Ivanka Trump's Former Friend Publishes Essay Attacking Her Character With Tawdry Stories

A former school friend of Ivanka Trump on Tuesday published a series of damning tales in Vanity Fair impugning the first daughter's character. It’s another blow to the Trump family's attempts to reintegrate into a New York social scene they once enjoyed prior to entering politics.

Lysandra Ohrstrom, a reporter for the Observer and Huffington Post, was close friends with Ivanka during their youth and even attended her wedding to Jared Kushner as one of only two bridesmaids.

She says Ivanka inherited many of her father’s worse moral tendencies, including responding to a book recommendation of a Pulitzer-prize-winning tale of a working-class diner manager by saying: “Ly, why would you tell me to read a book about f---ing poor people? … What part of you thinks I would be interested in this?”

Ohrstrom’s account contains a wide variety of tales from Ivanka’s youth, including convincing friends to break rules only to throw them under the bus when caught. But many of these moral lapses are easily excused as happening long ago as missteps and crude comments made during adolescence.

Less easily dismissed are the stories of Ivanka's adult life. The friendship between the two was strained by racism against Muslims, who garnered some sympathy from Ohrstrom after a reporting stint in the Middle East. Ivanka has tried to present herself as a voice of moderation in the Trump administration -- a lone liberal and feminist among her father’s team. That image increasingly failed to hold water as the divide between Trump’s ecosystem and the New York elite grew.

Ohrstrom reminds the public of Ivanka's capitulation to Trump’s worst statements and actions, such as her tolerance of the accusations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. She doesn’t predict that the Trump family will find much refuge out of the conservative base that adores them. One particular response to a tweet from Ivanka tepidly adding to her father’s message of voter fraud sticks out to her.

“Though I do hope that fantasy comes true, I expect Ivanka will find a soft landing in Palm Beach instead, where casual white supremacy is de rigueur and most misdeeds are forgiven if you have enough money,” she says. “It’s the perfect spot for her to lie low, shielded from the economic and social consequences of the policies she pursued for the past four years, the backlash against them, and from having to interact with her MAGA following.”