TRUMP PEOPLE/IVANKA/JARED KUSHNER: “By one measurement, last week was a good one for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
President Donald Trump’s daughter and son-in-law had been double-teaming for weeks to persuade him to oust chief of staff Reince Priebus, pushing for a new chief who could ‘professionalize the West Wing,’ according to multiple White House officials. On Friday, Trump finally announced he’d replace Priebus with John Kelly, his secretary of Homeland Security, starting Monday [7-31-17].
That victory followed Trump’s appointment a week earlier of financier Anthony Scaramucci, a campaign surrogate and donor, as communications director, a move the couple also strongly supported.
But if Ivanka Trump and Kushner, socially liberal former Democratic donors, remain influential voices with Trump on personnel decisions, they have so far had little effect on his policies.
Last week they were blindsided by the president’s tweet saying he planned to ban transgender people from serving in the military, according to several White House aides, a major coup for conservatives who had been quietly lobbying the administration on the issue for months.
White House officials said the first daughter was surprised by her father’s posts; in the past, Trump has been a supporter of gay rights. Ivanka Trump, according to these officials, learned of the decision when she saw her father’s tweet on her phone.”
-Annie Karni and Eliana Johnson, “Ivanka and Jared find their limits in Trump’s White House,” Politico, July 30, 2017 06:38pm