As most of America knows, Melania’s former best friend Stephanie Winston-Wolkoff’s book “Melania and Me” will be out in just five days and excerpts are appearing in various magazines already. Today, The Intelligencer includes a portion focused primarily upon the days prior to the inauguration. The portrait that Wolkoff paints of Melania fits what we’ve seen throughout the last four years, someone who is a bit distant, a bit over her head, extremely power-hungry, and very wary of one Ivanka Trump, who appears to rival Melania in her thirst for power and visibility. Apparently the rivalry between the two is very open, which is more than a little odd.

The excerpt picks up just a few days after the election with Wolkoff and Melania discussing all the preparations needed for the inauguration. There are a few catty details – Melania wanted to be introduced as “First Lady-elect” but Wolkoff reminded Melania that she actually hadn’t been “elected” to anything.

But the juiciest detail of all involves Ivanka’s early move to get as much visibility and attention as possible. Wolkoff, who was in charge of inauguration planning, describes a text from Ivanka which included a picture of Barack Obama being sworn-in with Michelle and his young daughters alongside. Ivanka wrote, “It is nice to have family alongside for his special moment.” This is obviously laughable. Obama’s daughters were not only minors still living at home as “immediate family,” but – at the time – very young daughters of the type that everyone would expect to accompany their parents in any public setting. Ivanka, on the other hand, was a grown woman, married, with three children of her own. She had her own immediate family, with which normal people feel a much tighter bond than to a parent no longer even married to her mother. Ivanka playing “daughter” that close would be almost awkward.

Melania immediately recognized the idea’s stupidity and Ivanka’s underlying motivation. The astounding part is that rather than simply telling Ivanka to get bent, Melania and Stephanie went through elaborate planning that matched the detail of the Normandy landing, all to keep Ivanka out. The extensive planning also suggests that Melania didn’t want Donald involved in the decision at all, perhaps out of fear that Donald would want Ivanka as close as possible. We can’t know. Anyway, herewith, “Operation Block Ivanka.”

Melania and I launched Operation Block Ivanka to keep her face out of that iconic “special moment.” To plan this, I needed to know exactly where the family would be seated and the camera angles. One of the WIS executives sent me notes from the walk-through. He had been prohibited from taking pictures; instead, he’d drawn a sketch to give me a decent overview of the Trump section and where the chairs would be positioned in a semicircle around the dais. We knew where the cameras would be located because the platforms were already in place. Using his sketch, we were able to figure out whose face would be visible when Donald and Melania sat in their seats, and then when the family stood with Chief Justice John Roberts for Donald to take the oath of office. If Ivanka was not on the aisle, her face would be hidden while she was seated. For the standing part, we put Barron between Donald and Melania and made sure that Don Jr. stood next to Melania, not Ivanka.

So, not only was a detailed op launched to keep Ivanka’s striving self out of the picture, but having Don Jr. in the picture was found to be acceptable? The details and Don Jr.’s presence certainly suggest Melania has some “next-level” contempt for Ivanka. Melania’s issue wasn’t necessarily having Trump’s adult children around, it was Ivanka in particular. Melania didn’t want to be pictured with Ivanka next to her.

Wow.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom