I'm Bethany McLean and this is making a killing interviews, exploring the headlines you thought you understood and finding the lessons we can all learn from them. Already in this series, I've spoken with Sahil Patel about Netflix, Mike Isaac about Uber, and Peter Robeson about Boeing. I'm at Bethany mactwelve on Twitter, Avanka Trump's Twitter bio, read's wife, mother, sister, daughter, adviser to potus on job creation and economic empowerment, workforce development, and entrepreneurship. So here are the facts from the outside. Avanca is a leading member of the Trump family, an American businesswoman, and as adviser to the President. She's the first first daughter in history with a West Wing office. From the minute her dad took office, Avanca and her business affairs have been at the center of controversy. Even though Ivanka removed herself from her Ivanka Trump Fashion Company when she entered the White House as a formal adviser in twenty seventeen, she was forced to close the brand in summer twenty eighteen due to continuing questions of conflicts of interest. Brands such as Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Guild dropped her products after a boycott Trump movement and backlashed to the president's policies on well everything fair or unfair for politics to take a toll on her business. Either way, Business Inside of reports that Americans now have worse perceptions of Ivanka Trump than almost any other brand in the US. Out of sixteen hundred US brands, both Ivanka Trump and Trump Hotels made the bottom ten. Wow, here's the rub for many. Although she stepped away from the company, Ivanka is not fully divested from the business, which is still active online and still makes profits for Ivanca. In fact, the Ivanka brand is expanding aggressively in foreign countries. Ivanka recently received more than thirty four trademarks from China, which are really hard for Americans to get, as the AP reports Taken together, the trademarks could allow her brand to market a lifetime's worth of products in China A. Vanka's story seems to go hand in hand with several themes we've explored this first season of Making a Killing Ambition. Corruption, fraudsters versus visionaries, conflicts at the intersection between business and government, how much or how little our CEOs and businesses are on the hook to make the world a better place, or is the purpose and an ambition of business just to make the most money, no matter the cost. My guest today is Vanessa Grigriatis, who has spent twenty years covering the one percenters of New York City. She's a contributing writer at The New York Times magazine and Vanity Fair, among other things, and she's also host of the popular new podcast Tabloid, which is currently focusing an entire season on trying to understand none other than of Vanka Trump. So welcome, Vanessa, Thank you so much. Any So, Avaca started working for her father right after graduating, right well, she viewed seriously as a business person. Well, she actually took one year and she worked for somebody else, which is shocking. You can't believe that she didn't just immediately go for dad. But she was a party girl when she was in high school and part maybe of college, but then decided to really settle down and like take business as her savior, her personal savior, or just as her father claimed to have. Right this idea that if I can just make myself into a big, flashy real estate icon, everybody will love me and the world is my oyster and let dada all those like high louten phrases that they use all the time. So she was taken seriously, I think because she was his daughter, and people realized that if they got on her bad side, she had a way of slipping information to him pretty easily. How did that come to fruition? Are there specific examples where people realize the kind of power she wailed it? Yeah? I mean I think that there were certain people that she pushed out of the Trump organization, and those people say that basically, she didn't do it by throwing a tantrum in Daddy's office, And she didn't do it by putting out a spreadsheet that just would have all the numbers that were right on her side and wrong on their side. Whatever it was, it was just a slow process of elimination, elimination. Did you hear this thing that that person did? Huh? And you know, letting her father just think upon it for a second and then letting him sit with another piece of information and doing it in a very silently machiavellian way. Did she and does she have an ability to manipulate him? Do you think? Oh? Yes, I absolutely do. I mean, look as much as anybody does. I think that's what we know about her. As much as anybody can get him to change his mind or take a slightly different path than that base anal instinct that he uses for everything. She's the one. Interestingly, she wasn't as a kid. They were not that close. I hear from my sources he was super absent. So I think that she really started a relationship with him when she was in high school and blossomed into a beauty, and then he was much more interested in her and taking her out to little events at take hotels and say to other men, isn't my daughter Avanca beautiful? Don't you think she's the most beautiful girl in the world? Of that pattern that he does, but she's been able to move him on tiny little things like once in a while he'd be like, the immigrants are okay, and then you kinda's influence you. I mean, if you look at the reporting from Michael Wolf or from Bob woodword, nobody's discounting that she does that and gets him to move once in a while. It's just that she doesn't get him to move on impoor in priorities for the country. It's like things that are a little bit off center, so like, who really cares he gave you a win on that. Backing up to this idea of her transformation from party girl into business person? Was it believed in the circles that know her? Is it just what we all do? We all make a transformation at some point in our late teens early twenties from one thing to the other. Did people look more askance at this one or was it just okay, she's blossoming. I mean, look, you hear different things from different people. I mean there are some people who say, essentially like she was always going to be this, She was always going to be Avanka drump. Don't forget that her mother A Vanna trademarked her name for a million different things like bronzer powder and coolots. I actually had forgotten when she was thirteen, so they always yeah, I mean A Vanna was on QBC right once the divorce went through and Donald screwed her out of tons of money. You know, it's thought she got like what like fourteen million or something in this house in Greenwich. I mean he was saying he was a billionaire at the time. He was not a billionaire, but he claimed to have way more, and he was of course on his way into bankruptcy. So it was like the late eighties or early nineties, so he was on his way into bankruptcy. Everybody thought he had way more. She thought he had way more, meaning a Vanna. So it was this crazy divorce where basically in the end she got very little, but had she waited like another year, he would have been bankrupt. So who knows what she would have gotten at all. Right, perhaps still that might be the most telling evidence there is of what he was actually worth, what he was actually worth exactly. So basically she was on GUVC, you know, hawking all things Vanna. So obviously she wanted to take care of her daughter, Avanka and said, like, let's just trademark Avanka's name on Junior's lipstick and Junior's swimsuits or whatever it was. So I think there's a sense in which this was the path. You know. What was so interesting from doing my podcast show about Ava was that there are also people who were very close to her who say that she was really torn about a lot of this stuff and really understood what her father was made of and understood that she had to be like this perky, perfect blonde girl with all this plastic surgery to fit in his ideals, and that what they were selling was not on the up and up as he said it was, and that she did have a lot of turmoil in her twenties about that, even though she did she worked for Rattner for a year just basically learning the ropes of real estate, and then chose to work for her dad. A friend of her set like, why did she work for Ratner? She always tried to say, like, I'm different, I don't have to do it with my dad. But then the Laura was always too and why why do you think the last, Because it's like, if you're with him, everybody kind of bows to you. Even if the people who were working at the Trump organization in the two thousands were not exactly the cream of the crop of the real estate barons of New York City, you know, she was in a position of power there that she certainly she went down where she was like putting out muffins and making xeroxes, and people just had to avow to her. If you're given that opportunity to skip over those ugly years in your twenties where you really just do carry people's bags, and I suppose maybe it'd be a lot to not take them. Right, So, what did you hear about Ivanka and her father's real estate empire? Was she an intrinsic part of it? She became more and more important. I think that when she started, he did use her like a pin up girl. She did a lot of the infomercials, and she did a lot of ads, and it was like, everybody, look at this beautiful hotel on the South Shore. It's going to be the most amazing hotel that anybody's ever seen, or all those crazy things that they always see. But I guess the myths and partially the reality is that she was kind of the head of the marketing and that she was the head of the design team. So very quickly once she came in there, they started doing those international deals, right, which were pretty shady, like the deal in Azerbaijan, and part of that kind of deal, We're building this crazy hotel in Baku and it's going to have all of these exotic woods and wonderful gold finishes and blah blah blah blah. And part of that deal is it's like this thing is never really going to get built. It's just essentially like a messy project that somebody is using to move money from one place to the other, and you guys are taking fees as hotel managers of the project, maybe knowing that nothing's going to happen, or maybe you do know. And that's specifically on that project, I think a question, but on many of the projects as a questions, did they know and when? So? When you said earlier that you heard from people close to her that she was squeamish about some of this, it's that sort of thing. Yeah, I think that they felt that she was squeamish about some of the licensing. On one hand, I interviewed somebody who went to dinner with her in Jared, who said Jared was puffing her up and saying like, isn't it amazing the way she's building on her father's name and she's building places all over the world and she's going to create this empire. And then the guy who's telling me the story said he was like, oh, well, great, like where are you building hotels? And I uncle was like, yeah, we're building a hotel in Georgia. And he was like, oh, you mean like in Buckhead, and she was like, no, like the Republic of Georgia. He was like, one point, when the transfer is done in cash bonds to cashing place in Brooklyn, do you question, like whether this is a good idea. I mean, I don't know. I think that Adam Davidson's point. These are basic due diligence things that they could have done to figure out who their partners were. And either they did the money that's coming from right or you know, if they didn't do them, it's their fault. And if they did do them and they went ahead anyway, it's still their faults. So there's no question that she was involved in a lot of those international deals, because those are the deals that Trump was doing, and the Trump soho those with the different kind of sketchiness that was going on in those projects. Certainly the Trump Mosco out she was involved. Avoga wants everybody to think she's a really hard worker, and somebody said to me, she's a hard worker the way people in New York are hard workers, where it's okay, you still went to the gym this morning, and you're still going to go out to dinner tonight, So yes, you worked really hard. You probably went out for lunch. Good for you. The one thing that I can say in her defense, and that I think is unfair, is that people think of her like she's sitting in her bed eating bond bonds all day, and that is that is not her. She is ambitious, she is smart. Her friends are smart, smart, smart, So yes, not successful lighting the world on fire businesswomen, But how many of us do right? Right exactly? I'm just saying, like she, I think the stiffness and the roboticness that people see is not the real person, But it doesn't cover up something with air inside her head. And I think that's almost an unfair way of looking at her. She is tactical, she is smart, and she's not as knowledgeable as a human being should be to be a senior advisor to the president. Which is the real issue for her and everybody else in this administration is like none of these people should be in the White House. I don't see her as being like so much worse than a bunch of the other people that you are, right, diffright, And it sounds too from what you're saying that while she was obviously given huge advantages by her connection to her father, that also came with a lot of baggage. I mean, it's it's not a it's not us, it's the proverbial double edged sword, right exactly. She was able to really become a more visible businesswoman, but is she a better businesswoman? That was one thing that was I kept asking myself, how can somebody who is smart like this not know exactly what her father was doing? And the answer has to be, like, she did know and she didn't care, But we don't know. We don't really know. We haven't had a big lawsuit that really has laid out that. I mean, the Trump soho is like obviously the closest one, or you do know and you do care. But in certain families, those bonds of familiar loyalty are just such that you can't get past them. And I mean, the things is this a real estate family, And growing up in New York, I know lots of people who are in real estate families and they might say they're going to do something different, but they end up working for their dots. And so I feel like that's a very special kind of legacy. And certainly the Kushners, you know, really mirrored them in some way. Perhaps if I were to try to cut her mor I'd say, there's a reason we haven't had somebody who's been in real estate in the presidency before, right, because some of this goes with the territory. Yes, doesn't it? Sure? Absolutely, yeah, it's not that it's not a clean, clean biz, right. I was thinking about this, not just the foreign money, but also this pro publica investigation that showed that she was saying she'd sold hotel rooms that she hadn't in that publicly said hotels were almost sold out or the condos were almost sold out, when in fact the occupancy was almost fifteen to twenty percent. Does that fall in the same bucket of you probably knew, but you played this game. I think so. I mean, I think there's enough circumstantial evidence now to say that she learned from her dad and she did basically the same tricks that he did. And like for them, it was this idea that all's fairer in the marketing world. I really actually believe that they think of themselves as like master marketers. In ways that they talk about themselves. They so often use that phrase marketing. We do marketing, and in truth, that is what they do. They sell this vision of the family, and avankasen vision became slightly different from her dad because it became this feminist, glowy instagram mommy women who work and also our mommy's fashion lines saying, and then her father is running for the presidency and there's like the Access Hollywood tape, So that was a little bit of cognitive dissonance. It's so interesting though, because I did a previous podcast on the opioid crisis in the Sackler family and when you think about the marketing of OxyContin and how that was a manipulation of the available science or a manipulation of the truth, and I'm not sure anybody thought of it as wrong because it was marketing and you take the available facts and you twist them and you spin them and then you use them to sell. And so in some ways there's an interesting analogy here. Yeah, why did she do her Avanka Trump business starting with the jewelry store and then the creating. Was that an opportunity to define herself apart from her father? Do you think? Yeah? I think people say that she was always trying to do things supper from him. Also, remember he didn't give her very much money. They didn't cut the kids into a lot of the deals. So what I had heard is that there was a small trust that she got from the grandfather, but there was basically no money going her way, so she really didn't have a choice. She had to kind of build herself up. I mean, was all an illusion that everything was going well until basically the Apprentice gave second gave La Yeah, get of a second Petina and like a little bit of a breathing apparatus to the whole Trump thing. She always felt that she had defend herself. I think that she isn't that kind of daddy's girl where she's just puts her palm out and give me the money. And even when she was younger, he didn't give her a credit card, so I think she was very used to not having her own gigantic bank account, which from all the everything that I look at, from all these public filings, she still doesn't have a gigantic bank account of Jared has all the money, so I think that's still kind ways it's a replay, very much a replay, and her relationship with Jared I think is totally fascinating, but he's definitely was kind of from the real billionaire family, and she was from the fake billionaire family. That is a really interesting way to think about it. When you think about her fashion business. Do you think about it as viable business that was destroyed because she went into politics, because she ended up in the White House and the accusations of conflict of interests ended up taking down what was a thriving business, or do you think it was a business that was failing anyway. I don't think it was failing. I think it was starting to show some profit and I think it was okay. But the clothes were you really shodily made. I think that her brand was good to that point. She had the Apprentice lift as well. People knew who she was, and she was on the women who work idea, the pink huge feminist idea a little bit before other people. So she was she was on the right track there. She was putting out a good storyline for the company. I have these kids I work. Here's pictures of me in like some off the shoulder lime green shift dress that you also can wear seamlessly from work to dinner. And I'm, you know, sitting here with my children. I mean the idea that she would be like feeding her children in a photo in a lime green dress that like, of course, would not get any spots on it, or the visions that were going through my head as I thought about that, right exactly. I mean, she's all show for her. But I don't think people thought that it was a disaster. I think what was a disaster was combining that with the Trump name, the Donald's name, and then everybody finding out that, of course all these clothes are made in sweatshops and cost five sense, and so those are the two things that in the uncompromise the business. And also she knocked off a bunch She had some really egregious copyrights of shoes and different products where she was getting sued by retailer who are like, um, this is my shoe, my actual shoe. So it wasn't huge success story. What about does it make you squeamish at all? Is there is there something when you have her wearing one of her dresses to the inauguration or having wearing a bracelet that then people promote and her brand promotes and says, look at her wearing Is it turning the White House into QVC? Oh? Definitely. I mean I think she stopped doing that because well, she had to shut down her brand basically, but that was because people weren't buying, right, But how did she do it in the first place? I mean, how can you do in the first place? Yeah, I think there was big learning curves and everybody at the beginning thought this is great. I mean you have to remote right. They didn't think they were going to win, so they were like, oh my god, this is the best branding opportunity ever, although she was also simultaneously, oh my god, what's going to happen to my company because this is maybe not the best branding for me. But like, that was not a super happy time for Avanka, having the whole world bash her dad, thinking that her business is about to go to crap, and being nine months pregnant on the campaign trail. I think that was not the great, not the great moment for her. But all worked out, whoa because she's got more money than ever before. But yeah, but as a businesswoman, that's the thing is is that what can she do under her name now? And I'm not sure she can do that much. She can't put out shoes again, she can't put out Ivanka Trump housewears. Really, she's going to be kind of stuck in the gross oligarch funded real estate space. I believe. And why do you think she can't do it? Why couldn't she relaunch a line? You can't do it in America? Right? She can't do because her brand is too disliked, you think, I think her brand is too disliked. I think if she couldn't have a normal, small clothing company that would do okay during her dad getting pressed every single man out of the debt. I don't think she can have a bigger company when she leaves, and she's going to want to do something really big. And do you feel bad for her at all? I mean, is this that all the tale of somebody who worked really hard to build a business, admittably taking advantage of opportunity she was given, but had it taken away? Or is this somebody who benefited from the position she was in and then put herself in a position where she could lose everything she'd built. I think that it's hard to feel bad for her. I tried to take her seriously and as a person and a child growing up with this person as your father, So I did feel bad for her at certain times, But ultimately you have to say like, you make your own choices in life, and she's chosen to align herself with him, come hell or high water. So I think that she never would have gotten anything. Really without him, she would have gotten She would have been fine. She could have a great corporate lawyer. She probably could have been a good marketer for the Disney Company. I mean, she's smart, she could have done a bunch of different things. But she never would have had the bold faced life without him, and he gave her that, and for the price of that was like her soul a little bit. So I mean she's fully I think, just sold out for him, whether or not her personal feelings are about politics are somewhat different, and believe from things I hear that they still are. Her anger at other people dissing her family is so great that it's kind of clouded her judgment on anything to do with social policies, or doesn't she doesn't understand the anger. She feels radically defensive than no. I mean, she's just as thin skinned as he is, she just shows it differently. She can't take criticism at all. So she was completely devastated by everybody being so mean to her the first year, and now she kind of lives in a bubble where she tries not to look at all that stuff. One of the most hilarious things I found is like I looked at her Instagram account because I was just like, who does she follow here? And she followed thirty seven fam accounts of herself like the Ways of Vanka Avanca forever does And I was like, a never ending reflection of yourself in an Instagram mirror, right, Like, of course when she goes on Instagram, she doesn't want to see people being like dear Avanca, Like all those socialite girls posted like dear Avanka, you follow me on Instagram? Like I want to say that your father's disgusting. She unfollowed all of them, But she's going to follow accounts where like they're pictures of her like stepping off of Air Force one and like she looks so pretty and she creates her own reality. I mean, she just like him, She creates her own reality. That's a very telling anecdote. Yeah, so what do you think about the controversy about these licensing deals? So she got these licenses in China that are really hard to get at the same time as her business is being closed down. Are people making too much of this, and there for like voting machines and childcare centers, all this sort of weird. She doesn't have a business in the US after this is over, but she uses her name for all sorts of money making ventures outside of the US. I think that's probably part of what happens. But like Paris Hilton is bigger in Japan than she is here. There are people who do that, and like Jennifer Aniston I'm sure is on like a billboard and saiduan like province right now. So like, I think that what's weird about it is the timing of those things that they were clearly being done, like oh, we give to the favored daughter, we'll give these fighting traf we'll give these trades. Those just something. It's so blatant, and you would think that if she was Chelsea Clinton, first of all, she wouldn't have applied, But second of all, she would be like, I'm going to give these back because I don't want anybody to think that this political. But of course Avanca is like, no, why would I give it back? I got it, and of itself is really telling to It does seem to me to be incredibly blatant. Even if it was too totally separate tracks than just the appearance. You just don't do that to you. Yeah, but they think that they can talk their way out of anything and cover up anything, and they have been able to or or that people won't care, and that by the time they're out of office and she's making money from tildcare centers and wherever, it won't Ivanka Trump branded whatever, it won't. It won't matter exactly, It just won't matter. I Mean, it's the kind of thing of the Ukraine impeachment scandal is like now, like you know, the Republicans being like, how can you even remember? You can't even keep these guys names straight. It's a most unsexy impeachment ever. Whatever people are going to forget, you know, all unsexy relative to Clinton's, right, I mean literally literally, So I'm not sure that was exactly sexy, but whatever, We're not going to go down that track. Yeah, but yeah, I thought there's this great quote from this guy, know a BookFinder who's the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, and he wrote about these licensing deals. It raises significant questions about corruption, as it invites the possible ability that she could be benefiting financially from her position in her father's presidency, or that she could be influenced in her policy work by country's treatment of her business right, and both of those facets are true. And in a way, it's the more you think about this, I mean you sort of shrug your shoulders and you think licensing deals, and then the more you look at it, the more you think, no, no, it's just not okay. Yeah, And that's just the things we know about. One can assume that there's all sorts of stock swaps and under the table stuff that's happened, or just like kind of wink wink agreements. I mean, she and Jared have Now they're on first name cell phone basis with all the leaders of the world, all the leaders of major companies in the world. Who knows what exactly they've been amassing. I think it's very clear that they didn't go into politics with a sense of social responsibility or even things they really want to get done, other than Jared having obviously an international interest in Israel place in the world. But I talked to people who had had She used to have these little dinner parties at her house and like Chelsea Clinton even went once and it was very curated. Ten people never any talk about politics. As somebody said to me who used to be friends with her in her twenties, used to go around in the car with her and her dad and it's like I was like, did they talk about politics? And she was like, no, they just talked about other people's money, like that's what they talked about. So I don't think she's not money grubbing in the way that she's like, I need a Jaguar. It's really about power, I think, for both of them, and trying to have vengeance on the world that tried to bring down their fathers, because I remember Jared's dad, of course went to prison for this very sordid scheme with his brother, and Ivanca watched people making fun of Trump her entire life basically, So they really have this idea of legacy and power and it goes way deeper than just money, and I think it's almost hard for people going to understand that. I don't think that's so interestcause I think so many of these corporate scandals, it's not money as greed, you know, money as the desire to go buy a new car, have a private island. It's not money as greed, it's money as ego, it's money as power in this case, money as vengeance. Almost totally right. And that's why I thought of Vanka's childhood was so interesting because ultimately, really that adage that successful people tend to come from these really messed up parents, she too came from very withholding father. She too has been always trying to get his praise. And it's not the story that they say that she was the apple of his eye forever and ever, and that's really what drives her. And the relationship with Jared was very much about see dad, I got a real real estate guy because his family is really in real estate. They weren't in licensing their names, right, That's about it. Yeah, yeah, Oh that's interesting. I had not thought of that interpretation of their relationship. And then what's going on now? She talks a lot about wanting to cook meals for Jared and how she learned how to cook for him blah blah blah. And so they have kind of a traditional male female relationship where he is more involved obviously in like day to day administrative stuff in the White House. And is it genuine? Do you think or is it another form of branding. A lot of people who said to me that they believe the only thing that's genuine about the two of them is the relationship and that they really are devoted to each other and they really are like one mind and they consult each other. I mean, it's the kind of Chivroy and Tom is that his name? Like that? Yeah, her husband character on Succession. It's that kind of idea right where they can't make moves without consulting each other. But Ivanka and Jared are much more canny and smart. So I don't know. I'm fascinated to find out what she does after the White House. And I was just going to ask it's so interesting because you can't you almost can't even imagine what it would be, what exactly could this possibly be? And I think some people have talked talked about her going to Palm Beach to basically, if she wants to run for office, she can't run from New York, but she could live in Palm Beach and she could run from Florida. That would make a lot of sense. Maybe just going to Florida in general, to Chilax for a couple of years. Let everybody kind of to think, is that the new thing to do when you find yourself with a demolished reputation In New York Day, Sackler just moved for Florida baby. Okay, Florida baby. Yeah, because of Florida, they don't care, you know, like in Florida, like, as long as you like didn't kill your mom, you're welcome at the country club. So I mean. But also, she has a lot of friends in Palm Beach. Her friends that she's still friends with are a lot of them are like, we're doing that wintertime Palm Beach thing with her. So you know, I don't know. I can't imagine her trying to stand on her own two feet and run for office. But there are many people who believe the rumor that went around that she and Jared had had a conversation about one of them would run and decided it would be her and she would be the first female president and blah blah blah blah blah, and like it makes sense when you think about it, because it isn't. She needs to be the idea of her just retiring and being on a yacht in the Mediterranean and just being part of the crowd of rich people who have money but don't have overt power. Doesn't seems highly It seems highly unlikely. Given how given I think you're really wise point about how she's sought to use money, then it seems highly unlikely that that money alone would ever be enough exciting for him either. Yeah, which, as if they're of one mind, then he'd almost rather be in the background, right and let her be the public persona exactly, but which is also sort of a weird replay of her relationship with her father in a way. Right, not to psychoanalyze too much, but there's but there's something, there's something, there's something interesting there. Yeah. Absolutely. Do you think there's any way that she would just take her considerable acumen and smarts and just go do something quiet, either public service oriented or some sort of small, straightforward business. I really don't. I really don't. I think she's addicted to attention. She's like a total narcissist. She needs people to be talking about her. She needs to be at the center of the chaos, whatever it is. And I don't think that she would think that that would make her father happy, Jill. I mean, it's a really interesting question of what happens to the Trump organization. The brothers aren't going to really run it. What is Donald's going to do? I think international real estate expansion is the most obvious. Now they can build hotels in all these places, and they realize they got away with it once, they can just keep going. Has there ever been, as you've thought back through previous presidencies, has there ever been such a nexus of business and political power before? And it's sort of interesting because we talk a lot about chronic capitalism, and you know, whether it's the bank bailout in two thousand and eight, the unholy relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and the government. But then we're kind of living that with our president right in terms of this use of the White House as part of his brand and part of his daughter's brand. And I'm trying to think if there's any kind of parallel in American history for that intertwining of these. I really don't think there is. For her, there was no daughter who had an actual West Wing office, like there were daughters who became very involved with our dads, and particularly if the mom didn't want to deal or like stepped back a little bit, being hostesses or even like running different initiatives. But I think it's just part of what's happened with this presidency is that we've crossed over into like the capitalist presidency, and like more than that, it's the grifter presidency, where there was really no interest except what they can get out of this that you know, at least people pretend that they have interests in actually helping people or changing policies, like Trump's only interest in policies. Does like get made a better real estate deal? Yep? Do I get more money from that? And then yes, let's make it an opportunity zoning. It's in many ways I'm thinking about a sign at the times because they're so little trust in business right now, precisely because it is so people can see how deeply woven with interwoven with politics it is and how corrupt that makes it. And so in some ways it makes perfect sense that would have a first family that's using their position in the White House to benefit their business interests, because that's the kind of ultimate apex of this thought. Right. Yeah. Absolutely, they're like our fun house mirror in a way. They're like reflecting back the most extreme version of what we're already involved in That is a perfect note to end on and thank you so much for being here. It was fun. Thanks Bethany, what fun. Vanessa and I have known each other for years via Vanity Fair, but we've never talked about a story together. The conversation made me think about the importance of foundations. Without a good foundation, there is literally no stability. On one level, I feel for Avonca it would be no fun to build a business just to have it fall apart due to politics. On the other hand, if you build a business based on something that isn't entirely yours to begin with, namely your father's reputation, and then you try to amplify it via effectively chrony capitalism, well maybe it ended the way it should, at least for now. Making a Killing is a co production of Pushkin Industries and chalkin Blade. It's produced by Ruth Barnes and Laura Hyde. My executive producers are Alison mcclein no relation in Making Casey. The executive producer at Pushkin is Mia Loebell. Engineering by Jason Rastkowski. Our music is by Jed Flood. Special thanks to Jacob Weisberg at Pushkin and everyone on the show I'm Bethany mclein. So much for listening. Find me on Twitter at Bethany mac twelve and let me know which episodes you've most enjoyed.

I'm Bethany McLean and this is making a killing interviews, exploring the headlines you thought you understood and finding the lessons we can all learn from them. Already in this series, I've spoken with Sahil Patel about Netflix, Mike Isaac about Uber, and Peter Robeson about Boeing. I'm at Bethany mactwelve on Twitter, Avanka Trump's Twitter bio, read's wife, mother, sister, daughter, adviser to potus on job creation and economic empowerment, workforce development, and entrepreneurship. So here are the facts from the outside. Avanca is a leading member of the Trump family, an American businesswoman, and as adviser to the President. She's the first first daughter in history with a West Wing office. From the minute her dad took office, Avanca and her business affairs have been at the center of controversy. Even though Ivanka removed herself from her Ivanka Trump Fashion Company when she entered the White House as a formal adviser in twenty seventeen, she was forced to close the brand in summer twenty eighteen due to continuing questions of conflicts of interest. Brands such as Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Guild dropped her products after a boycott Trump movement and backlashed to the president's policies on well everything fair or unfair for politics to take a toll on her business. Either way, Business Inside of reports that Americans now have worse perceptions of Ivanka Trump than almost any other brand in the US. Out of sixteen hundred US brands, both Ivanka Trump and Trump Hotels made the bottom ten. Wow, here's the rub for many. Although she stepped away from the company, Ivanka is not fully divested from the business, which is still active online and still makes profits for Ivanca. In fact, the Ivanka brand is expanding aggressively in foreign countries. Ivanka recently received more than thirty four trademarks from China, which are really hard for Americans to get, as the AP reports Taken together, the trademarks could allow her brand to market a lifetime's worth of products in China A. Vanka's story seems to go hand in hand with several themes we've explored this first season of Making a Killing Ambition. Corruption, fraudsters versus visionaries, conflicts at the intersection between business and government, how much or how little our CEOs and businesses are on the hook to make the world a better place, or is the purpose and an ambition of business just to make the most money, no matter the cost. My guest today is Vanessa Grigriatis, who has spent twenty years covering the one percenters of New York City. She's a contributing writer at The New York Times magazine and Vanity Fair, among other things, and she's also host of the popular new podcast Tabloid, which is currently focusing an entire season on trying to understand none other than of Vanka Trump. So welcome, Vanessa, Thank you so much. Any So, Avaca started working for her father right after graduating, right well, she viewed seriously as a business person. Well, she actually took one year and she worked for somebody else, which is shocking. You can't believe that she didn't just immediately go for dad. But she was a party girl when she was in high school and part maybe of college, but then decided to really settle down and like take business as her savior, her personal savior, or just as her father claimed to have. Right this idea that if I can just make myself into a big, flashy real estate icon, everybody will love me and the world is my oyster and let dada all those like high louten phrases that they use all the time. So she was taken seriously, I think because she was his daughter, and people realized that if they got on her bad side, she had a way of slipping information to him pretty easily. How did that come to fruition? Are there specific examples where people realize the kind of power she wailed it? Yeah? I mean I think that there were certain people that she pushed out of the Trump organization, and those people say that basically, she didn't do it by throwing a tantrum in Daddy's office, And she didn't do it by putting out a spreadsheet that just would have all the numbers that were right on her side and wrong on their side. Whatever it was, it was just a slow process of elimination, elimination. Did you hear this thing that that person did? Huh? And you know, letting her father just think upon it for a second and then letting him sit with another piece of information and doing it in a very silently machiavellian way. Did she and does she have an ability to manipulate him? Do you think? Oh? Yes, I absolutely do. I mean, look as much as anybody does. I think that's what we know about her. As much as anybody can get him to change his mind or take a slightly different path than that base anal instinct that he uses for everything. She's the one. Interestingly, she wasn't as a kid. They were not that close. I hear from my sources he was super absent. So I think that she really started a relationship with him when she was in high school and blossomed into a beauty, and then he was much more interested in her and taking her out to little events at take hotels and say to other men, isn't my daughter Avanca beautiful? Don't you think she's the most beautiful girl in the world? Of that pattern that he does, but she's been able to move him on tiny little things like once in a while he'd be like, the immigrants are okay, and then you kinda's influence you. I mean, if you look at the reporting from Michael Wolf or from Bob woodword, nobody's discounting that she does that and gets him to move once in a while. It's just that she doesn't get him to move on impoor in priorities for the country. It's like things that are a little bit off center, so like, who really cares he gave you a win on that. Backing up to this idea of her transformation from party girl into business person? Was it believed in the circles that know her? Is it just what we all do? We all make a transformation at some point in our late teens early twenties from one thing to the other. Did people look more askance at this one or was it just okay, she's blossoming. I mean, look, you hear different things from different people. I mean there are some people who say, essentially like she was always going to be this, She was always going to be Avanka drump. Don't forget that her mother A Vanna trademarked her name for a million different things like bronzer powder and coolots. I actually had forgotten when she was thirteen, so they always yeah, I mean A Vanna was on QBC right once the divorce went through and Donald screwed her out of tons of money. You know, it's thought she got like what like fourteen million or something in this house in Greenwich. I mean he was saying he was a billionaire at the time. He was not a billionaire, but he claimed to have way more, and he was of course on his way into bankruptcy. So it was like the late eighties or early nineties, so he was on his way into bankruptcy. Everybody thought he had way more. She thought he had way more, meaning a Vanna. So it was this crazy divorce where basically in the end she got very little, but had she waited like another year, he would have been bankrupt. So who knows what she would have gotten at all. Right, perhaps still that might be the most telling evidence there is of what he was actually worth, what he was actually worth exactly. So basically she was on GUVC, you know, hawking all things Vanna. So obviously she wanted to take care of her daughter, Avanka and said, like, let's just trademark Avanka's name on Junior's lipstick and Junior's swimsuits or whatever it was. So I think there's a sense in which this was the path. You know. What was so interesting from doing my podcast show about Ava was that there are also people who were very close to her who say that she was really torn about a lot of this stuff and really understood what her father was made of and understood that she had to be like this perky, perfect blonde girl with all this plastic surgery to fit in his ideals, and that what they were selling was not on the up and up as he said it was, and that she did have a lot of turmoil in her twenties about that, even though she did she worked for Rattner for a year just basically learning the ropes of real estate, and then chose to work for her dad. A friend of her set like, why did she work for Ratner? She always tried to say, like, I'm different, I don't have to do it with my dad. But then the Laura was always too and why why do you think the last, Because it's like, if you're with him, everybody kind of bows to you. Even if the people who were working at the Trump organization in the two thousands were not exactly the cream of the crop of the real estate barons of New York City, you know, she was in a position of power there that she certainly she went down where she was like putting out muffins and making xeroxes, and people just had to avow to her. If you're given that opportunity to skip over those ugly years in your twenties where you really just do carry people's bags, and I suppose maybe it'd be a lot to not take them. Right, So, what did you hear about Ivanka and her father's real estate empire? Was she an intrinsic part of it? She became more and more important. I think that when she started, he did use her like a pin up girl. She did a lot of the infomercials, and she did a lot of ads, and it was like, everybody, look at this beautiful hotel on the South Shore. It's going to be the most amazing hotel that anybody's ever seen, or all those crazy things that they always see. But I guess the myths and partially the reality is that she was kind of the head of the marketing and that she was the head of the design team. So very quickly once she came in there, they started doing those international deals, right, which were pretty shady, like the deal in Azerbaijan, and part of that kind of deal, We're building this crazy hotel in Baku and it's going to have all of these exotic woods and wonderful gold finishes and blah blah blah blah. And part of that deal is it's like this thing is never really going to get built. It's just essentially like a messy project that somebody is using to move money from one place to the other, and you guys are taking fees as hotel managers of the project, maybe knowing that nothing's going to happen, or maybe you do know. And that's specifically on that project, I think a question, but on many of the projects as a questions, did they know and when? So? When you said earlier that you heard from people close to her that she was squeamish about some of this, it's that sort of thing. Yeah, I think that they felt that she was squeamish about some of the licensing. On one hand, I interviewed somebody who went to dinner with her in Jared, who said Jared was puffing her up and saying like, isn't it amazing the way she's building on her father's name and she's building places all over the world and she's going to create this empire. And then the guy who's telling me the story said he was like, oh, well, great, like where are you building hotels? And I uncle was like, yeah, we're building a hotel in Georgia. And he was like, oh, you mean like in Buckhead, and she was like, no, like the Republic of Georgia. He was like, one point, when the transfer is done in cash bonds to cashing place in Brooklyn, do you question, like whether this is a good idea. I mean, I don't know. I think that Adam Davidson's point. These are basic due diligence things that they could have done to figure out who their partners were. And either they did the money that's coming from right or you know, if they didn't do them, it's their fault. And if they did do them and they went ahead anyway, it's still their faults. So there's no question that she was involved in a lot of those international deals, because those are the deals that Trump was doing, and the Trump soho those with the different kind of sketchiness that was going on in those projects. Certainly the Trump Mosco out she was involved. Avoga wants everybody to think she's a really hard worker, and somebody said to me, she's a hard worker the way people in New York are hard workers, where it's okay, you still went to the gym this morning, and you're still going to go out to dinner tonight, So yes, you worked really hard. You probably went out for lunch. Good for you. The one thing that I can say in her defense, and that I think is unfair, is that people think of her like she's sitting in her bed eating bond bonds all day, and that is that is not her. She is ambitious, she is smart. Her friends are smart, smart, smart, So yes, not successful lighting the world on fire businesswomen, But how many of us do right? Right exactly? I'm just saying, like she, I think the stiffness and the roboticness that people see is not the real person, But it doesn't cover up something with air inside her head. And I think that's almost an unfair way of looking at her. She is tactical, she is smart, and she's not as knowledgeable as a human being should be to be a senior advisor to the president. Which is the real issue for her and everybody else in this administration is like none of these people should be in the White House. I don't see her as being like so much worse than a bunch of the other people that you are, right, diffright, And it sounds too from what you're saying that while she was obviously given huge advantages by her connection to her father, that also came with a lot of baggage. I mean, it's it's not a it's not us, it's the proverbial double edged sword, right exactly. She was able to really become a more visible businesswoman, but is she a better businesswoman? That was one thing that was I kept asking myself, how can somebody who is smart like this not know exactly what her father was doing? And the answer has to be, like, she did know and she didn't care, But we don't know. We don't really know. We haven't had a big lawsuit that really has laid out that. I mean, the Trump soho is like obviously the closest one, or you do know and you do care. But in certain families, those bonds of familiar loyalty are just such that you can't get past them. And I mean, the things is this a real estate family, And growing up in New York, I know lots of people who are in real estate families and they might say they're going to do something different, but they end up working for their dots. And so I feel like that's a very special kind of legacy. And certainly the Kushners, you know, really mirrored them in some way. Perhaps if I were to try to cut her mor I'd say, there's a reason we haven't had somebody who's been in real estate in the presidency before, right, because some of this goes with the territory. Yes, doesn't it? Sure? Absolutely, yeah, it's not that it's not a clean, clean biz, right. I was thinking about this, not just the foreign money, but also this pro publica investigation that showed that she was saying she'd sold hotel rooms that she hadn't in that publicly said hotels were almost sold out or the condos were almost sold out, when in fact the occupancy was almost fifteen to twenty percent. Does that fall in the same bucket of you probably knew, but you played this game. I think so. I mean, I think there's enough circumstantial evidence now to say that she learned from her dad and she did basically the same tricks that he did. And like for them, it was this idea that all's fairer in the marketing world. I really actually believe that they think of themselves as like master marketers. In ways that they talk about themselves. They so often use that phrase marketing. We do marketing, and in truth, that is what they do. They sell this vision of the family, and avankasen vision became slightly different from her dad because it became this feminist, glowy instagram mommy women who work and also our mommy's fashion lines saying, and then her father is running for the presidency and there's like the Access Hollywood tape, So that was a little bit of cognitive dissonance. It's so interesting though, because I did a previous podcast on the opioid crisis in the Sackler family and when you think about the marketing of OxyContin and how that was a manipulation of the available science or a manipulation of the truth, and I'm not sure anybody thought of it as wrong because it was marketing and you take the available facts and you twist them and you spin them and then you use them to sell. And so in some ways there's an interesting analogy here. Yeah, why did she do her Avanka Trump business starting with the jewelry store and then the creating. Was that an opportunity to define herself apart from her father? Do you think? Yeah? I think people say that she was always trying to do things supper from him. Also, remember he didn't give her very much money. They didn't cut the kids into a lot of the deals. So what I had heard is that there was a small trust that she got from the grandfather, but there was basically no money going her way, so she really didn't have a choice. She had to kind of build herself up. I mean, was all an illusion that everything was going well until basically the Apprentice gave second gave La Yeah, get of a second Petina and like a little bit of a breathing apparatus to the whole Trump thing. She always felt that she had defend herself. I think that she isn't that kind of daddy's girl where she's just puts her palm out and give me the money. And even when she was younger, he didn't give her a credit card, so I think she was very used to not having her own gigantic bank account, which from all the everything that I look at, from all these public filings, she still doesn't have a gigantic bank account of Jared has all the money, so I think that's still kind ways it's a replay, very much a replay, and her relationship with Jared I think is totally fascinating, but he's definitely was kind of from the real billionaire family, and she was from the fake billionaire family. That is a really interesting way to think about it. When you think about her fashion business. Do you think about it as viable business that was destroyed because she went into politics, because she ended up in the White House and the accusations of conflict of interests ended up taking down what was a thriving business, or do you think it was a business that was failing anyway. I don't think it was failing. I think it was starting to show some profit and I think it was okay. But the clothes were you really shodily made. I think that her brand was good to that point. She had the Apprentice lift as well. People knew who she was, and she was on the women who work idea, the pink huge feminist idea a little bit before other people. So she was she was on the right track there. She was putting out a good storyline for the company. I have these kids I work. Here's pictures of me in like some off the shoulder lime green shift dress that you also can wear seamlessly from work to dinner. And I'm, you know, sitting here with my children. I mean the idea that she would be like feeding her children in a photo in a lime green dress that like, of course, would not get any spots on it, or the visions that were going through my head as I thought about that, right exactly. I mean, she's all show for her. But I don't think people thought that it was a disaster. I think what was a disaster was combining that with the Trump name, the Donald's name, and then everybody finding out that, of course all these clothes are made in sweatshops and cost five sense, and so those are the two things that in the uncompromise the business. And also she knocked off a bunch She had some really egregious copyrights of shoes and different products where she was getting sued by retailer who are like, um, this is my shoe, my actual shoe. So it wasn't huge success story. What about does it make you squeamish at all? Is there is there something when you have her wearing one of her dresses to the inauguration or having wearing a bracelet that then people promote and her brand promotes and says, look at her wearing Is it turning the White House into QVC? Oh? Definitely. I mean I think she stopped doing that because well, she had to shut down her brand basically, but that was because people weren't buying, right, But how did she do it in the first place? I mean, how can you do in the first place? Yeah, I think there was big learning curves and everybody at the beginning thought this is great. I mean you have to remote right. They didn't think they were going to win, so they were like, oh my god, this is the best branding opportunity ever, although she was also simultaneously, oh my god, what's going to happen to my company because this is maybe not the best branding for me. But like, that was not a super happy time for Avanka, having the whole world bash her dad, thinking that her business is about to go to crap, and being nine months pregnant on the campaign trail. I think that was not the great, not the great moment for her. But all worked out, whoa because she's got more money than ever before. But yeah, but as a businesswoman, that's the thing is is that what can she do under her name now? And I'm not sure she can do that much. She can't put out shoes again, she can't put out Ivanka Trump housewears. Really, she's going to be kind of stuck in the gross oligarch funded real estate space. I believe. And why do you think she can't do it? Why couldn't she relaunch a line? You can't do it in America? Right? She can't do because her brand is too disliked, you think, I think her brand is too disliked. I think if she couldn't have a normal, small clothing company that would do okay during her dad getting pressed every single man out of the debt. I don't think she can have a bigger company when she leaves, and she's going to want to do something really big. And do you feel bad for her at all? I mean, is this that all the tale of somebody who worked really hard to build a business, admittably taking advantage of opportunity she was given, but had it taken away? Or is this somebody who benefited from the position she was in and then put herself in a position where she could lose everything she'd built. I think that it's hard to feel bad for her. I tried to take her seriously and as a person and a child growing up with this person as your father, So I did feel bad for her at certain times, But ultimately you have to say like, you make your own choices in life, and she's chosen to align herself with him, come hell or high water. So I think that she never would have gotten anything. Really without him, she would have gotten She would have been fine. She could have a great corporate lawyer. She probably could have been a good marketer for the Disney Company. I mean, she's smart, she could have done a bunch of different things. But she never would have had the bold faced life without him, and he gave her that, and for the price of that was like her soul a little bit. So I mean she's fully I think, just sold out for him, whether or not her personal feelings are about politics are somewhat different, and believe from things I hear that they still are. Her anger at other people dissing her family is so great that it's kind of clouded her judgment on anything to do with social policies, or doesn't she doesn't understand the anger. She feels radically defensive than no. I mean, she's just as thin skinned as he is, she just shows it differently. She can't take criticism at all. So she was completely devastated by everybody being so mean to her the first year, and now she kind of lives in a bubble where she tries not to look at all that stuff. One of the most hilarious things I found is like I looked at her Instagram account because I was just like, who does she follow here? And she followed thirty seven fam accounts of herself like the Ways of Vanka Avanca forever does And I was like, a never ending reflection of yourself in an Instagram mirror, right, Like, of course when she goes on Instagram, she doesn't want to see people being like dear Avanca, Like all those socialite girls posted like dear Avanka, you follow me on Instagram? Like I want to say that your father's disgusting. She unfollowed all of them, But she's going to follow accounts where like they're pictures of her like stepping off of Air Force one and like she looks so pretty and she creates her own reality. I mean, she just like him, She creates her own reality. That's a very telling anecdote. Yeah, so what do you think about the controversy about these licensing deals? So she got these licenses in China that are really hard to get at the same time as her business is being closed down. Are people making too much of this, and there for like voting machines and childcare centers, all this sort of weird. She doesn't have a business in the US after this is over, but she uses her name for all sorts of money making ventures outside of the US. I think that's probably part of what happens. But like Paris Hilton is bigger in Japan than she is here. There are people who do that, and like Jennifer Aniston I'm sure is on like a billboard and saiduan like province right now. So like, I think that what's weird about it is the timing of those things that they were clearly being done, like oh, we give to the favored daughter, we'll give these fighting traf we'll give these trades. Those just something. It's so blatant, and you would think that if she was Chelsea Clinton, first of all, she wouldn't have applied, But second of all, she would be like, I'm going to give these back because I don't want anybody to think that this political. But of course Avanca is like, no, why would I give it back? I got it, and of itself is really telling to It does seem to me to be incredibly blatant. Even if it was too totally separate tracks than just the appearance. You just don't do that to you. Yeah, but they think that they can talk their way out of anything and cover up anything, and they have been able to or or that people won't care, and that by the time they're out of office and she's making money from tildcare centers and wherever, it won't Ivanka Trump branded whatever, it won't. It won't matter exactly, It just won't matter. I Mean, it's the kind of thing of the Ukraine impeachment scandal is like now, like you know, the Republicans being like, how can you even remember? You can't even keep these guys names straight. It's a most unsexy impeachment ever. Whatever people are going to forget, you know, all unsexy relative to Clinton's, right, I mean literally literally, So I'm not sure that was exactly sexy, but whatever, We're not going to go down that track. Yeah, but yeah, I thought there's this great quote from this guy, know a BookFinder who's the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, and he wrote about these licensing deals. It raises significant questions about corruption, as it invites the possible ability that she could be benefiting financially from her position in her father's presidency, or that she could be influenced in her policy work by country's treatment of her business right, and both of those facets are true. And in a way, it's the more you think about this, I mean you sort of shrug your shoulders and you think licensing deals, and then the more you look at it, the more you think, no, no, it's just not okay. Yeah, And that's just the things we know about. One can assume that there's all sorts of stock swaps and under the table stuff that's happened, or just like kind of wink wink agreements. I mean, she and Jared have Now they're on first name cell phone basis with all the leaders of the world, all the leaders of major companies in the world. Who knows what exactly they've been amassing. I think it's very clear that they didn't go into politics with a sense of social responsibility or even things they really want to get done, other than Jared having obviously an international interest in Israel place in the world. But I talked to people who had had She used to have these little dinner parties at her house and like Chelsea Clinton even went once and it was very curated. Ten people never any talk about politics. As somebody said to me who used to be friends with her in her twenties, used to go around in the car with her and her dad and it's like I was like, did they talk about politics? And she was like, no, they just talked about other people's money, like that's what they talked about. So I don't think she's not money grubbing in the way that she's like, I need a Jaguar. It's really about power, I think, for both of them, and trying to have vengeance on the world that tried to bring down their fathers, because I remember Jared's dad, of course went to prison for this very sordid scheme with his brother, and Ivanca watched people making fun of Trump her entire life basically, So they really have this idea of legacy and power and it goes way deeper than just money, and I think it's almost hard for people going to understand that. I don't think that's so interestcause I think so many of these corporate scandals, it's not money as greed, you know, money as the desire to go buy a new car, have a private island. It's not money as greed, it's money as ego, it's money as power in this case, money as vengeance. Almost totally right. And that's why I thought of Vanka's childhood was so interesting because ultimately, really that adage that successful people tend to come from these really messed up parents, she too came from very withholding father. She too has been always trying to get his praise. And it's not the story that they say that she was the apple of his eye forever and ever, and that's really what drives her. And the relationship with Jared was very much about see dad, I got a real real estate guy because his family is really in real estate. They weren't in licensing their names, right, That's about it. Yeah, yeah, Oh that's interesting. I had not thought of that interpretation of their relationship. And then what's going on now? She talks a lot about wanting to cook meals for Jared and how she learned how to cook for him blah blah blah. And so they have kind of a traditional male female relationship where he is more involved obviously in like day to day administrative stuff in the White House. And is it genuine? Do you think or is it another form of branding. A lot of people who said to me that they believe the only thing that's genuine about the two of them is the relationship and that they really are devoted to each other and they really are like one mind and they consult each other. I mean, it's the kind of Chivroy and Tom is that his name? Like that? Yeah, her husband character on Succession. It's that kind of idea right where they can't make moves without consulting each other. But Ivanka and Jared are much more canny and smart. So I don't know. I'm fascinated to find out what she does after the White House. And I was just going to ask it's so interesting because you can't you almost can't even imagine what it would be, what exactly could this possibly be? And I think some people have talked talked about her going to Palm Beach to basically, if she wants to run for office, she can't run from New York, but she could live in Palm Beach and she could run from Florida. That would make a lot of sense. Maybe just going to Florida in general, to Chilax for a couple of years. Let everybody kind of to think, is that the new thing to do when you find yourself with a demolished reputation In New York Day, Sackler just moved for Florida baby. Okay, Florida baby. Yeah, because of Florida, they don't care, you know, like in Florida, like, as long as you like didn't kill your mom, you're welcome at the country club. So I mean. But also, she has a lot of friends in Palm Beach. Her friends that she's still friends with are a lot of them are like, we're doing that wintertime Palm Beach thing with her. So you know, I don't know. I can't imagine her trying to stand on her own two feet and run for office. But there are many people who believe the rumor that went around that she and Jared had had a conversation about one of them would run and decided it would be her and she would be the first female president and blah blah blah blah blah, and like it makes sense when you think about it, because it isn't. She needs to be the idea of her just retiring and being on a yacht in the Mediterranean and just being part of the crowd of rich people who have money but don't have overt power. Doesn't seems highly It seems highly unlikely. Given how given I think you're really wise point about how she's sought to use money, then it seems highly unlikely that that money alone would ever be enough exciting for him either. Yeah, which, as if they're of one mind, then he'd almost rather be in the background, right and let her be the public persona exactly, but which is also sort of a weird replay of her relationship with her father in a way. Right, not to psychoanalyze too much, but there's but there's something, there's something, there's something interesting there. Yeah. Absolutely. Do you think there's any way that she would just take her considerable acumen and smarts and just go do something quiet, either public service oriented or some sort of small, straightforward business. I really don't. I really don't. I think she's addicted to attention. She's like a total narcissist. She needs people to be talking about her. She needs to be at the center of the chaos, whatever it is. And I don't think that she would think that that would make her father happy, Jill. I mean, it's a really interesting question of what happens to the Trump organization. The brothers aren't going to really run it. What is Donald's going to do? I think international real estate expansion is the most obvious. Now they can build hotels in all these places, and they realize they got away with it once, they can just keep going. Has there ever been, as you've thought back through previous presidencies, has there ever been such a nexus of business and political power before? And it's sort of interesting because we talk a lot about chronic capitalism, and you know, whether it's the bank bailout in two thousand and eight, the unholy relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and the government. But then we're kind of living that with our president right in terms of this use of the White House as part of his brand and part of his daughter's brand. And I'm trying to think if there's any kind of parallel in American history for that intertwining of these. I really don't think there is. For her, there was no daughter who had an actual West Wing office, like there were daughters who became very involved with our dads, and particularly if the mom didn't want to deal or like stepped back a little bit, being hostesses or even like running different initiatives. But I think it's just part of what's happened with this presidency is that we've crossed over into like the capitalist presidency, and like more than that, it's the grifter presidency, where there was really no interest except what they can get out of this that you know, at least people pretend that they have interests in actually helping people or changing policies, like Trump's only interest in policies. Does like get made a better real estate deal? Yep? Do I get more money from that? And then yes, let's make it an opportunity zoning. It's in many ways I'm thinking about a sign at the times because they're so little trust in business right now, precisely because it is so people can see how deeply woven with interwoven with politics it is and how corrupt that makes it. And so in some ways it makes perfect sense that would have a first family that's using their position in the White House to benefit their business interests, because that's the kind of ultimate apex of this thought. Right. Yeah. Absolutely, they're like our fun house mirror in a way. They're like reflecting back the most extreme version of what we're already involved in That is a perfect note to end on and thank you so much for being here. It was fun. Thanks Bethany, what fun. Vanessa and I have known each other for years via Vanity Fair, but we've never talked about a story together. The conversation made me think about the importance of foundations. Without a good foundation, there is literally no stability. On one level, I feel for Avonca it would be no fun to build a business just to have it fall apart due to politics. On the other hand, if you build a business based on something that isn't entirely yours to begin with, namely your father's reputation, and then you try to amplify it via effectively chrony capitalism, well maybe it ended the way it should, at least for now. Making a Killing is a co production of Pushkin Industries and chalkin Blade. It's produced by Ruth Barnes and Laura Hyde. My executive producers are Alison mcclein no relation in Making Casey. The executive producer at Pushkin is Mia Loebell. Engineering by Jason Rastkowski. Our music is by Jed Flood. Special thanks to Jacob Weisberg at Pushkin and everyone on the show I'm Bethany mclein. So much for listening. Find me on Twitter at Bethany mac twelve and let me know which episodes you've most enjoyed.