Ivanka Trump has made good on her intention to prioritise private life over politics, jetting off to Egypt for a family holiday.
The eldest daughter of former US president Donald Trump posted several photos on social media on Monday of herself, her husband Jared Kushner, and their three children.
“A day at the Pyramids! So special to explore the beauty of Egypt for the first time with my family!” she wrote on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
It comes days after Trump, who served as a senior adviser in her father’s administration, said she would not be joining his 2024 presidential campaign.
The pictures show the family at the foot of one of the pyramids, riding camels and paying a visit to the Hanging Church in Old Cairo.
She also posted snaps taken inside the Great Pyramid and of the Ben Ezra Synagogue, which is near the Hanging Church in an area known as Mogamaa El Adyan (complex of religions).
In another photo, her youngest son, Theodore, six, points to the top of the Great Pyramid while enjoying a meal at Marriott Mena House.
Trump, 41, is dressed in a long-sleeved white dress with buttons down the front and trainers, while her daughter Arabella, 11, wears a pale-blue top and matching trousers.
Her husband Kushner, 41, and sons Joseph, nine, and Theodore, all seemed co-ordinated with white T-shirts and beige shorts.
The family’s outing began with a late breakfast at 9 Pyramids Lounge, Hesham Gadallah, chief executive of Orascom Pyramids Entertainment, tells The National.
Orascom Pyramids Entertainment has a contract with the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities to help revamp the entire visitor experience at the Unesco World Heritage Site.
9 Pyramids Lounge was the first restaurant to open at the Giza Pyramids Plateau, in October 2020. High-end restaurant Khufu’s followed, opening two months ago.
Gedallah said he was notified of the “special visit” about an hour before the family arrived. The company arranged for a club car and a discreet table.
“We are used to it now,” Gedallah says, referring to high-profile visits.
During the UN Climate Change Conference Cop27, which recently drew to a close in Sharm El Sheikh, some delegates took the opportunity to make a day trip to the pyramids. They included environment ministers and other government officials from Brazil, India, Norway and the US, Gedallah said.
Last November, then Prince Charles and Camilla visited the pyramids during the second leg of their Middle Eastern tour.
While the Trump-Kushner family was a much more private affair, they were still surrounded by a “huge” security detail of at least a dozen people, Gedallah says.
The family spent a late afternoon at the religious complex across town.
The Hanging Church, so named because it was built on top of the Roman-built Babylon Fortress with its nave suspended over a passage, is one of Egypt’s oldest Coptic Orthodox churches.
The origins of the Ben Ezra Synagogue, which was recently renovated, date back at least 1,300 years.
Kushner is Jewish and Trump converted to Judaism in 2009 shortly before the couple got married.
Both played key roles in Trump’s administration between 2017 and 2021.
Trump, whose mother is the former president's first wife, Ivana, had been by her father’s side as an executive vice president of the Trump Organisation and a boardroom judge on TV show The Apprentice.
When he became US president, she served as his senior adviser and the director of the Office of Economic Initiatives and Entrepreneurship.
Kushner also served as a senior White House adviser and wrote the January 2020 Trump peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He was instrumental in talks that led to the signing of the Abraham Accords in September 2020 that normalised relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.
Since leaving the White House, he has founded private equity firm Affinity Partners and released Breaking History: A White House Memoir in August.
They now live as private citizens in Miami, Florida. While Kushner attended the 2024 Trump campaign announcement speech at Mar-a-Lago last week, his wife skipped it.
Shortly after the event, she released a statement, saying: “I love my father very much. This time around, I am choosing to prioritise my young children and the private life we are creating as a family. I do not plan to be involved in politics.
“While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena,” she said.
