Ivanka Trump, daughter of former president Donald Trump, said she would be stepping away from politics and sitting out her father’s presidential campaign this time around, after he declared his intention to seek another stint in the White House in 2024.
“I love my father very much,” she wrote on Instagram. “This time around I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family.
“I do not plan to be involved in politics,” she continued. “While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena.”
She added that she was “proud” of the “many” accomplishments from her father’s administration, in which she served as a senior White House adviser.
The daughter of Trump’s first wife, Ivana, who died this year, Ivanka Trump previously oversaw development and acquisitions at the Trump Organization before joining the White House and described herself as an entrepreneur. She graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in 2004 and has three children with her husband, Jared Kushner, who also served as a senior presidential adviser.
The couple have separately spoken to the House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, siege on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump. Ivanka Trump is also embroiled in a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), which accuses Donald Trump and three of his children and executives at his company of flagrantly manipulating property and other asset valuations to deceive lenders, insurance brokers and tax authorities to get better loan and insurance rates or to reduce their tax liability.
The former president and his family have repeatedly denied wrongdoing and called James’s inquiry a “witch hunt.”
During her time at the White House, Ivanka Trump was accused of repeatedly violating the Hatch Act, which limits the political activities that federal employees can undertake and aims to ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion.
At least 13 senior Trump administration officials illegally mixed governing with campaigning before the 2020 election, a federal investigation found last year.
The twice-impeached former president, who refused to concede defeat and inspired a failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election that culminated in a deadly attack on the Capitol, officially declared on Tuesday night that he is running in 2024.
The announcement came after voters resoundingly rejected his endorsed candidates in last week’s midterm elections.
Since then, many elected Republicans have blamed Trump for the party’s underperformance, and potential rivals are openly plotting to challenge him for the nomination. Trump has also begun attacking his likely GOP rivals, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
“This comeback starts right now,” Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago resort, the target three months ago of an FBI search warrant to recover records he took from the White House, including some that were highly classified. “In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.”
President Biden tweeted from his personal account on Tuesday: “Donald Trump failed America.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s former running mate and vice president, Mike Pence, made clear he wasn’t ready for a political reunion. “I really do believe we’ll have better choices,” Pence told a TV interviewer Tuesday when asked whether he’d support Trump in 2024.
This week, he called Trump’s rhetoric during the attack on the Capitol “reckless” and said the former president’s actions “endangered” members of the Pence family and others trapped inside the building that day. Speculation has grown about whether Pence will run for president.
The packed ballroom at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night was a mash-up of a Trump rally and a glitzy gala. The hundreds of attendees included alumni of the Trump White House such as former Office of Management and Budget head Russ Vought, speechwriter Stephen Miller and former acting intelligence director Richard Grenell.
Republican officials included outgoing Rep. Madison Cawthorn (N.C.), Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Michigan GOP chair Meshawn Maddock. MyPillow CEO and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell and right-wing online prankster Alex Stein were also there.
Kushner was present at the event along with Ivanka Trump’s brother Eric Trump. Unlike his wife, Kushner has not publicly ruled out a return to politics and since leaving the White House has set up an investment company and written a memoir detailing his time there.