He was instrumental in convincing his father to pick JD Vance as his vice-president and helped bring Maga converts Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F Kennedy Jr on board. His friend Sergio Gor, with whom he founded Winning Team Publishing in 2021 to produce books by and for the Maga faithful, has been named director of the Presidential Personnel Office. Gor also joined Trump Jr on a visit to Greenland as part of Donald’s pressure campaign for the mineral-rich island to cede from Denmark and join the United States.

Although likely to spend the next four years wheeler-dealering, there is a belief among the Maga hardcore that Junior would be an ideal running mate for Vance in 2028.

Eric Trump

The tallest of the Trumps until the rise of half-brother Barron, 6ft 5in Eric will take the lead on running the family property empire while his father returns to the Oval Office. Eric, 41, will also continue to be a talking head on conservative news channels, where he has established himself as a pitbull for his father. Self-awareness isn’t Eric’s strong point. He led criticism of the moneymaking activities of Joe Biden’s wayward son Hunter on Fox News in 2019, wondering, “Why is it that every family goes into politics and enriches themselves?” This was shortly after his father announced that the next G7 meeting would be at his Trump National Doral resort in Florida, an idea he quickly reversed following an outcry.

“The difference between us and Hunter is when my father became commander-in-chief of this country, we got out of all international business,” Eric told Fox in October 2019. Just three weeks earlier he had celebrated a business coup in Scotland (not part of the USA), tweeting, “Minutes ago, we received full & total approval for a new phase of development to include 500 homes, 50 cottages, sports centre, retail & more. We also received approval to build a 2nd golf course.”

During the first term, Eric visited the Dominican Republic to revive a resort licensing deal, India to sell high-rise apartments and Uruguay to tour a new Trump development, while Don Jr flew to Indonesia to promote two Trump-branded resorts. With Eric’s hand on the tiller, a similar approach to ethical business stewardship can be expected during his father’s second term.

Lara Trump

The big winner from Ivanka’s political exit was Eric’s wife, Lara, a keen triathlete who earned her spurs boosting Trump on cable TV and her podcast, a mixture of hero worship and fitness advice. Lara’s rise was painstaking but she stuck at it. “Donald didn’t even like her for many, many years,” said Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer. “He didn’t want Eric to marry her. He had found somebody else that was working at the Trump Organization that he wanted Eric to marry… They all made fun of her looks. They just didn’t like her at all.”

Lara, 42, who married Eric in 2014 and now has two children with him, was the organiser of the Trump-Pence Women’s Empowerment Tour in the first campaign in 2016 and a speaker in the next, as well as on January 6, 2021 — unlike Ivanka, who was present but did not address the crowd.

Last year, Trump proposed her as co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, causing Nikki Haley, Trump’s rival, to complain: “Are we gonna let him just take over the party… At what point do we not see the problem? We don’t have kings in this country.”

Wrong! Lara got the job unopposed. Did you miss the bit about an elective monarchy, Nikki?

Lara’s ambitions showed their limit when she pulled out of consideration for the Florida Senate seat being vacated by Marco Rubio, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state.

Since then she has launched her own patriotism-themed athleisure clothing brand, but another political role may be just around the corner.

Tiffany Trump, Michael and Massad Boulos

Trump’s only child with his second wife, Marla Maples, 31-year-old Tiffany has crept a little more into the spotlight following her 2022 marriage to Michael Boulos, 27, part of a large and well-connected Lebanese-American family. She appeared with her father on stage the night before the election along with Don Jr and Eric, and also when he rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange in December. Her new father-in-law, Massad Boulos, a Nigerian-based businessman, campaigned for Trump among the Arab community of Michigan, a key swing state that helped him win back power. Massad, 53, acted as an emissary for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority leader, meeting him on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September.

After winning the election, Trump said that Massad would become his senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs, calling him “an accomplished lawyer” but no evidence has been found to confirm that Boulos is a licensed lawyer in any of the countries of which he says he is a citizen: the US, Nigeria, Lebanon or France.

Kimberly Guilfoyle

When Don Jr’s girlfriend at the time enthusiastically yelled, “The best is yet to come,” as the grand finale to her speech at the 2020 Republican convention, she probably did not imagine this would involve being dumped and sent to live in Athens.

Guilfoyle, a law school graduate, was the first lady of San Francisco as wife of Democratic mayor Gavin Newsom (now the California governor) until their divorce in 2006, before a career as a Fox News presenter. She has a son with her second husband, Eric Villency, from whom she was divorced in 2009, and became engaged to Don Jr at the end of 2020 after dating for a couple of years.

Her relationship with Fox broke down after allegations from an assistant of sexual harassment, including displaying herself naked and showing off genitalia photos of men she had slept with.

Among an array of deep-pocketed donors being made ambassadors by Trump, the 55-year-old Guilfoyle has been nominated to represent the US in Greece. The announcement came a day after Don Jr was seen holding hands with Bettina Anderson, a Florida socialite. People magazine quoted a source saying that Guilfoyle “is not being shunted off” to Greece. “She’s being given a very plum reward.”

Charles Kushner

Arguably the biggest diplomatic prize was reserved for a closer member of the extended Trump family.

France holds a special place in the pantheon of overseas appointments as America’s oldest ally and Trump announced the next US ambassador will be his property developer friend Charles Kushner, Ivanka’s father-in-law. The job comes with the magnificent Hôtel de Pontalba residence in the 8th arrondissement next to the British embassy and a short walk from the Élysée Palace, official residence of the French president.

This was not Kushner’s first presidential gift, having been pardoned by Trump in 2020. Kushner, 70, served time in 2005-6 for illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering by hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law and sending the tape to the man’s wife, Kushner’s sister. Chris Christie, the US attorney for New Jersey who prosecuted the case, called it “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he had ever seen. Trump called Kushner “a tremendous business leader, philanthropist, & dealmaker, who will be a strong advocate representing our Country & its interests”.

Kai Trump

Barron has a rival as Trump’s voice of Gen Z in Kai Madison Trump, Don Jr’s eldest child. The 17-year-old burst onto the political stage at the Republican convention with a personal testimony “to share the side of my grandpa that people don’t often see”. King Donald, she explained, is “just a normal grandpa. He gives us candy and soda when our parents aren’t looking. He always wants to know how we’re doing in school.”

A keen golfer since the age of four, Kai has the most coveted access to the US president – the opportunity to share a round on one of his courses, which she frequently does.

Kai may become an alternative chronicler of the second term, having posted the now infamous victory-night photo of the Trump family featuring almost every member and including Elon Musk holding his four-year-old son, X Æ A-XII. Kai labelled it, “The whole squad.”

Only it wasn’t quite. There was one notable absentee: Kai’s step-grandmother, Melania. Innocent oversight or calculated snub? Sometimes it’s hard to tell in Trumpworld.

Tellingly, a prominent comment below the photo on X is from Kylie Jane Kremer, who runs Women for America First, the group that organised the Trump rally in Washington DC on January 6, 2021 that turned into an assault on the US Capitol. She stated simply, “America’s royalty.”

Written by: David Charter

© The Times of London