In a brutally blunt piece for the New York Times, columnist Frank Bruni called out former first daughter Ivanka Trump for being nowhere to be seen in either Manhattan or at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday after her ex-president father made history when he was indicted on 34 felony counts.
As Bruni notes, Ivanka had no problem propping up Donald Trump during the four years she served as an advisor in the White House despite having absolutely no qualifications outside of being his daughter, but now she has pulled a disappearing act as criminal investigations ramp up and her father's fortunes have headed south.
In his column steeped in sarcasm, Bruni began by noting her failure to be at Trump's side at Mar-a-Lago after his indictment, and asked, "Whither Ivanka? A fair-haired, fair-weather daughter has allegiances to re-examine and decisions to make, and not just about what to wear if there are jailhouse visits to come."
As Bruni sees it, Ivanka must be sorely disappointed that things suddenly aren't going well after living a life of luxury and getting a free pass because of her last name.
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"Nepotism was never supposed to be this hard," Bruni wrote. "I ache for Ivanka. But mostly, I marvel at her — and at the many, many people like her who have a special talent, a preternatural discipline, for pausing at every pivotal crossroads and making a coldblooded, single-minded assessment: How do I navigate this to maximum advantage for me?"
After adding, "Ivanka navigates like Magellan. She’s GPS made flesh. At times, the coordinates and calculations have been easy: Daddy’s going to the White House; I will not be left behind," and ridiculing how she "traipsed" around the world meeting world leaders with nothing to offer, Bruni writes she is suddenly nowhere to be found.
"Now, well, there’s no figuring out where to turn or whom to burn. Daddy was just hauled into a Manhattan courthouse because of that smuttiness with the porn star. Can Ivanka play the part of a distracted onlooker without seeming like a 24-karat ingrate?" he wrote. "Nothing good for her can come of this, so she’s saying and doing almost nothing at all. She’s in limbo. She’s in hiding. She has gone from gaga to Garbo and wants to be left alone, at least until the Stormy weather clears."
Calling her "the patron saint of all the unscrupulous opportunists," Bruni added pointed to the over-the-top responses from her brothers Don Jr and Eric.
"It’s a cracked political religion that the Brothers Trump practice, but at least they’re keeping the faith. Their sister has strayed. She always wanted all the glory without any of the sacrifice, Air Force One without the gale-force controversies, the big, bright stage that Daddy gave her without the critics’ pans. She always insisted that her transaction with him — oops, I mean relationship — keep her in the black," he wrote before concluding, "It’s not doing that anymore, so she’s establishing distance and projecting detachment, but in a pained way, with all that love in her heart. #unwantedivanka wants to turn the page. She may find that impossible when the text is this soiled."
You can read more here.
