A new book based on interviews purportedly coming from White House insiders has claimed that Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, the daughter and son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, struck a deal when they came to Washington that she would one day run for president.
The book, titled "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House," said Ivanka and Jared had discussed her ambitions to be America’s first female president when serving at the White House after the 2016 election. The book went on sale on Friday.
Based on more than 200 interviews with Trump and his staff, the book claimed that the couple accepted posts as advisers in the Oval Office “over the advice of almost everyone they knew” in the hope that Trump’s presidency “would catapult them into a heretofore unimagined big time.”
“It was a joint decision by the couple, and, in some sense, a joint job,” said Michael Wolff, the book’s author. “Between themselves, the two had made an earnest deal: If sometime in the future the opportunity arose, she’d be the one to run for president.”
“The first woman president, Ivanka entertained, would not be Hillary Clinton; it would be Ivanka Trump,” an excerpt from the book read.
The book also points to the feud between former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and Trump’s elder daughter and her husband.
"Bannon, who had coined the term 'Jarvanka' that was now in ever greater use in the White House, was horrified when the couple's deal was reported to him,” it noted.
“They didn’t say that?” Bannon is reported to have said, adding, “Stop. Oh, come on. They didn’t actually say that? Please don’t tell me that. Oh my God.”
Trump’s former chief strategist had previously blamed Ivanka and her husband for being “railhead of all bad decisions” in the White House.
Ivanka worked for her billionaire father's company before Trump was elected president and is now an unpaid White House adviser. She has been accused in the US of benefiting from nepotism.
Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was also appointed as a senior White House adviser by the president. Neither have previous government experience.
Trump has faced a furious backlash from political opponents and ethics experts for placing his children in positions of power.