Donald Trump and Ivanka Trump have a whole new problem
After Democratic candidate Doug Jones won the special election for U.S. Senate in Alabama last night, Ivanka Trump may have been celebrating. After all, she came out publicly against Republican candidate Roy Moore after he was accused of being a serial child molester. The trouble for Ivanka: if she was indeed celebrating last night, she was likely doing so by herself.
Ivanka and her father have a whole new problem: each other. Doug Jones won primarily because he was a quality candidate and a good fit for his particular race, and the national Democratic Party got behind him in just the right way. Donald Trump’s endorsement of Roy Moore fell completely flat, as Moore ended up getting a smaller percentage of the vote than the polls were predicting at the time Trump formally endorsed him. Trump may have actually cost Moore votes by backing him. But Ivanka likely cost Moore votes as well, as it’s not every day the daughter of a sitting U.S. President comes out against a Senate candidate whom her own father is supporting.
Various media reports over the past few weeks have asserted that Donald was furious with Ivanka after she came out against Moore, and that Donald has begun trying to convince Ivanka and Jared Kushner to resign from the White House and move back to New York. Now that Moore has lost, Ivanka and Donald are likely to find themselves even more at odds with each other. After all, Donald looks like an impotent fool for having tried and failed to get Moore elected, and Ivanka helped make him play the fool.
Neither Ivanka Trump nor Donald Trump bothered to tweet anything in the hours after Roy Moore lost (and no, the obviously phony conciliatory tweet posted to Donald’s account by his staff doesn’t count). Don’t be shocked if things get even uglier between Donald and Ivanka, and in particular between Donald and Kushner, in the coming days. This may end up being the breaking point for the Trump clan, even as the Russia scandal closes in on them all.
