New Book Claims Donald Trump Nearly Fired Jared and Ivanka via Tweet

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According to a new book, Donald Trump nearly fired his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, during his stint in the White House, ultimately being talked out of announcing their exits on Twitter by former chief of staff John Kelly.

In her new book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, journalist Maggie Haberman writes that the former president mentioned firing his daughter and son-in-law both of whom served as senior White House aides in meetings with Kelly and former White House counsel Don McGahn.

Haberman writes that Trump even went so far as to suggest he could announce that the two were leaving via Twitter, but Kelly stopped him.

Ultimately, the two remained in the White House through Trump’s term and were never fired.

Elsewhere in the book which CNN obtained ahead of its Oct. 4 debut Haberman writes that Trump would occasionally mock his son-in-law in private, saying that he “sounds like a child,” in 2017, CNN reports.

Similar claims have been made about Trump wanting to fire Ivanka and Jared in the past.

In author Vicky Ward’s 2019 book Kushner Inc. largely based on anonymous interviews she wrote that Trump once told Kelly: “Get rid of my kids; get them back to New York.”

That allegation was dismissed by the White House at the time as “based on shady anonymous sources and false information.”

But the claim echoed similar stories that had been reported elsewhere, including by the Washington Post in a 2018 article, which claimed Trump “has mused to Kelly that he thinks Ivanka and her husband should perhaps return to New York, where they would be protected from the blood sport of Washington and less of a target for negative media attention, White House officials said.”

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In his own book, Kushner writes of a tense relationship between him and his wife and Kelly, the former chief of staff.

In Breaking History: A White House Memoir, Kushner alleges that Kelly “shoved” Ivanka after a tense White House meeting.

“One day he had just marched out of a contentious meeting in the Oval Office,” Kushner writes. “Ivanka was walking down the main hallway in the West Wing when she passed him. Unaware of his heated state of mind, she said, ‘Hello, chief.’ Kelly shoved her out of the way and stormed by. She wasn’t hurt, and didn’t make a big deal about the altercation, but in his rage Kelly had shown his true character.”

Kushner added that Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, offered a “meek apology” to Ivanka about an hour later in her West Wing office.

The strained relationship between Kelly and Trump’s daughter and son-in-law have been widely reported, with Kelly reportedly downgrading Kushner’s security clearance from top secret in Feb. 2018.

In 2019, after Kelly had left his chief of staff job, he said in an interview of the couple: “They were an influence that has to be dealt with.”

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