As President-elect Donald Trump assembles a senior staff and Cabinet for his second administration, there are notable absences: his children.
Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, were omnipresent in his first term — firmly situated in West Wing offices and often credited with (or blamed for) his decisions.
The 2024 campaign brought a changing of the guard, with Ivanka Trump and Kushner retreating to the sidelines in Florida and Trump’s sons assuming more meaningful roles in the political operation.
Donald Trump Jr. — with an assist from his younger brother Eric — aggressively lobbied his father to pick Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his vice presidential running mate and has asserted himself during the transition. And Trump’s youngest son, Barron, helped devise the podcast-heavy campaign strategy that helped win over young male voters.
None of the sons will join their father at the White House. Trump Jr. is focused on outside interests, including his own podcast. Eric Trump remains in charge of the family’s Trump Organization business holdings. Barron Trump is an 18-year-old college student.
Kushner, meanwhile, offers suggestions behind the scenes and receives calls from incoming members of Trump’s team asking for advice, people familiar with his involvement told NBC News. But neither he nor Ivanka Trump is expected to take on any formal role in the White House.
The couple’s view is that time-consuming jobs in Washington “took a heavy toll” on their family life last time, said a former senior Trump White House official, who, like others, was granted anonymity to share observations about internal and family dynamics. With Trump heading into the new term surrounded by more people he trusts, there’s less urgency for his daughter and son-in-law to join him inside, this person added.
This accounting of the roles Trump’s family members will play in his second administration is based on conversations with 10 people familiar with the dynamics.
For now, the only family members on deck to join the second Trump administration are more distant in-laws. Trump last weekend announced plans to nominate Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, for ambassador to France and to appoint Massad Boulos — the father-in-law of his youngest daughter, Tiffany Trump — as a senior adviser on Arab and Middle East issues.
“President Trump’s family is beloved by the American people,” Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt wrote in an email. “They have endured unprecedented challenges, witch-hunts, and prosecutions and honorably stood by the President-Elect because they believe in his mission to make America great again. Whether formally or informally, the President’s family will always play an important role in his Administration.”
Trump himself has alluded to the scrutiny his family members faced during and after his first administration as a reason he does not want to place them in key positions for the second.
“My family has been through hell,” he said in a June 2023 interview with Fox News.
Those close to Trump and his family say the absence of family members from senior roles reflects several other factors. The wider Republican Party, which eight years ago was full of skeptics who could make mischief for Trump, is fully in sync with him. And the family has a deeper trust in the governing partners and political advisers who now surround Trump.
“Unlike the first time, the entire Republican Party is with them,” a Trump ally said. “So the family does not need to be his team of loyal advisers and gatekeepers.”
A person close to the Trump family concurred.
“The family was so involved last time, in part, because there was a distrust with the campaign people and political people in charge,” this person said. “The biggest thing that’s changed, I think, is that the family feels confident and comfortable with leadership.”
This person added that Trump’s children and his wife, Melania, are particularly confident in incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who co-managed the campaign.
“Susie ran the best of his three campaigns, and she’ll run the best White House that he’s had,” the former senior Trump White House official said. “He had four chiefs of staff. Susie is set up to be the best of all of them.”
Nevertheless, Trump’s children will remain close to and influential in his orbit.
Donald Trump Jr., who kept a busy campaign schedule this year for his father and for down-ballot candidates endorsed by his father, has developed a close relationship with Vance, who is a safe bet to run as the term-limited Trump’s successor in four years.
“We are getting four more years of Trump and then eight years of JD Vance!” Trump Jr. said at an October campaign event for Sen.-elect Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio.
Eric Trump will continue as executive vice president of the Trump Organization and run “every facet of the hotel, golf, commercial, residential, retail and other related holdings,” Kimberly Benza, the company’s director of executive operations and communications, wrote in an email.
His wife, Lara Trump, meanwhile, is a Republican National Committee co-chair. And if Trump world gets its way, she will take the soon-to-be-vacant seat held by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., whom Trump intends to nominate for secretary of state.
Trump family members and key allies like billionaire Elon Musk have publicly pushed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to appoint her as Rubio’s successor — a position that could make her the family member with the most practical political sway early in Trump’s second term.
“I think she understands our base; she understands the movement,” Trump Jr. said in a Fox News interview last month. “You see what’s going on in Florida. I mean, it is a solid red state. We have flipped counties that we lost by 30 and 40 points back in 2016, and they are now positive for Trump.”
DeSantis advisers told NBC News last month that Lara Trump is being considered, but other DeSantis allies are also on the short list. The governor, whose relationship with Trump deteriorated after he challenged him for the GOP presidential nomination this year, could run for president again in 2028. Bypassing Lara Trump for the seat could further alienate him from the Trump base.
“I don’t think there is any question DeSantis knows what the position is,” a Trump ally familiar with the family’s thinking said. “There are two different ways he can go with this, and it will say a lot.”
A changing of the guard
It would be tough to overstate the clout that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner carried during the first Trump administration.
The couple were first among equals, having survived the palace intrigue and infighting that created constant turnover among Trump’s senior aides. While four chiefs of staff came and went, Kushner and Ivanka Trump stayed until the end. Kushner worked out of an office a few paces from the Oval Office, while Ivanka Trump worked from a third-floor office in the West Wing.
Kushner had a broad policy portfolio during Trump’s first administration that ranged from the Middle East to the administration’s pandemic relief efforts. He helped his father-in-law broker the Abraham Accords, a breakthrough in Middle East relations in which Israel normalized relations with various Arab countries.
Now, the president-elect calls Kushner periodically to get his opinion on some potential hires, the former senior White House official said. Kushner has also spent time talking to Steven Witkoff, whom Trump tapped to be special envoy to the Middle East, helping him “get up to speed” on a part of the world that is beset by war, this person added.
His aim is to be “the friend and adviser” to Trump’s new team that he “wished” he had had when he joined the Trump White House in 2017, the former official said.
During the transition, Kushner has weighed in on certain appointments and nominations — one in particular being a plug for private equity executive Marc Rowan to be nominated for treasury secretary, four sources familiar with the conversations said. (Trump instead chose hedge fund executive Scott Bessent.)
When her father launched his most recent White House campaign, Ivanka Trump issued a statement saying she was prioritizing her family and had no plans to return to politics. The couple’s children are ages 8 to 13, and they want to give them a “normal life,” the former official said.
“He is going to run his business and continue to build his family,” a source said of Kushner. “He will, I think, help on things like the Middle East if asked, but he had such a trying experience last time [that] I don’t think he’s interested.”
“It’s not bad blood,” the person added. “He’s just going to be doing other things.”
The son rises
As Ivanka Trump and Kushner faded from the spotlight in recent years, Donald Trump Jr. took a more central role in his father’s political affairs. He and his partner, Kimberly Guilfoyle, have become staples on the GOP campaign trail and fundraising circuit, aggressively promoting candidates close to Trump or tightly in tune with his Make America Great Again movement.
When Trump seemed to be leaning toward North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum for the No. 2 spot on the 2024 ticket, Trump Jr. and Eric Trump steered him back toward Vance, NBC News reported in July. And after Karl Rove — a GOP strategist and talking head reviled in Trump world — made the case for Burgum on Fox News, Trump Jr. printed out the Breitbart News article that highlighted Rove’s praise and promptly showed it to his father.
“The reality is I chose [Vance] in part because I understood his demeanor and, you know, character,” Trump Jr. told reporters after Vance’s vice presidential debate against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Trump Jr. also has been involved in the transition, speaking for or against particular candidates. His negative feedback on former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo may have helped scuttle Pompeo’s chances of serving in the next Trump administration.
But Trump Jr. has several private ventures occupying his time, including a podcast he has used to advance his political views. He also recently announced plans to join a venture capital firm that has invested in Trump ally Tucker Carlson’s new media venture and joined the advisory board for Unusual Machines, a Florida-based drone company.
A source close to Trump Jr. said he has no designs on an official or unofficial position in Trump’s White House. After Trump’s inauguration next month, his eldest son plans to focus on those business pursuits and his family.
“You can expect Don to keep vocally supporting his dad and his agenda from the outside,” the source added. “But don’t expect him to be some kind of gatekeeper to the White House come Jan. 20.”
Trump Jr. is also expected to continue to stay close with Vance.
“Don Jr. is going to do the private equity thing and continue crushing life,” a longtime Trump adviser said. “I’m sure he will keep a large social media presence and also largely suck up to Vance and continue to be seen as one of his closest guys.”