Steven Mnuchin (left), Ivanka Trump.Photo: Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Gem Atkinson/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Steven Mnuchin is pushing back on a new report that he was the only thing standing betweenIvanka Trumpbeing appointed as the head of the World Bank — which a spokesperson for the former treasury secretary says is “completely false.”
Former PresidentDonald Trumphas publicly said he considered his daughter for the role, tellingThe Atlanticin 2019: “I even thought of Ivanka for the World Bank. She would’ve been great at that because she’s very good with numbers.”
“It came incredibly close to happening,“an unnamed source told the outlet, which reported that talks about Ivanka leading the global financial organization began when Jim Yong Kim made a surprise January 2019 announcement he would bestepping downfrom the World Bank.
According to The Intercept, “Trump very much wanted Ivanka as World Bank president, and it was Mnuchin who actually blocked her ascent to the leadership role.”
Not so, a spokesperson for Mnuchin says.
In a statement shared with PEOPLE, the spokesperson said: “The reporting that Secretary Mnuchin blockedIvanka Trumpfor the World Bank position is completely false. Ivanka never wanted to be considered for the position. She did participate in the process of interviewing candidates at the Secretary’s request.”
Ultimately, the job went to David Malpass, who had previously served as under secretary of the Treasury for international affairs.
Ivanka Trump.ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty
Ivanka, who was one of her dad’s senior advisers in the White House, told the Associate Press in April 2019 thatshe had turned down the role.
“He did ask me about that,” Ivanka told an AP reporter at the time. “But I love the work that I’m doing. And myself and Secretary Mnuchin, we oversaw the process of selecting the final candidate and bringing multiple candidates to the president, ultimately for him to make the final decision, but we had a strong preference.”
Malpass, Ivanka added, would do “an unbelievable job” in the role.
Both Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, were top aides to President Trump as both advisers in the administration and on his campaigns.
Though they each had broad responsibilities with her father’s support, they also had plenty of critics, both in and out of the White House, who said they lacked the qualifications for their roles.
In her recent (and disputed) tell-all,former Trump spokeswoman Stephanie Grishamwrites that “we had all come to call Jared and Ivanka ‘the interns’ because they represented in our minds obnoxious, entitled know-it-alls.”
source: people.com
