WASHINGTON – First ladies aren’t always presidential spouses. In fact, two early uses of the title refer to the beautiful, popular Harriet Lane, niece of James Buchanan, the only lifelong bachelor president. She was an able hostess who, not long before the Civil War, arranged for Northern and Southern guests to be seated apart at a White House function in order to keep the peace. Harper’s Weekly called her “Our Lady of the White House.”
So as we learn that Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump’s oldest daughter, arranged a meeting between the president-elect and former vice president Al Gore; that she and husband Jared Kushner are reportedly house-hunting in Washington; and that Ivanka is rumoured to be looking at White House office space, it’s pretty fair to say she isn’t breaking completely new ground.
There is no job description, so like other first ladies, Ivanka can define her position — and it looks like the gig is hers. She can choose to advocate for nonpartisan causes as Laura Bush and Michelle Obama did, or she can do what Hillary Clinton did and set up in the White House’s West Wing and serve as a de facto policy consultant.
Ivanka, however, appears poised to be adviser, advocate and hostess all at once. Which could revolutionize the role — and make her the most powerful first lady ever.
“Ivanka and Jared and Don Jr. are more influential than any Cabinet member,” a friend of the Trumps said recently, referring to the first daughter, her husband and her older brother. And given Ivanka’s enthusiasm on the campaign trail and her understanding of the ways of official Washington — in contrast to her stepmother’s apparent indifference — it’s not only conceivable that she’ll be the incoming administration’s titular first lady, she’ll redefine the position by expanding it in ways that will make it almost unrecognizable.
Rosalynn Carter clearly remembered the uproar over her decision to sit in on her husband’s Cabinet meetings, even though she did so without saying a word. Then, first ladies were expected to hide their influence. Ivanka, on the other hand, was at the table this week (along with Don Jr. and brother Eric) when the president-elect met with tech CEOs. And she hasn’t done much to dispel the notion that she and her husband will be top advisers, despite describing her role in the administration to 60 Minutes reporter Leslie Stahl by saying, “I’m going to be a daughter.”
A mix of daughters, nieces and sisters have held the undefined position of first lady through the country’s history. But it has been a century since there was a first lady who was not the president’s wife. The last time it happened was in 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson’s wife died less than two years after his inauguration and their daughter, Margaret, became hostess until President Wilson married Edith Bolling Galt Wilson. Edith would become the most powerful first lady — seen almost as an acting president — after the president suffered a debilitating stroke in 1919, 18 months before he left the White House.
Ivanka probably won’t wield that much unilateral clout, but the breadth of her involvement will be singular.
While she may not always delight in playing hostess, she is intrigued by the potential to serve as an envoy from President Trump to skeptical blue America. She has, after all, already brokered meetings between her father and Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio, two of the country’s most visible environmental activists.
She’s already participated in calls and meetings between Trump and heads of state, including Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Argentine President Mauricio Macri — signalling that her father trusts her diplomatic instincts, but also raising questions about conflicts of interest between her role as a member of the first family and her post in the Trump Organization, which has business dealings in both of those countries.
While it is nothing new for presidential children to give campaign speeches (Lyndon Johnson routinely graded his daughters’ speeches) it is rare to have a presidential daughter so eclipse the president’s wife. Melania made only two big speeches during the campaign. By contrast, Ivanka was a constant presence, travelling the country to places that wouldn’t automatically be seen as likely campaign stops for a glamorous New Yorker, avoiding major gaffes and being widely viewed by political observers as an asset to her father’s political operation.
If Ivanka does move to Washington, she will soon learn why many first ladies found the White House confining, from Bess Truman (who called it the “great white jail”) to Michelle Obama, who once joked that the White House was like a “really nice prison.” So maybe it’s best that Ivanka relishes her incredible position and at least clearly seems to want to be in Washington. When reporters tried to interview Truman, she replied, “You don’t need to know me. I’m only the president’s wife and the mother of his daughter.”
In a Washington Post interview in April, then-candidate Donald Trump described Melania’s reluctance: “We have such a great life. Why do you want to do this?” he said she asked him. He replied with his usual modesty: “I sort of have to do it, I think. I really have to do it.”
Ivanka doesn’t share her stepmother’s reticence. She fits the mould of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, President Theodore Roosevelt’s first daughter, who described herself as “ecstatic” when her father became the 26th president (leaving aside the reason for his sudden succession: President William McKinley’s assassination).
Just as so many were anticipating Bill Clinton’s redefinition of the role of first spouse, maybe Ivanka will force a reconsideration of what being first lady means.
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