Trump Shrugged At Ivanka’s Conversion: ‘She’s A Big Girl’

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner Image by Getty Images

By Alyssa Fisher January 23, 2019

It’s not all traditional politics in Chris Christie’s forthcoming book, “Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics” — the former New Jersey governor also reveals a conversation he had with President Trump over his daughter Ivanka’s conversion to Judaism.

In the book, due out January 29, Christie includes a conversation from a dinner he had with Trump and the First Lady in 2009, in which the president shared with him the news that Ivanka was going to convert and marry Jared Kushner, a modern Orthodox Jew, according to Jewish Insider, which received an advanced copy.

“It was a little hard to gauge Donald’s reaction” to Ivanka’s decision, Christie wrote. “He was greeting the news with what I would describe as acceptance. ‘She’s a big girl. She’s a smart girl. If that’s what she wants to do, then that’s what she wants to do. I support her. I trust her.’”

Trump seemed on board, according to Christie: “You never know what your kids will do next.”

Christie also said he decided against attending the wedding, wanting to avoid any tension with Kushner’s father, real estate magnate Charles Kushner. Christie prosecuted him for tax evasion in 2005, when he was a federal attorney.

“I am confident that [Trump] was relieved that we didn’t make things awkward for him, Ivanka, and his son-in-law-to-be,” Christie wrote.

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at fisher@forward.com, or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

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