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As you’ve no doubt heard by now, Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he’ll be running for president in 2024.
The announcement came as a surprise to absolutely no one, of course, and Trump was in peak campaign-trail form — freshly spray-tanned, aggressively confident, prone to punching things up with a funny little dance or a wild accusation about stolen elections.
Over the course of 64 rambling minutes, 45 attacked his enemies and built up his supporters while still claiming full credit for his wildly exaggerated achievements.
In other words, it was basically the same speech that Trump has delivered hundreds of times at past campaign events.
This was a “play the hits” rally that was clearly meant to send the message that despite recent setbacks, the old firebrand Trump is back and ready to lash out at his opponents.
In fact, one of the only surprises of the night had to do with the audience and the absence of one of Trump’s biggest supporters.
Ivanka Trump was not on hand for her father’s big comeback special, and the media was quick to make note of her absence.
And insiders say Ivanka’s absence was not due to a prior obligation.
Her husband, Jared Kushner, was on hand for the event, but Ivanka made a conscious decision to stay home, part of her ongoing effort to distance herself from her father’s political career.
In other words, it’s gonna be an extremely awkward Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago.
Ivanka’s absence comes on the heels of an Instagram post in which she revealed that she will not participate in her father’s 2024 bid for the White House.
“While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena,”
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“This time around, I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family,” she said.
“I do not plan to be involved in politics,” she continued, adding that she and her husband “will continue to support my father — as his kids.”
Despite the clarity of Ivanka’s message, it seems that her father was holding out hope that she would make a surprise cameo on Tuesday.
“Trump thought he could convince Ivanka this weekend to come back and campaign for him as she was the most requested speaker after the president himself last time around… but so far she’s resisting his entreaties and holding firm, as is Jared,” one insider tells the New York Post.
“They both feel they got burned in Washington and don’t want to go back and expose themselves and their children to another bitter campaign.”
As New York Magazine columnist Maggie Haberman notes, Kushner seemed especially burnt out by the end of the 2020 campaign, at one point angrily declaring, “I don’t give a f— about the future of the Republican Party!”
Many who have been watching the Trumps closely are not surprised by the sudden distance between the Donald and his favorite offspring.
“[Jared and Ivanka] weren’t around for the usual spring and summer events at Mar-a-Lago,” a source tells CNN, adding that the couple even went so far as to skip the club’s Father’s Day festivities.
So it sounds like Ivanka will be absent for most if not all of her father’s campaign events.
This might be part of her effort to re-enter high society as an apolitical socialite.
But unless Ivanka lives to roughly 8,000 years old, she probably won’t see a time when people have forgotten about the role that she played in her father’s corrupt administration.
