Ivanka Trump could be described as her father Donald Trump’s right-hand man, currently serving as Advisor to the President and eagerly serving as his spokesperson and champion over the years. But while outward appearances indicate a long-held closeness, she was barely a teen when Donald’s marriage to her mom Ivana Trumpfell apart after his affair with Marla Maples. In Michael Cohen’s new tell-all book, Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump, POTUS’ longtime lawyer gives insight into the family dynamic between Donald and Ivana’s three kids Ivanka, Donald Jr., and Eric, including how they felt about their father’s thinly-veiled infidelity. Between then and now, one thing is clear: for better or for worse, Ivanka has learned to get past her father’s tendency to treat wives as replaceable.
In Cohen’s new book, he spares no detail in painting Trump as a power-hungry and amoral figure — and he certainly doesn’t absolve the Trump children of their role under his reign. But there’s a certain pity in how Cohen describes the children, who he’s known for nearly 15 years.
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“The truth was that all three kids were starved for their father’s love, abandoned by their egomaniacal dad and humiliated when he openly cheated on their mother,” Cohen writes. “Now all three are forever trapped in a cycle of seeking his attention.”
In other words: no matter the impact of their actions, Cohen would like us to consider that the Trump children’s motivations do deserve our pity. But haven’t we always known that Ivanka, Donald, and Eric must have suffered as their parents’ marriage broke up, as all kids of divorced parents suffer, particularly when there’s infidelity involved?
It’s not surprising that Ivanka and her siblings felt humiliated and betrayed by their father’s highly-publicized affair. But Cohen does remind us that Donald’s insensitivity, as usual, goes beyond the pale.
Over 20 years after his first marriage-ending affair, Donald said this to Cohen on the subject of current wife Melania Trump finding out about his affair with Stormy Daniels: “I can always get another wife…That’s no problem for me. If she wants to go, so be it.”
As we know, Melania did not want to go. But it’s fair to assume that Donald’s attitude has shifted as little as his behavior when it comes to his marriages, and it must have been a tough attitude to absorb for the 12-to-16-year-old Trump kids about their mom.
Only Ivanka knows the truth of how she felt then and how she feels now — but we’re fascinated with what that journey must have looked like for her to be her father’s biggest supporter today.
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