Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are ‘grifters in the White House,’ says Ronald Reagan’s son

The son of the 40th president says Donald Trump’s daughter and son-in-law have ‘no qualifications whatsoever to work in the White House.’

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner look on as US President Donald Trump, places a wreath on the Grave of the Unknown Warrior during a tour of Westminster Abbey in central London, on day one of his state visit to the UK. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Monday June 3, 2019. See PA story ROYAL Trump. Photo credit should read: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

By MARTHA ROSS | mross@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: October 20, 2020

As the son of the late Ronald Reagan, Ron Reagan certainly knows something about the role of adult children in a president’s political life and administration. One key thing, as he says in a CNN interview: They shouldn’t be working in the White House.

But Reagan also goes further when asked what he thinks about Donald Trump giving his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, jobs as senior advisers in his administration.

“Well, they’re certainly entitled to go campaign for their dad,” Reagan said of Trump’s children. “My eldest brother and sister did that, and there’s nothing wrong with that. When you cross the line is — I hate to say it here and I don’t mean to be blunt — but we’ve got a bunch of grifters there in the White House. They’re treating this as a grift.”

Ex-president's son calls out Trump's kids: They have no qualifications for their WH roles
CNN

Ron Reagan, son of former President Ronald Reagan and former first lady Nancy Reagan, tells CNN's Ana Cabrera that his father would "be horrified" by the Republican Party of today. He added that the Trump children are profiting off of their father's presidency as "grifters.

Reagan, the son of the 40th president and his wife, Nancy Reagan, explains his “grifter” statement by saying the Trump family is “mixing business with pleasure” or “business with statecraft.”

“They’re using the hotels and the golf clubs to profit off the presidency,” he said. “Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have no qualifications whatsoever to be in the position they’re in. Zero. Zip. And they’re using it to make money, basically.”

The non-partisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) has documented multiple instances of potentially unethical conduct and conflicts of interest by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the Daily Beast reported. The conduct ranges from Ivanka Trump receiving trademarks from the Chinese government while her father was in talks with the Chinese president to a complaint CREW filed with the U.S. Justice Department in 2019, asking it to look into whether the couple violated federal law by profiting from a tax program they had championed.

CREW’s Executive Director Noah Bookbinder explained in 2019: “Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have continued to conduct themselves in ways that create a real possibility that they are capitalizing on their roles as government officials to enrich themselves.”

Ron Reagan Jr., son of former President Ronald Reagan touches the casket of his father during his speech on June 11, 2004 in Simi Valley, California. Reagan died of pneumonia due to complications with Alzheimer’s at age 93 at his home in California and will be laid to rest at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on June 11 in Simi Valley, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

Ron Reagan famously departed from his conservative icon father on politics, although he didn’t speak out on his liberal views until after his father left the White House in 1989. Reagan is an atheist who has worked as a liberal political commentator and MSNBC contributor, and he was outspoken about his opposition to George W. Bush’s presidency, speaking at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

More recently, he has called Trump “a traitorous president who is betraying his country.” In a 2020 interview with the Daily Beast, Reagan said his father would not want Republicans voting for Trump.

“The Republican party at this point, for a whole host of reasons to do with Donald Trump, is an entirely illegitimate political party just made up of a bunch of sycophantic traitors mouthing Kremlin propaganda to defend this squalid little man who is occupying the White House,” Reagan told the Daily Beast.

“This is a dying party,” he said. “They either have to remake themselves entirely or they will disappear eventually. Within a decade the Republican Party will be a minor fringe group if it continues going this way.”

Reagan repeated these sentiments about the Republican party in his interview with CNN, saying his father would be “horrified” by what the party has become under the leadership of Trump.

Ron Reagan

 

JIM SPELLMAN/WIREIMAGE  "PROUD ATHEIST NOT AFRAID OF GOING TO HELL"

“The spinelessness in the face of this pathological entity in the White House right now would shock him,” Reagan said.

“Donald Trump has done a tremendous amount of damage to this party,” he said. “When I think of my father, I think of words like ‘integrity,’ ‘decency,’ ‘dignity,’ ‘honor,’ and ‘patriotism.’ Not nationalism, but patriotism. All of those qualities are in very short supply in this White House, and frankly, the Republican party has been complicit in degrading those values.”

Nonetheless, Reagan said Republicans today shouldn’t look back to the time of his father, but toward the future.

“It’s going to be a dark road or it’s gonna be a more progressive road,” he said. “So I don’t think going back to the days of Ronald Reagan is the answer for the Republican party, but they don’t have much else. They really don’t have much else.”