Donald Trump's three oldest children — Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric — each hold a unique
place in the dynasty built by their dad.
But while they appear to be united in support of their father, their dealings between each
other reveal a different family dynamic.
This is the truth about Ivanka's relationship with her brothers.
The first three Trump kids were all born within seven years of each other — Don Jr. in 1977,
Ivanka in '81, and Eric in '84 — and they grew up in Manhattan high society, raised
by their parents, Donald Trump and his first wife, Ivana.
But Ivanka didn't exactly have the same interests as most uber-rich heiresses growing up.
Instead, she spent her time in her dad's office, telling Marie Claire,
"I'd sit on the floor and hear him bid out contracts.
I just liked it.
[…] I always dressed like a girl and acted like a boy."
"I've never been very interested in being sort of a wild, party girl, an 'It' girl.
My dad is very strict."
Decades later, when all three siblings were adults working at the Trump Organization,
the three of them operated as a unit.
Ivanka wrote in her 2009 book, The Trump Card,
"Don, Eric and I are always sizing up our 'competition' on the other side of the table
to determine which one of us might be best suited to a particular negotiation.
My brother Don is always reminding me that you don't get what you don't ask for."
But it appears that the competitive spirit isn't limited to the conference room.
"A challenge that I recognized early on was that we all — my father, my brothers and
myself — have extremely strong personalities.
We're very competitive."
An often-told story in Trump family folklore involves Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric racing
down the snowy slopes of Aspen.
Of course, Ivanka competed against her dad, telling Marie Claire,
"It's in our blood — we're highly competitive."
As the story goes, during one particular ski trip, a 7-year-old Ivanka was skiing down
the hill when she felt something on her back.
She told the outlet,
"I realized [my dad] had taken his ski pole, hooked the back of my jumpsuit, and was pulling
me backward so he could basically slingshot himself over the finish line.
It was all in good fun, but we're very much like that."
Ivanka also looked back on the incident in a 2004 New York Magazine interview with the
three oldest Trump kids, adding,
"We were sort of bred to be competitive.
Dad encourages it."
Ivanka and her younger brother, Eric, cultivated a special relationship that grew out of their
parents' divorce.
The siblings' family life blew up in 1990, when Trump's affair with Marla Maples went
public.
Donald eventually divorced Ivana, in order to marry Marla.
Donald and Marla then added another Trump kid to the family's brood, Tiffany Trump,
who was born in 1993, one decade after Eric.
Donald and Marla would go on to ultimately split in 1997.
"I'd rate myself less than a great husband."
Eric admitted that his and Ivanka's bond deepened as a result of their parents' split, revealing
to New York Magazine in 2004,
"[Ivanka] took me under her wing and raised me, took me shopping, tried to make me cool."
Meanwhile, Eric characterized his older brother, Don Jr., as helping him navigate the breakup
in a different way.
He said,
"Donny, in a way, is like a mentor.
He kept tabs on everything that my grandfather taught him over the years and that I was too
young to appreciate."
Two decades after their parents' divorce, Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric had a new challenge
to navigate in the public eye.
Trump — who had since married his third wife, Melania, and added son Barron to the
mix in 2006 — spent the early 2010s building his political profile.
Then, in June 2015, he announced his campaign for president, with Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric
looking on from the audience at Trump Tower in New York.
As the family navigated Trump's run for office, Eric frequently offered kind words about his
big sister to the press.
In a 2016 Fox & Friends interview, Eric responded to Republican Senator Bob Corker's claims
that Ivanka would be a strong vice-presidential pick, saying,
"She's got beautiful looks, right?
She's smart […] she's got my vote."
"I'm proud of who I am.
I'm really, really happy to be a Trump."
Following their father's inauguration, Eric appeared on Fox Business in April 2017 to
heap further praise on his sister, adding,
"She's beautiful in so many ways, she's smart, she's intelligent, she's full of class, and
I think that's why people love Ivanka."
Whether it was because of her position as senior advisor to the President or her status
as Trump's highest-profile daughter, Ivanka received particularly harsh scrutiny following
her father's election win.
While Eric appeared on talk shows to defend his sister's name in the wake of criticism,
older brother, Don Jr., struck a different tone, suggesting in an interview with The
Atlantic in 2019 that, while Ivanka was blessed with the ability to handle any environment,
she perhaps didn't understand as well as he did how her life would change once their dad
became president.
As a 2017 Vanity Fair report said of Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, they had become,
quote, "Exiles on Pennsylvania Avenue."
Don Jr. remembered Ivanka's life before the White House, and claimed that many wealthy
liberals who had previously occupied her New York social circle later turned on her.
He told The Atlantic,
"She was loved by all the people in the world she wanted to be loved by.
[…] I just think I figured it out a little bit earlier than she did that people were
going to see us differently after my father won."
Eric remained at the Trump Organization when Ivanka left to join Donald Trump's White House
administration, and he continued to offer public support of his sister and her work
as an advisor to Donald, crediting Ivanka with changing their father's mind about a
key policy decision.
"I wanted to understand where I could be an asset to the administration."
Speaking to The Telegraph in 2017, Eric brought up his father's decision to launch airstrikes
in Syria, claiming that Ivanka may have used her point of view as a mother to sway her
father into taking action against the Middle Eastern nation, which had recently launched
a chemical weapons attack that killed scores of citizens, many of whom were children.
Eric said,
"Ivanka is a mother of three kids and she has influence.
I'm sure she said: 'Listen, this is horrible stuff.'"
For Ivanka's part, she quibbled with her brother's characterization of her sway over her father's
decision, calling Eric's statement a, quote, "flawed interpretation" of her White House
role.
She told reporters, via Politico,
"It was informed at the highest levels of military and state.
I, of course, shared my perspective and opinion.
It aligned with his own.
[…] His decision was incredibly well informed and advised."
Throughout the Trump presidency, rumors have circulated about bad blood between Don Jr.
and Ivanka.
In 2017, Vanity Fair claimed that the investigations into the administration's alleged dealings
with Russia had caused a division in the Trump clan, citing White House gossip that Jared
Kushner — who served as a White House advisor alongside Ivanka — had possibly leaked incriminating
emails from Don Jr. to the New York Times to preserve his and Ivanka's own reputation.
A 2019 report in The Atlantic painted a similar picture of sibling rivalry, describing a power
struggle between Ivanka and Don Jr. as a, quote, "cold war,” observing,
"[They] each had their own teams of allies and advisers, they had grown paranoid that
the other’s henchmen were planting damaging stories about them in the press."
One such story was published by McClatchy in 2018, with the headline, quote, "Trump
Kids on the Campaign Trail: Don Jr. Wows, Ivanka Disappoints."
And according to a source for The Atlantic,
"Ivanka's camp was enraged, and suspected that Don was behind the story.
Later, Don confronted Ivanka, [saying] 'Tell your people to stop trashing me to the media.'"
Eric has continually stood by his big sister's side on several occasions when negative headlines
about her have emerged.
In early 2017, Ivanka was lambasted for being somehow involved in her father's alleged misconduct
in a Saturday Night Live sketch.
"She's beautiful.
She's powerful.
She's Complicit."
Ivanka later appeared on CBS News to defend herself.
And when her brother was asked about the interview, Eric defended his sister, telling Fox Business,
"You see so many critics out there, and I think it's a sad thing.
Here's somebody who took their kids out of school and moved down to Washington, D.C.,
is there to support [our father], is taking no salary and is an amazing talent.
And she can bring so many great things to Washington, D.C."
"She can be an immense, positive force in Washington, D.C., and she should be applauded
for that and not criticized."
When Ivanka's appearance at the 2018 Winter Olympics drew jeers from Olympic skier Gus
Kenworthy and other Trump family critics, Eric appeared on Fox & Friends to strike back,
offering,
"I think it's disgusting.
[…] That's not what the Olympics is about.
Politics should not enter into the Olympics."
At first glance, Ivanka and Don Jr. may appear to be on the same side of the battle between
their father's administration and its critics.
But media coverage of the two oldest Trump siblings' relationship has portrayed the two
as bitter rivals.
The media's speculation of an alleged current of bad blood between them underlines the fact
that the public sees the two as their father's primary heirs, with The Guardian reporting
on a 2020 survey that found Ivanka and Don Jr. leading the pack of top-of-mind candidates
for the 2024 presidential nomination among Republican voters.
Reportedly, Don Jr. drew roughly 29 percent of prospective voters, with Ivanka sitting
at sixteen percent.
"My father always taught me to never say never, but the last time I said, 'No, but never say
never,' the headline was 'Ivanka wants to run for office.'"
Whatever competition may be heating up behind the scenes, in public, the two siblings appear
to be playing nice for the media.
Don Jr. wished Ivanka a happy birthday in October 2019, and Ivanka shared a sweet throwback
photo that December, writing,
"Happy Birthday to the best big brother!
‬‪I love you very much."
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