In yet another example of their unorthodox relationship, Donald Trump reportedly tried to make Ivanka Trump his vice presidential candidate during the 2016 election. According to a new book from Rick Gates (via the Washington Post, the president’s former deputy campaign chair, Trump was adamant about selecting Ivanka to the point where he was non-receptive to other candidates, including Mike Pence.
“She’s bright, she’s smart, she’s beautiful, and the people would love her!” Trump reportedly told his team. The idea of putting Ivanka on the ticket advanced so far that the campaign even did polling until the president’s daughter stepped in and convinced her father to go another direction. Via CNN:
The presidential candidate was so keen to the idea of Ivanka as a vice presidential pick and “cool to other options, including his eventual selection of then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, that his team polled the idea twice,” The Washington Post reported. Ivanka told her father it was not a good idea and Trump chose Pence after the then-governor gave a “vicious and extended monologue” about former President Bill Clinton and Trump’s 2016 rival Hillary Clinton at a breakfast event.
The news of Trump allegedly trying to make Ivanka his running mate arrives at an inopportune time for the father-daughter team as the president’s finances face intense scrutiny. On Sunday, The New York Times published a damaging report on Trump’s tax records, which appear to show the president paying Ivanka “consulting fees” that he deducted as a business expense. What makes this unusual is that Ivanka worked for the Trump Organization, and yet she was paid a consultant fee for projects that were already her responsibility. “She appears to have been treated as a consultant on the same hotel deals that she helped manage as part of her job at her father’s business,” Times wrote. Not good!
(Via The Washington Post)