How Donald Trump's Presidency Changed Jared Kushner

Before Donald Trump's tenure in the White House, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were an A-list couple who often enjoyed wining and dining with their A-list friends in the New York socialite scene. They also got invited to some of the biggest red carpet events, including the celebrity tour de force known as the Met Gala. The Kushners were also happily content with their respective careers; he as owner of the New York Observer while Ivanka worked on her fashion and accessories line. In 2009, Ivanka admitted to ABC News that they had rather normal day-to-day lives. "We work two blocks from each other on Sundays too. I can actually look out my window and see into his window," she said. "We spend time together, albeit, not directly together on our Sundays."

And while Ivanka had dreams of starting a pretty big family ("a houseful of cute little kids ... like four or five," she said at the time), a lot has changed for the couple and especially for Kushner since then. Some people would even say that he's a completely different person. Here's why.

Jared Kushner basically did an about face when his father-in-law, Donald Trump, announced that he was running for the highest office of the land back in 2015. According to Newsweek, Kushner was a lifelong Democrat, but was also very instrumental in helping Trump win his presidency. A lot of Kushner's old friends were shocked that he succeeded in making Trump the 45th President of the United States, much to their dismay. In fact, he didn't even register as a Republican until 2019, per CNN, which had a lot of his old friends scratching their heads in bewilderment. 

"The hope was that with Jared, there at least was someone who was smart and thoughtful and potentially doing the right things behind the scenes," a former co-worker told Business Insider in 2017 about Kushner working in the White House. "But people hate him right now. Not just him as a person so much but what he stands for and the fact that he hasn't been able to use his position to do anything meaningful for what we stand for."

Yet, Kushner didn't seem to mind all of the criticism at the time, as he reportedly said that losing friends for him was nothing more than "exfoliation." So, with that said, how does Kushner's exfoliation routine with his dwindling friendships look like now? 

These days, Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump are most likely exfoliating inside the new place they call home: Miami. For the better part of this year, they've kept to themselves while staying out of the spotlight in South Florida. Trump has not been seen at the The Met Gala since 2016, per Allure, and if the reports are to be believed, she and her husband also lost a lot of friends in their inner circle. 

In fact, Politico reported in 2016 that Trump's relationship with Chelsea Clinton was "on ice." Furthermore, the Daily Beast reported that although Trump and Kushner and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (who once raved about Trump) were invited to Misha Nonoo's wedding in 2019, there were likely no words exchanged between the couples due to their differences in political views. 

According to CNN, there's also speculation that the Kushners might be trying to distance themselves from Donald Trump himself. If that weren't enough, a source told the news site that the former president has "always been suspicious of Jared," and downplayed a lot of Jared's assistance when he was in office. Plus, Business Insider reported Kushner and his father-in-law are "barely in touch" following their departure from the White House in January. Perhaps Kushner's silence is his way of telling his father-in-law that it's time for him to get a new skincare routine?