Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest. I’m Tara Palmeri. I know it’s been a full week, but I hope you’ve recovered from White House Correspondents’ Dinner weekend. I’m almost there…

🎧 Programming note: Check out my debrief on WHCD weekend with Teddy Schleifer, who shares his fresh reporting on a budding romance between Trump and Big Tech on Somebody’s Gotta Win. Plus, Ali Velshi and I talk about his family’s history of fighting for democracy and his take on all things 2024, including the campus protests.

In tonight’s edition, Ivanka Trump toys with the idea of returning to the Trump fold as her father’s reoccupation of the White House begins to look like a real possibility. Plus, gripes from the Trump team about the job Kari Lake turned down and Mitch McConnell’s revenge tour…

Let’s get started…

• Go jump in a (Kari) Lake: While Trump’s team laments that his former acolyte, Arizona G.O.P. Senate candidate Kari Lake, is spending way too much time at Mar-a-Lago and possibly dragging down his own odds of carrying the battleground state, advisors also concede that she previously turned down a “better” offer. After Lake lost the Arizona governor’s race, in 2022, the Trump campaign offered her the position of spokesperson—the perfect role, perhaps, for someone with an ever-present airbrushed TV glow who never quite made it out of local news. Instead, Lake threw herself back into Arizona politics, where she remains virtually tied with her opponent, Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego.
• McConnell tightens the purse strings: As I reported last week, if Mitch McConnell takes the chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee for himself as he eases out of Senate leadership, he’d be perfectly positioned to exact revenge upon Rick Scott for trying to topple him as minority leader in 2022. McConnell, of course, could simply decide what was budgeted for his state.

  Well, it looks like McConnell didn’t wait until after stepping down to smack around the Florida senator. Noting that Republicans need to spend more heavily than expected in Florida this election season because of the abortion amendment on the November ballot, McConnell seems to be implying that Scott, who spent $60 million of his own money on his 2018 race, shouldn’t expect help from the cash-rich Senate Leadership Fund. As McConnell told Politico’s Burgess Everett, he “can’t imagine [Ted] Cruz would lose, or Rick Scott,” adding, “Rick has got so much money, I can’t imagine that he can’t deal with whatever liability he may have.”

So what gives? I pinged a senior Democratic member who sat the weekend out but offered some context: Last week’s Passover recess likely dampened attendance, they noted, as a bunch of members had migrated back to their districts. In fairness, time back home is precious for members: More than a few political careers have been cut short after a member decided to skip a local Rotary Club meeting in lieu of some fancy party back in D.C. This member also lamented that, after a decade or two in Congress, the dinners all start to run together. The members who did attend parties, it seems, were the ones who were invited to the actual WHCD dinner, and they mostly attended the ancillary Saturday parties and Sunday brunches.

Anyway, a Democratic consultant told me it was “refreshing” to not have members of Congress dominate the weekend’s socializing. Maybe it’s easier to get face time with a member at a reception than it is to muscle past their gatekeepers on the Hill, but given that next to nothing is getting done in Congress outside the daily struggle to keep the lights on, these days there’s little point in pitching a member on much of anything. The consultant mused on the dysfunction’s ripple effects: “The outside world spends so much time trying to build relationships and actually get in front of the policymakers themselves, but there is a much wider and more interesting influence ecosystem that becomes more important when you have a low-functioning Congress.” And that was coming from a former Hill leadership staffer…

The move was also characteristically well-timed. Javanka, of course, were infamous during their White House years for strategically distancing themselves from Trump during difficult moments, always with friendly press, always via “people familiar with their thinking,” as they balanced proximity to power with protection of their personal brands. And in November 2022, Trump was at a particularly weak moment, politically. Roundly blamed for the midterm losses and with frothy polling behind Ron DeSantis in New Hampshire, Trump was firmly on the outs with a Republican Party that had been eager to move on. Ivanka, reading the room and seeking to protect her family from the spotlight, assiduously avoided the campaign trail—and, to a certain extent, her father, too. When Ivanka posted photographs of her daughter’s bat mitzvah, the former president was nowhere to be seen.

But the political world has changed dramatically in the 18 months since Trump announced his third run at the White House. Sure, he’s on trial in New York, and facing dozens of criminal charges in three other districts, any one of which could put him behind bars for years. He’s boasted of plans to be a “dictator” if he gets back into office, outlining his intention to override congressional spending authority, mobilize the military to round up illegal immigrants, deploy the national guard in “Democrat-run” cities, and task the Justice Department with prosecuting his enemies. But he’s also running ahead of Joe Biden in national polls. After clearing the primary field of any would-be challengers, he’s clearly reclaimed the support of the Republican Party and its leadership.

Now, with the campaign in high gear, Ivanka is “warming to the idea of trying to be helpful” again, I’m told by a person familiar with her thinking. “[She’s] privately not ruling out having some sort of role,” this person continued. “She’s not like ‘Hell no’ anymore.”

The role itself, and her potential involvement with the campaign, remains unclear. Officially, at least, Javanka are holding to the party line articulated in Ivanka’s 2022 statement. A spokesperson for the couple told me, “As they’ve both repeatedly stated, Ivanka and Jared continue to focus on their family and lives in the private sector and do not intend to go back to politics.” But intentions can change. Ivanka has been quietly surveying members of her inner circle about when it might make sense to re-engage with the campaign—and even whether to take a job in the administration if Trump wins.

She’s been advised to wait until the Republican convention, in mid-July, so as to avoid the news cycle around her father’s trial—the first of four currently on the docket. But the chatter surrounding her inquiries appears to be a trial balloon, of sorts, telegraphing what is likely to be a gradual re-entry into Trump’s political orbit. “After a longstanding position of ruling it out, she’s more open to it,” said the source familiar with her thinking. “It’s getting more real, it’s revving up.” When Donald Trump attends the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix on Sunday, she and Jared are expected to be there, too.

The cash infusion raised eyebrows, of course, given Kushner’s close ties to the Saudi crown prince, and the ongoing efforts of the Saudis to curry favor with the Trump family. But the investment would also likely preclude Kushner from rejoining a Trump administration, given the disclosures and divestment that would surely be required. “Ivanka has gotten the urge again, but Jared has been a lot more focused on his investment business and being a lot more measured about discussing a return,” said the source familiar with their thinking.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that Jared is avoiding the public eye. He’s begun making the podcast rounds, gabbing with the All-In guys and Lex Fridman, dining off the work he did on the Abraham Accords. More recently, he sat down with The New York Times for a smiling if occasionally contentious triple-bylined story documenting his investment strategy (condos in Serbia; an Israeli car-leasing company; a Brazilian fast food restaurant operator; a real-estate company in Dubai), investors (99 percent of the money comes from foreign sources), and fee structure (his firm is collecting $40 million a year in management fees, even before any one of his 10 investments have made a return). A Times photographer was even invited to Affinity’s offices to snap Kushner, dressed down in a polo and jeans and with some gray stubble on his chin.

Indeed, it might be fair to say the last thing Kushner wants is his father-in-law back in the White House. As the Times reported, a second Trump term would saddle Affinity with the kind of conflict–of-interest questions that give billionaires in V-necks headaches. (That’s not to say the door is ever closed entirely: If he did re-enter the administration, I’m told, it wouldn’t be through the campaign, but would be a “last-minute” decision.)

Melania Trump, for her part, has said to “stay tuned” about whether she’ll have a role in the campaign. She was noticeably absent on Super Tuesday when Trump had a string of wins. She’s making her influence known in small ways, however. As I reported in March, Melania has been trying to bring Kellyanne Conway back into the fold, in part because Conway—like Melania—has clashed with both Ivanka and Jared and might help box them out.

Regardless, it seems inevitable that some familiar faces from the first Trump administration would return. A Trump confidant said he’s missing a sort of Praetorian Guard—allies like Hope Hicks and Brian Jack—who have been replaced by new faces like Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita. On some level, Ivanka and Jared might be the creature comforts that he needs right now. As the source close to the couple noted, they’re valuable to Trump in the White House not because of their loyalty, but because you can’t fire family.