Donald Trump will not find satisfaction as the 45th President of the United States of America. He really wants to be king. Just look at the gilded-bling madness of his penthouse on the 66th floor of Trump Tower in Manhattan, or the sprawling exuberance of his holiday palace in Mar-a-Lago, Florida: Trump aspires to be an American emperor, the Big Mac Rex with triple cheese. Winning the White House is great, but it’s not enough.
Trump now seems determined to treat the Oval Office as just one of his courts — the principal court, perhaps, at least for four years, but one of many. He wants to lord it over Washington DC in partnership with his daughter princess, Ivanka, and her dashing husband, Mr Jared Kushner.
Hear Freddy Gray discuss the court of King Donald on the Spectator podcast
Trump’s loyal third wife, Melania, intends to stay in New York to look after Barron, their ten-year-old princeling, at least until he leaves prep school. She will rule the roost from there. Jared and Ivanka, by contrast, have severed their business ties in the Big Apple — officially, at least — and are moving to Washington. They will quickly become the capital’s most powerful couple. In Melania’s absence, Ivanka will perform a lot of ceremonial first-lady duties, much as Anna Roosevelt did for her father because FDR’s brilliant wife, Eleanor, was too busy being a political operator.
In Donald’s head, Ivanka is far more than, as he puts it, ‘one of the great beauties of the world’. He loves her brains, her poise, and her personalised global brand. She is said to be his closest adviser, his ‘Svengali’ and supposedly played the part of ‘proxy wife’ during the election campaign when Melania was unavailable. Trump believes she would make a tremendous vice -president.
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