Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump at a campaign event in Wisconsin on November 2. Photo / AP
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump at a campaign event in Wisconsin on November 2. Photo / AP
Ivanka Trump has been spotted in New York City after living in Washington DC for the past four years during her father Donald Trump's first and only presidential term.
Her role as adviser to the President will end on January 20 – inauguration day for President-elect Joe Biden – and she is expected to move back to New York with her husband Jared Kushner, although the options of Florida and New Jersey have also been floated, sources told CNN.
The couple, who are both White House senior advisers, were regulars on the NYC scene and have a US$4.1 million ($5.9m) apartment at Trump's Park Avenue building in Manhattan.
According to the Trump website, the building "houses over 120 luxury condominiums in one of the Upper East Side's most coveted locations", including full-floor and seven-bedroom apartments.
Ivanka Trump has served as a senior adviser to her father at the White House. Photo / AP
Celebrations erupted in the streets after Biden's win and as the war of words between Trump and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo intensifies, his daughter and son-in-law's return will no doubt be awkward.
A 'difficult' return
In pictures obtained by the Daily Mail, Ivanka Trump was seen leaving her NYC apartment building last Friday morning wearing a face mask.
Trump's best friend Georgina Bloomberg, the daughter of former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, told the Daily Beast the couple's return may be tough – at least initially.
"I think in New York they'll probably forget about this and it'll probably change for them, but I think right now it'll be a bit difficult for them coming back, because obviously this is something that is still very fresh and stoking everybody's fire," Bloomberg said.
In regards to Trump's presidency impacting their relationship, she said she hasn't seen Ivanka "since her father took office", so "there hasn't really been any awkwardness at all".
"We were good friends growing up in our 20s. I think she's a wonderful, smart person, and she's handled the situation really, really well," Bloomberg said, adding it's "not true" that daughters of politicians agree with everything their parents are doing.
Trump and Kushner have lost a number of famous friends over the past few years.
Actor Natalie Portman and Phantom of the Opera star Emmy Rossum both attended the couple's wedding in 2009 but have since publicly distanced themselves.
Portman told The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in mid-2018 she went to Harvard University with Kushner and "we were friendly".
"Unfortunately, there's not a lot funny to say about someone you were friends with becoming a super villain," Portman said.
Actor Natalie Portman attended the Trump-Kushner wedding in 2009 but has since publicly distanced herself from the couple. Photo / Paramount Pictures
"He said in some interview that the friends he's lost because of politics, it's like exfoliating."
Colbert said she was therefore "like a dead skin cell", to which Portman replied: "Proudly."
Meanwhile, amid the 2016 presidential campaign, Rossum tweeted an article about Ivanka Trump "lying".
The President's oldest daughter was a fixture on the Met Gala red carpet for years, joined by her husband on multiple occasions, and has previously described it as her "favourite event".
During an interview on The Late Late Show in 2017, host James Corden asked US Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour if there was any celebrity who would never be invited again.
"Donald Trump," she replied.
According to Page Six, Ivanka Trump and her husband were "too busy" to attend in 2018.
In 2019, Wintour said there was "absolutely nothing" Donald Trump could do to score an invite.
The President first attended the event in the 1980s with his first wife Ivana Trump and proposed to his third and current wife, Melania, at the 2004 event.
When Donald Trump used his first public remarks since his election defeat to reveal when the Covid-19 vaccine will be available, he said it won't be delivered to New Yorkers.
US President Donald Trump has publicly feuded with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Photo / AP
"As soon as April, the vaccine will be available to the entire general population, with the exception of places like New York State, where for political reasons the governor decided – I don't think it is good politically, I think it is very bad from a health standpoint – but he wants to take his time on the vaccine," the President said.
"We won't be delivering it to New York until we have authorisation to do so, and it pains me to say that.
"The governor will have to let us know when he's ready for it. We can't be delivering it to a state that won't be giving it to its people immediately.
"He's had some very bad editorials recently about this statement and what's happened with respect to nursing homes. I hope he doesn't handle this as badly as he's handled the nursing homes."
Governor Cuomo has been criticised for his initial response to the coronavirus, such as the decision to send infected people back into nursing homes, resulting in outbreaks among vulnerable populations.
"The good news is that the Pfizer tests look good and we'll have a vaccine shortly," Cuomo said recently.
"The bad news is that it's about two months before Joe Biden takes over, and that means this administration is going to be implementing a vaccine plan."
Upper East Side resident and writer Jill Kargman, who is the daughter of Chanel's former chairman Arie Kopelman, has socialised with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in the past.
"[The President] was so awful and divisive about New York, saying it's a nightmare or that it's empty, or a has-been," she told CNN.
"No one here is going to forget that.
"To even come back here after everything he's said, it's not going to work."
