(CNN) -
President Donald Trump has long sought advice from different perspectives throughout his career, but at a crucial moment in defining his legacy as president, he is receiving conflicting advice from his closest and most trusted advisers. his older children, as he works out his next strategy in the face of electoral defeat.
While his adult male children, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, are excited and leading the charge for the president to stay in the fight, his daughter and White House adviser Ivanka Trump has emerged as someone looking for a way. for the president to save face as he considers his next steps, sources tell CNN.
ANALYSIS |
Why Donald Trump is the clear favorite for the 2024 Republican nomination
Different approaches have emerged among the Trump brothers: Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are telling their father to fight aggressively to the end, echoing unsubstantiated claims that the election has been rigged and the outcome should change.
Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, meanwhile, are weighing a different political calculus.
The couple do not believe that the legal battles will change the outcome of the election, but advocate for a more measured approach to allow the legal fight and recount to continue to ensure the integrity of future elections while allowing them to appear sensitive to Trump. said a source familiar with the situation.
Ivanka Trump has offered a more calibrated message to her father, asking if it was worth damaging his legacy and potentially his businesses to continue his refusal to compromise.
Privately, he is realistic about the defeat of the president, a source told CNN, but he also knows that his entire future, now more than ever, is tied to his father's and must be handled delicately.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment with CNN on the matter.
A spokesman for Donald Trump Jr. declined to comment.
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'He founded a movement'
For his part, the president appears to be following that advice.
"He knows he is not going to win, but he also knows that he has all the cards right now because he knows that he won 72 million votes and founded a movement," said a source familiar with Trump's thinking.
The source said Trump believes he was never considered a legitimate candidate or president.
“He was investigated and charged and people tried to destroy him and his family, so why should he rush to concede something now when the winner in Georgia and Arizona has yet to be declared, and some people tell him they have some recourse? legal law in Pennsylvania? »
the source said.
When he finally comes to accept his defeat, Trump is urged to characterize this election as the "final final act of harassment," but that he will take his supporters and his followers on social media and make it clear that he is not going anywhere. .
Trump's eldest sons, top advisers during the 2020 campaign, and conservatives themselves, have turned to social media to amplify their message.
On the last night of the campaign, Eric Trump told people aboard Air Force One on the way back from a rally in Michigan that he was convinced it would be a blow to Trump.
And this Thursday, the campaign sent another fundraising appeal from Eric Trump under the subject "FIGHT."
"People know exactly what is going on in this country ... It is a fraud!" Eric Trump wrote in the fundraising message.
Her sister has offered a tempered statement of support that ignored her father's more inflammatory and baseless claims about widespread voter fraud.
Every vote legally cast must be counted.
Every vote cast illegally should not be counted.
This should not be controversial, ”Ivanka Trump tweeted.
"This is not a partisan statement: free and fair elections are the foundation of our democracy."
Her husband is playing both sides, and CNN reported over the weekend that Kushner discussed whether Trump should concede defeat, while urging the president to hold rallies pressing for the vote count.
Family business
For nearly four years, Ivanka Trump, who previously worked for her father's real estate company, developed a carefully designed portfolio focused primarily on women's economic empowerment and workforce development, but her influence with the president on a wide variety of subjects it cannot be underestimated.
While the president clearly values the opinions of his three oldest sons, only one of them, Ivanka, landed a role in the west wing of the White House, and Trump's male sons left to run the family business in New York. York.
Ivanka Trump wrote in her 2009 book that her parents' divorce brought her closer to her father, while her older brother Don Jr., who had a more complicated relationship at the time, once told
New York
magazine
Magazine
who did not speak to his father for a year after the divorce.
Ivanka Trump used that time to develop a better relationship with her father.
“It didn't move that far, just a few floors below us.
But then I'd come down to see him every morning before school, and I also started stopping by his office on my way home in the afternoon, "he wrote in" The Trump Card. "
A key force that plays into Ivanka Trump's political calculations: an eye toward her future and the legacy of her husband Jared Kushner.
In her time in Washington, Ivanka Trump has become a "total MAGA," said one source, taking a more conservative point of view in tune with the Trump brand, her success closely intertwined with that of her father.
"I am anti-abortion, and without reservation," Ivanka Trump said in an interview with RealClearPolitics last month.
The Trump campaign strategically deployed Ivanka Trump at events targeting suburban Republican voters in a series of campaign stops in the weeks leading up to the election.
Kushner, another familiar source said, is inclined to soften the message to prepare for a more elegant outing.
Kushner will have to go back to work when the administration ends, the source said, and there are concerns that a bad exit could lead to the repeal of orders by President-elect Joe Biden that could end what he considers his best achievements.
But no matter how gracefully Trump emerges from office, it's not clear that a Biden administration would protect any of those achievements.
Ivanka Trump said this of her husband in times of crisis: “He (Kushner) finds it unproductive to focus on the problem (versus the solution) or to react emotionally.
He is my best teacher in this sense, the calm and calm voice of reason that guides me to focus on what matters most, even in moments of crisis or chaos, when I naturally tend to be a little more emotional, "he wrote in his 2017 book, »Women Who Work».
Now, Ivanka Trump and Kushner await the results of the recounts and legal challenges.
"They want all legal avenues to be exhausted and whatever happens," said a senior government official, who refused to finish that sentence.
CNN's Kate Bennett contributed to this report.
Ivanka Trump
