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Is Ivanka Trump plotting a return to politics

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If you’re a woman freaking out about the imminent possibility of another Trump term, don’t despair quite yet. Yes, Project 2025 is hoping to turn the US into a Christian nationalist country. Yes, JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running partner, has been primed for the job by Peter Thiel, a man who has mused that women having the vote is problematic. Yes, experts are raising the alarm that “a Trump-Vance administration will be the most dangerous administration for abortion and reproductive freedom in this country’s history.” But it’s not all doom and gloom: there may well be a beacon of light and female liberation coming into the White House as well. Signs suggest Ivanka Trump is considering a return to politics. Ladies and gentlewomen, the patron saint of female empowerment may selflessly serve us once again!

To be clear: the younger Trump hasn’t explicitly said that she’s interested in another go at being Daddy’s special adviser. In fact, she’s spent the last few years getting as far away from politics as possible. A renaissance woman, Trump has sold everything from handbags to shoes to real estate – but her most valuable product has always been herself. The former first daughter has always been very careful about protecting her personal brand. And, for a while, that meant staying well clear of her father.

With Donald Trump now formally the nominee, it can be hard to remember just how bad things looked for the former president a couple of years ago. After an underwhelming performance by GOP candidates in the 2022 midterm elections, a lot of Trump’s former acolytes started turning on him. High-profile Republicans complained that Trump was a drag on the party. Even the New York Post, once Trump’s personal Pravda, thought he was a joke: “TRUMPTY DUMPTY”, a post-midterm front page crowed. And then, of course, there were Trump’s mountains of legal problems. A lot of people wrote Trump off.

Ivanka was noticeably not by her father’s side during his hours of need. The moment that Donald got kicked out of the White House, Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, followed him to Florida but kept a safe distance from the political goings on at Mar-a-Lago. Can’t have an insurrection ruining one’s image, after all.

A company called College Hunks Hauling Junk helped them clear out their DC mansion and the pair decamped to Miami’s “Billionaire Bunker”. They didn’t go empty-handed, of course. The couple reported between $172m and $640m in outside income while working in the White House and Saudi Arabia gave Kushner’s private equity firm $2bn to invest. Enough to keep them busy for a while.

For a long time, Javanka stayed fairly under the radar. Ivanka Trump would pop up in headlines now and again in Fun-loving Mother and Caring Philanthropist mode. Behold, a flattering headline about Ivanka helping deploy medical supplies and meals to Ukraine! Look: here’s an Instagram slideshow of the whole family skiing! Now here’s a fun picture of the Javanka family at the flashy Ambani wedding!

A cynic might say these carefully curated images were designed to humanize Trump and erase her messy political past. Aiding this was a consistent drip-drip of mysterious sources telling the press that Javanka had no desire whatsoever to return to politics. Even this year, when Donald Trump became the presumptive nominee, media “sources” kept insisting that the former first daughter wanted nothing to do with the White House. “She is very happy, living her best life,” a source told People in March. “She left politics totally in the rearview mirror and so this time around, even if her dad is the leading Republican candidate, she basically doesn’t care. She told him when he said he was going to run again that she didn’t want to be involved.”

Mary Trump, the woman who has made a career out of being Donald Trump’s disgruntled niece after a legal battle over her inheritance, has been blunt about why Ivanka seems to have retreated from politics. “I think Ivanka made very clear that she doesn’t get enough out of [her relationship with her father] any more,” Mary Trump told CNN at the end of May. “She’s barely been heard from for months; she could not be bothered to show up at [her father’s] trial [over falsifying business records].”

As the election inches closer, however, Ivanka seems to have reassessed the value of her relationship with her father. In early May, the media outlet Puck reported that she was “warming to the idea of trying to be helpful again … She’s not like ‘Hell no’ any more”. A similar report from Business Insider soon followed: according to a “friend of Ivanka”, the entrepreneur wasn’t ruling politics out. A spokesperson for the couple told Puck that this was all nonsense but rumours of a political comeback kept mounting.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, Ivanka jumped back into the spotlight with an appearance on Lex Fridman’s highly influential podcast. (Fridman has more than 4 million subscribers on YouTube.) In this she opened up about how working at the White House was “the most extraordinary growth experience of my life” and how privileged she was to have been asked by her father to help so many people. During the conversation, she also carefully recapped some of (what’s she’s claimed as) her key achievements in the White House, such as boosting the child tax credit. It wasn’t so much an interview as it was a hype project by a friend. It felt lot like it was teasing Trump’s return to political life should her dad be re-elected.

So, after years in the Floridian wilderness, has the Maga Princess officially returned to the family fold? It’s a tad too early to tell but it increasingly looks that way. As one would expect, Trump has spent the last few days close to her father after the attempt on his life: she’s very much thrown herself into the role of doting daughter again.

And while Ivanka has been absent from the Republican national convention so far, she and Jared are expected to be at Donald’s side on Thursday when he formally accepts the party’s nomination. And if that happens and images of Ivanka standing next to her father hit the headlines, it won’t just be a celebratory photoshoot – it’ll be a preview of Trump’s second term.

 

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Trump is consistently inconsistent on abortion and reproductive rights

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CHICAGO (AP) — Donald Trump has had a tough time finding a consistent message to questions about abortion and reproductive rights.

The former president has constantly shifted his stances or offered vague, contradictory and at times nonsensical answers to questions on an issue that has become a major vulnerability for Republicans in this year’s election. Trump has been trying to win over voters, especially women, skeptical about his views, especially after he nominated three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn the nationwide right to abortion two years ago.

The latest example came this week when the Republican presidential nominee said some abortion laws are “too tough” and would be “redone.”

“It’s going to be redone,” he said during a Fox News town hall that aired Wednesday. “They’re going to, you’re going to, you end up with a vote of the people. They’re too tough, too tough. And those are going to be redone because already there’s a movement in those states.”

Trump did not specify if he meant he would take some kind of action if he wins in November, and he did not say which states or laws he was talking about. He did not elaborate on what he meant by “redone.”

He also seemed to be contradicting his own stand when referencing the strict abortion bans passed in Republican-controlled states since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Trump recently said he would vote against a constitutional amendment on the Florida ballot that is aimed at overturning the state’s six-week abortion ban. That decision came after he had criticized the law as too harsh.

Trump has shifted between boasting about nominating the justices who helped strike down federal protections for abortion and trying to appear more neutral. It’s been an attempt to thread the divide between his base of anti-abortion supporters and the majority of Americans who support abortion rights.

About 6 in 10 Americans think their state should generally allow a person to obtain a legal abortion if they don’t want to be pregnant for any reason, according to a July poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Voters in seven states, including some conservative ones, have either protected abortion rights or defeated attempts to restrict them in statewide votes over the past two years.

Trump also has been repeating the narrative that he returned the question of abortion rights to states, even though voters do not have a direct say on that or any other issue in about half the states. This is particularly true for those living in the South, where Republican-controlled legislatures, many of which have been gerrymandered to give the GOP disproportionate power, have enacted some of the strictest abortion bans since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Currently, 13 states have banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy, while four more ban it after six weeks — before many women know they’re pregnant.

Meanwhile, anti-abortion groups and their Republican allies in state governments are using an array of strategies to counter proposed ballot initiatives in at least eight states this year.

Here’s a breakdown of Trump’s fluctuating stances on reproductive rights.

Flip-flopping on Florida

On Tuesday, Trump claimed some abortion laws are “too tough” and would be “redone.”

But in August, Trump said he would vote against a state ballot measure that is attempting to repeal the six-week abortion ban passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

That came a day after he seemed to indicate he would vote in favor of the measure. Trump previously called Florida’s six-week ban a “terrible mistake” and too extreme. In an April Time magazine interview, Trump repeated that he “thought six weeks is too severe.”

Trump on vetoing a national ban

Trump’s latest flip-flopping has involved his views on a national abortion ban.

During the Oct. 1 vice presidential debate, Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social that he would veto a national abortion ban: “Everyone knows I would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it.”

This came just weeks after Trump repeatedly declined to say during the presidential debate with Democrat Kamala Harris whether he would veto a national abortion ban if he were elected.

Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, said in an interview with NBC News before the presidential debate that Trump would veto a ban. In response to debate moderators prompting him about Vance’s statement, Trump said: “I didn’t discuss it with JD, in all fairness. And I don’t mind if he has a certain view, but I don’t think he was speaking for me.”

‘Pro-choice’ to 15-week ban

Trump’s shifting abortion policy stances began when the former reality TV star and developer started flirting with running for office.

He once called himself “very pro-choice.” But before becoming president, Trump said he “would indeed support a ban,” according to his book “The America We Deserve,” which was published in 2000.

In his first year as president, he said he was “pro-life with exceptions” but also said “there has to be some form of punishment” for women seeking abortions — a position he quickly reversed.

At the 2018 annual March for Life, Trump voiced support for a federal ban on abortion on or after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

More recently, Trump suggested in March that he might support a national ban on abortions around 15 weeks before announcing that he instead would leave the matter to the states.

Views on abortion pills, prosecuting women

In the Time interview, Trump said it should be left up to the states to decide whether to prosecute women for abortions or to monitor women’s pregnancies.

“The states are going to make that decision,” Trump said. “The states are going to have to be comfortable or uncomfortable, not me.”

Democrats have seized on the comments he made in 2016, saying “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who have abortions.

Trump also declined to comment on access to the abortion pill mifepristone, claiming that he has “pretty strong views” on the matter. He said he would make a statement on the issue, but it never came.

Trump responded similarly when asked about his views on the Comstock Act, a 19th century law that has been revived by anti-abortion groups seeking to block the mailing of mifepristone.

IVF and contraception

In May, Trump said during an interview with a Pittsburgh television station that he was open to supporting regulations on contraception and that his campaign would release a policy on the issue “very shortly.” He later said his comments were misinterpreted.

In the KDKA interview, Trump was asked, “Do you support any restrictions on a person’s right to contraception?”

“We’re looking at that and I’m going to have a policy on that very shortly,” Trump responded.

Trump has not since released a policy statement on contraception.

Trump also has offered contradictory statements on in vitro fertilization.

During the Fox News town hall, which was taped Tuesday, Trump declared that he is “the father of IVF,” despite acknowledging during his answer that he needed an explanation of IVF in February after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law.

Trump said he instructed Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., to “explain IVF very quickly” to him in the aftermath of the ruling.

As concerns over access to fertility treatments rose, Trump pledged to promote IVF by requiring health insurance companies or the federal government to pay for it. Such a move would be at odds with the actions of much of his own party.

Even as the Republican Party has tried to create a national narrative that it is receptive to IVF, these messaging efforts have been undercut by GOP state lawmakers, Republican-dominated courts and anti-abortion leaders within the party’s ranks, as well as opposition to legislative attempts to protect IVF access.

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The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Saskatchewan Party’s Scott Moe, NDP’s Carla Beck react to debate |

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Saskatchewan‘s two main political party leaders faced off in the only televised debate in the lead up to the provincial election on Oct. 28. Saskatchewan Party Leader Scott Moe and NDP Leader Carla Beck say voters got a chance to see their platforms. (Oct. 17, 2024)

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Saskatchewan political leaders back on campaign trail after election debate

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REGINA – Saskatchewan‘s main political leaders are back on the campaign trail today after hammering each other in a televised debate.

Saskatchewan Party Leader Scott Moe is set to make an announcement in Moose Jaw.

Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck is to make stops in Regina, Saskatoon and Prince Albert.

During Wednesday night’s debate, Beck emphasized her plan to make life more affordable and said people deserve better than an out-of-touch Saskatchewan Party government.

Moe said his party wants to lower taxes and put money back into people’s pockets.

Election day is Oct. 28.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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