PARASITOLOGY
LEVIN REPORTJARED KUSHNER AND IVANKA TRUMP ARE ALREADY WORKING ON THEIR NEXT GRIFT
The duo is advising a new group with “the mission of perpetuating former president Trump’s populist policies.”
BY BESS LEVIN APRIL 13, 2021
VANITY FAIR, HIVE
PARASITES AT NUREMBURG
Attending a joint news conference with German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, in the East Room of the White House.BY ANDREW HARNIK/A.P. IMAGES.
Since departing Washington for Miami back in January, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have maintained relatively low profiles. Oh, sure, Kushner penned an op-ed in which he offered Joe Biden some unsolicited foreign policy advice, and Trump has made herself readily available for the paparazzi to catch her jogging with Kushner, eating ice cream with her kids, and pointing at things with her assistant. But otherwise, it’s been unusually quiet on the Javanka front. And that’s probably by design as the couple attempts to rehab their image and shake off the taint of the last four years in general and the January 6 insurrection specifically, not to mention the unfortunate press that comes after forcing one’s Secret Service detail to go to extreme lengths to “find a bathroom.”
Of course, as a couple of people who see themselves returning to the White House in a presidential capacity—they’ve already determined Trump will be the first woman POTUS—the duo are no doubt planning their next moves behind the scenes, and on Tuesday, one of the projects they’ve been working on was revealed.
Per Axios:
A constellation of [Donald] Trump administration stars today will launch the America First Policy Institute, a 35-person nonprofit group with a first-year budget of $20 million and the mission of perpetuating former president Trump’s populist policies…. Two top Trump alumni tell me AFPI is by far the largest pro-Trump outside group, besides Trump’s own Florida–based machine. In the coming months, the group plans to take a large office space near the U.S. Capitol as a symbol that it’ll fight to be a muscular, well-heeled center of the future of conservatism…. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are informal advisers.
The president and CEO is Brooke Rollins, a Texan who was head of Trump’s Domestic Policy Council. Rollins, who met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last week to update him on plans for the group, told me the group wants to be “dreamers and…risk-takers.” The board chair is Linda McMahon, who was a member of Trump’s Cabinet as the administrator of the Small Business Administration, after winning fame as a pro-wrestling entrepreneur. The vice chair is Larry Kudlow, Trump’s economic adviser, a longtime CNBC personality who's now a Fox Business host. AFPI—now based in the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia—has been in the planning stages since December. The group will also have offices in Fort Worth, where Rollins remains based, Miami, and New York. Rollins plans to move the group to Washington to be closer to the action.
Rollins told Axios she hopes the group’s budget will double to $40 million in 2022. It’s not clear how AFPI plans to fundraise, though if it‘s anything like how Trump’s campaign did it, it’ll be wildly underhanded and deceitful. Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that over the course of the 2020 election, Team Trump ripped off unwitting supporters for tens of millions of dollars through a simple yet extremely shady scheme in which the default option for donations authorized the campaign to transfer the pledged amount from people’s bank accounts not once, but every single week. Later, the campaign introduced a second prechecked box that doubled a person’s contribution and was known internally as a “money bomb.” In order for people to have noticed this before it was too late, they would have had to wade through “lines of text in bold and capital letters that overwhelmed the opt-out language,” the Times wrote. Few people did, and in the final two and half months of 2020, the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, and their shared accounts were forced to issue a staggering 530,000 refunds worth $64.3 million to online donors. Days later, the Times reported that the political arm of the House Republicans had upped the ante re: bilking supporters, with a truly psychotic prechecked box that warned “If you UNCHECK this box, we will have to tell Trump you’re a DEFECTOR.”
In other Trump fundraising ploys, a significant portion of the money the ex-president’s legal defense fund raised—ostensibly for 2020 election suits—went to his Save America super PAC, which he can tap to pay for all kinds of personal expenses. But we’re sure this group will be entirely above board and legit. Ivanka and Jared would never be involved with something that wasn’t.
Since departing Washington for Miami back in January, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have maintained relatively low profiles. Oh, sure, Kushner penned an op-ed in which he offered Joe Biden some unsolicited foreign policy advice, and Trump has made herself readily available for the paparazzi to catch her jogging with Kushner, eating ice cream with her kids, and pointing at things with her assistant. But otherwise, it’s been unusually quiet on the Javanka front. And that’s probably by design as the couple attempts to rehab their image and shake off the taint of the last four years in general and the January 6 insurrection specifically, not to mention the unfortunate press that comes after forcing one’s Secret Service detail to go to extreme lengths to “find a bathroom.”
Of course, as a couple of people who see themselves returning to the White House in a presidential capacity—they’ve already determined Trump will be the first woman POTUS—the duo are no doubt planning their next moves behind the scenes, and on Tuesday, one of the projects they’ve been working on was revealed.
Per Axios:
A constellation of [Donald] Trump administration stars today will launch the America First Policy Institute, a 35-person nonprofit group with a first-year budget of $20 million and the mission of perpetuating former president Trump’s populist policies…. Two top Trump alumni tell me AFPI is by far the largest pro-Trump outside group, besides Trump’s own Florida–based machine. In the coming months, the group plans to take a large office space near the U.S. Capitol as a symbol that it’ll fight to be a muscular, well-heeled center of the future of conservatism…. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are informal advisers.
The president and CEO is Brooke Rollins, a Texan who was head of Trump’s Domestic Policy Council. Rollins, who met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last week to update him on plans for the group, told me the group wants to be “dreamers and…risk-takers.” The board chair is Linda McMahon, who was a member of Trump’s Cabinet as the administrator of the Small Business Administration, after winning fame as a pro-wrestling entrepreneur. The vice chair is Larry Kudlow, Trump’s economic adviser, a longtime CNBC personality who's now a Fox Business host. AFPI—now based in the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia—has been in the planning stages since December. The group will also have offices in Fort Worth, where Rollins remains based, Miami, and New York. Rollins plans to move the group to Washington to be closer to the action.
Rollins told Axios she hopes the group’s budget will double to $40 million in 2022. It’s not clear how AFPI plans to fundraise, though if it‘s anything like how Trump’s campaign did it, it’ll be wildly underhanded and deceitful. Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that over the course of the 2020 election, Team Trump ripped off unwitting supporters for tens of millions of dollars through a simple yet extremely shady scheme in which the default option for donations authorized the campaign to transfer the pledged amount from people’s bank accounts not once, but every single week. Later, the campaign introduced a second prechecked box that doubled a person’s contribution and was known internally as a “money bomb.” In order for people to have noticed this before it was too late, they would have had to wade through “lines of text in bold and capital letters that overwhelmed the opt-out language,” the Times wrote. Few people did, and in the final two and half months of 2020, the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, and their shared accounts were forced to issue a staggering 530,000 refunds worth $64.3 million to online donors. Days later, the Times reported that the political arm of the House Republicans had upped the ante re: bilking supporters, with a truly psychotic prechecked box that warned “If you UNCHECK this box, we will have to tell Trump you’re a DEFECTOR.”
In other Trump fundraising ploys, a significant portion of the money the ex-president’s legal defense fund raised—ostensibly for 2020 election suits—went to his Save America super PAC, which he can tap to pay for all kinds of personal expenses. But we’re sure this group will be entirely above board and legit. Ivanka and Jared would never be involved with something that wasn’t.
Ivanka and Jared Are “Advisers” to New Cash-Flush Right-Wing Think Tank
Zachary Petrizzo is a staff writer at Salon. He previously covered politics at Mediaite and The Daily Dot. Follow him on Twitter: @ZTPetrizzo.
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump arrive with family at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida, on June 18, 2019.JOE BURBANK / ORLANDO SENTINEL / TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE VIA GETTY IMAGES
PUBLISHED April 16, 2021
On Tuesday, it was reported that a group of former advisers to Donald Trump, with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s guidance, would launch a new right-wing nonprofit aimed at “perpetuating former President Trump’s populist policies,” according to Axios. The new foundation is just the latest in a long string of recent announcements about Trump-centered think-tank-style organizations popping up in Washington aimed at doing Trump’s bidding, all while the former president attempts to maintain control of the Republican Party from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
The new nonprofit America First Policy Institute, which lists Ivanka Trump and Kushner as “informal advisors,” will boast a 35-person crew with an operating budget of $20 million in its first year. In a flashy ad, the group claims it will be “the heart of [an] effort” to save the “soul of this country.”
The group’s noteworthy hires include former Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow, who will serve as the organization’s vice chair, former Trump Energy Secretary Rick Perry and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. “In the coming months, the group plans to take a large office space near the U.S. Capitol as a symbol that it’ll fight to be a muscular, well-heeled center of the future of conservatism,” Axios further reported.
Furthermore, the group seemingly seeks to impact conversations in the nation’s capital the very same way the conservative think-tank heavyweight, The Heritage Foundation, has long done in D.C. policy, potentially sparking a rivalry between the two non-profits. Heritage recently hired former Vice President Mike Pence, but it remains to be seen exactly how it will seek to influence policy on Capitol Hill in a post-Trump era.
Asked by Salon about the new pro-Trump group, Heritage vice president of communications Rob Bluey said his organization looks forward to working with America First Policy. “The Heritage Foundation congratulates the talented team at America First Policy Institute and we look forward to working with them on a range of policy issues. Heritage already has strong relationships with many of America First Policy Institute’s leaders, including Brooke Rollins, from their service in the Trump administration,” Bluey told Salon via email on Thursday. “Heritage has a long history of cooperating on policy solutions with conservative organizations. The America First Policy Institute and the other new conservative groups in Washington are welcome allies. It’s more important than ever to work together on positive solutions for the American people while also countering the left-wing agenda from the White House and woke corporations.”
While the America First Policy Institute appears to be the largest and most prominent pro-Trump think tank to emerge since the former president left office, there are a series of other groups in D.C. being launched. Pence announced in early April that he would start his own think tank called Advancing American Freedom, alongside such Trump allies as Kudlow and Kellyanne Conway. “Advancing American Freedom plans to build on the success of the last four years by promoting traditional Conservative values and promoting the successful policies of the Trump Administration,” Pence said in a statement upon the group’s launch.
Another group that looks to shape a post-Trump Washington includes a legal enterprise founded by anti-immigration Trump adviser Stephen Miller, the America First Legal Foundation, which aims to give the Biden administration headaches in the courts. “Those who believe in America First must not shy away from using our legal system to defend our society and our families from any unlawful actions by the left,” Miller said in a statement on the group’s launch. “Those looking to hold the new administration in Washington to account finally have their answer. Our self-imposed policy of legal disarmament is now over.” Miller’s group says it will aim to hamstring the Democratic agenda by creating a coalition of attorneys and state attorney generals dedicated to stalling or stopping Biden’s policies from being implemented.
The new Trump organizations come on the heels of the apparent collapse of Charlie Kirk and Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Falkirk Center at Liberty University, amid the growing scandal around Falwell that has driven away Kirk and several other pro-Trump figures. “Now, less than two years later, Falkirk’s high-profile founders are gone, and Liberty is rethinking the center’s future in a post-Trump world,” The New York Times reported.
Although The Falkirk Center claimed to be a conservative think tank, it has operated more as a communications firm, fixated on cable news hits on Fox News and having its “Falkirk fellows” promote the center on social media. That said, it often appears that right-wing media is precisely where conservative discussions of policy occur, although often boiled down to the most simplistic and incendiary talking points.
On Tuesday, it was reported that a group of former advisers to Donald Trump, with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s guidance, would launch a new right-wing nonprofit aimed at “perpetuating former President Trump’s populist policies,” according to Axios. The new foundation is just the latest in a long string of recent announcements about Trump-centered think-tank-style organizations popping up in Washington aimed at doing Trump’s bidding, all while the former president attempts to maintain control of the Republican Party from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
The new nonprofit America First Policy Institute, which lists Ivanka Trump and Kushner as “informal advisors,” will boast a 35-person crew with an operating budget of $20 million in its first year. In a flashy ad, the group claims it will be “the heart of [an] effort” to save the “soul of this country.”
The group’s noteworthy hires include former Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow, who will serve as the organization’s vice chair, former Trump Energy Secretary Rick Perry and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. “In the coming months, the group plans to take a large office space near the U.S. Capitol as a symbol that it’ll fight to be a muscular, well-heeled center of the future of conservatism,” Axios further reported.
Furthermore, the group seemingly seeks to impact conversations in the nation’s capital the very same way the conservative think-tank heavyweight, The Heritage Foundation, has long done in D.C. policy, potentially sparking a rivalry between the two non-profits. Heritage recently hired former Vice President Mike Pence, but it remains to be seen exactly how it will seek to influence policy on Capitol Hill in a post-Trump era.
Asked by Salon about the new pro-Trump group, Heritage vice president of communications Rob Bluey said his organization looks forward to working with America First Policy. “The Heritage Foundation congratulates the talented team at America First Policy Institute and we look forward to working with them on a range of policy issues. Heritage already has strong relationships with many of America First Policy Institute’s leaders, including Brooke Rollins, from their service in the Trump administration,” Bluey told Salon via email on Thursday. “Heritage has a long history of cooperating on policy solutions with conservative organizations. The America First Policy Institute and the other new conservative groups in Washington are welcome allies. It’s more important than ever to work together on positive solutions for the American people while also countering the left-wing agenda from the White House and woke corporations.”
While the America First Policy Institute appears to be the largest and most prominent pro-Trump think tank to emerge since the former president left office, there are a series of other groups in D.C. being launched. Pence announced in early April that he would start his own think tank called Advancing American Freedom, alongside such Trump allies as Kudlow and Kellyanne Conway. “Advancing American Freedom plans to build on the success of the last four years by promoting traditional Conservative values and promoting the successful policies of the Trump Administration,” Pence said in a statement upon the group’s launch.
Another group that looks to shape a post-Trump Washington includes a legal enterprise founded by anti-immigration Trump adviser Stephen Miller, the America First Legal Foundation, which aims to give the Biden administration headaches in the courts. “Those who believe in America First must not shy away from using our legal system to defend our society and our families from any unlawful actions by the left,” Miller said in a statement on the group’s launch. “Those looking to hold the new administration in Washington to account finally have their answer. Our self-imposed policy of legal disarmament is now over.” Miller’s group says it will aim to hamstring the Democratic agenda by creating a coalition of attorneys and state attorney generals dedicated to stalling or stopping Biden’s policies from being implemented.
The new Trump organizations come on the heels of the apparent collapse of Charlie Kirk and Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Falkirk Center at Liberty University, amid the growing scandal around Falwell that has driven away Kirk and several other pro-Trump figures. “Now, less than two years later, Falkirk’s high-profile founders are gone, and Liberty is rethinking the center’s future in a post-Trump world,” The New York Times reported.
Although The Falkirk Center claimed to be a conservative think tank, it has operated more as a communications firm, fixated on cable news hits on Fox News and having its “Falkirk fellows” promote the center on social media. That said, it often appears that right-wing media is precisely where conservative discussions of policy occur, although often boiled down to the most simplistic and incendiary talking points.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout
Zachary Petrizzo is a staff writer at Salon. He previously covered politics at Mediaite and The Daily Dot. Follow him on Twitter: @ZTPetrizzo.
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