Between the winter cool of New York and the humidity of Florida, the Trump clan decided to head south. But did he really have a choice? After four years in Washington, a return to the family stronghold of Manhattan, where the patriarch painfully garnered 12% of the vote in the November presidential election, seemed impossible. Except to put up with a life of outcasts, reclusive in gilded apartments and subject to each public appearance to jeers and hoots.
Because New York, democratic and tolerant citadel, with glaring inequalities but with increasingly progressive youth and eager to tackle it, is not ready to forgive. From the withdrawal of the Paris agreement on the climate to the separation of families on the Mexican border, from the “Muslim Ban” to connections with white supremacists, including, of course, the calamitous management of Covid-19, which won out With nearly 26,000 New Yorkers, the list of grievances is as long as a Sunday without a bagel.
Ice rinks. Donald Trump’s incessant pocketknives in the democratic contract, punctuated by his unfounded challenge to the election and the assault of his white-hot supporters against the Capitol, sealed the divorce. Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday announced that he was ending four contracts that gave the Trump Organization the management of a merry-go-round and two skating rinks in Central Park, as well as a Bronx golf club. “New York City does not deal with insurrectional elements”, hammered the democratic councilor, believing that the President’s attitude was a “Criminal activity” able to justify the termination of contracts. Denouncing a “Political discrimination”, the Trump Organization has promised to challenge this ruling in court.
Low paying – $ 17 million – for an empire the size of Trump’s, these contracts were however rich in symbol, the embodiment of the New York rise of the family from Queens. Above all, the municipality is not the only one to cut the bridges. Signature Bank, a business establishment on whose board Ivanka Trump served for two years, urged Donald Trump to step down as president and announced the closure of two of his personal accounts with around $ 5 million. In Manhattan’s financial district, a real estate broker in charge of the Art Deco building at 40 Wall Street, managed by the Trump Organization, has also severed ties.
Even exiled under the azure sky of Palm Beach, Donald Trump will not be able to ignore the clouds gathering over New York, which remains the heart of the organization managed since 2017 by his sons Don Jr and Eric. Sixty percent of the value of its assets, or $ 1.9 billion (1.57 billion euros), comes from just five buildings. Four are in Manhattan, including the crown jewel, the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
The scene of the start of the billionaire’s first campaign, launched in June 2015 after his famous descent from the golden escalator, the skyscraper has since paid the price for its bad reputation, draconian and restrictive security and regular demonstrations organized on the sidewalk opposite. Apartments have been selling at a loss for years, a rarity before 2020 in the New York luxury market. Empty offices accumulate there. And the Covid outbreak has emptied the tourist district and resulted in the closure of the Trump restaurant, bar, café and ice cream parlor located in the building.
Populist turn. Of all the members of the Trump galaxy, it is arguably for Ivanka that the break with New York is the most brutal. Former figure of the social life of Manhattan, a time close to Chelsea Clinton, lover of contemporary art and rather labeled Democrat, the “First Daughter” has burned in four years almost all the bridges with her life before. Incapable of being the conscience of the administration that some naively hoped it would become, the former model and entrepreneur instead took the same populist and conservative turn as her father – critic of the press and of the “elite” of Washington, frontal opposition to abortion …
On January 6, in a quickly deleted tweet, she called the Capitol rioters “American patriots”. His life now seems to be written under the palm trees of Florida. With her husband, Jared Kushner, she bought Julio Iglesias a $ 30 million piece of land on Indian Creek, a billionaire fortress island in Miami Beach. Some lend him political ambitions, why not as early as 2022, by trying to steal the seat of Sunshine State senator from Republican Marco Rubio. A state won twice by Donald Trump.
Frédéric Autran
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