NEW YORK
On the 26th floor of Trump Tower in Manhattan, Secret Service agents stand guard at the elevator to keep all but a handful of people away from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. But on this spring afternoon, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner breezes right through to Trump’s corner office, not long after his oldest son just left.
“Hi, Jared. Are you all set with the meetings?” Trump said to Kushner, a stack of papers in his hand.
One trademark of the most unconventional campaign in modern history is that members of Trump’s family — who have virtually no political experience — are so deeply involved in his campaign that they often act as gatekeepers and strategists. Their influence was clear last week when Trump decided to fire his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, after his children and Kushner met with him on Father’s Day at a Trump golf course in New Jersey.
Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, and Donald Trump’s three oldest children are in frequent contact with Republican National Committee officials, who have come to expect at least one of them at campaign meetings. Family members are involved in drafting speeches, messaging and policy, several people familiar with the campaign said.
Pronounced impact
Family members are often among the closest advisers to any candidate, of course. Kevin Madden, a veteran political operative who advised 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, recalled how Romney’s wife and sons spoke on the candidate’s behalf, adding personal details that others could not. But, he added, “the family members in the Romney campaign deferred to professional staff” in the running of the campaign.
Trump, however, has never played by the book. And because his operation is so tiny — about 70 paid staff members compared with Hillary Clinton’s 683 — his family’s impact is even more pronounced.
The campaign’s latest financial filings showed that not only did Trump have a surprisingly small amount of cash on hand — $1.3 million (Dh4.7 million) — but he had spent more than $1.1 million in May reimbursing his properties and family members for expenses.
Even as they help on the campaign, Trump’s oldest children are also shouldering more day-to-day responsibilities at the Trump Organisation, where each is a top executive. Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump — all in their 30s — have offices one floor below their father’s in Trump Tower, the Manhattan landmark that houses both the headquarters of the campaign and the family business.
“Everything we’ve ever done, we’ve done as a family,” Eric Trump, 32, said in an interview this year. “Every project we’ve ever built, we’ve built as a family. The Apprentice we did as a family. The golf courses and hotels we do as a family ... We vacation as a family.”
Don Jr., 38, spoke to ABC’s Good Morning America on Tuesday to explain why Lewandowski was let go. “There does have to be a transition to the general” election and it was “time to move on,” he said.
Don Jr. also fielded questions about the timing of his father’s vice presidential deliberations, poor fund-raising numbers and advertising strategy.
Lewandowski’s abrupt departure was spurred in part by suspicions within the family that he was trying to sideline Kushner by spreading dirt to the media about him.
One person familiar with the campaign operation, who requested anonymity to discuss the Trump family, said the mogul’s children have been involved in part because “for better or worse, the Trump brand is intermingled with the campaign.” He said the children help Trump understand which of his messages are getting across and which are flopping, and that Ivanka was key in him offering support for Planned Parenthood’s non-abortion work, even though many Republicans do not.
In addition to the three oldest children, from his marriage to Ivana Trump, Donald Trump has a 22-year-old daughter, Tiffany, from his second marriage, to Marla Maples, and a 10-year-old son, Barron, with current wife Melania Trump.
“Good kids. Good relationships,” Trump said, when asked about his children in a recent interview. He said that relationships tightened when they were old enough to start working with him. People often get the wrong idea of who he really is, Trump said, “but people do think I have been a good father.”
Jay Goldberg, a top New York lawyer who advised Trump for 15 years until 2005, said Trump is “very loyal to his children” and is lucky that “they are monumentally smart.”
— Washington Post
