Ivanka Trump said her son built a Lego replica of the White House for her father. She told a suspiciously similar about herself 13 years ago.
REUTERS/Carlos Barria
- Ivanka Trump told a story in her Republican National Convention speech Thursday night about her son gifting the president a Lego replica of the White House for President Donald Trump.
- Andrea Bernstein, a WNYC reporter who wrote a book about the Trump family, pointed out that she told a similar story about her building a Lego Trump Tower for her father.
- That story turned out to be made up.
- Ivanka also claimed the White House replica is displayed on the mantel in the Oval Office.
- Recent images of the mantel don't show any replica there — or any Lego sets at all — and White House reporters say they haven't spotted one.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
In her speech introducing her father at the Republican National Convention, Ivanka Trump told a story of her son gifting the president a Lego replica of the White House.
"When Jared and I moved with our three children to Washington, we didn't exactly know what we were in for. But our kids loved it from the start," the White House presidential adviser said. "My son Joseph promptly built grandpa a Lego replica of the White House. The president still displays it on the mantel in the Oval Office and shows it to world leaders, just so they know he has the greatest grandchildren on earth."
The story resembles another one Ivanka Trump has told about herself, as Andrea Bernstein, a WNYC reporter, said on Twitter. According to "American Oligarchs," a book Bernstein wrote about the Trump and Kushner families, Ivanka said in a 2007 interview with Conan O'Brien that she built a Lego replica of Trump Tower for her dad. She also said her brothers contradicted her, each of them claiming to have built the Lego tower.
—Andrea Bernstein (@AndreaWNYC) August 28, 2020
Bernstein also said the story was plagiarized from "The Art of the Deal," President Donald Trump's bestselling book ghostwritten by Tony Schwartz.
Schwartz told Bernstein that the story was probably made up.
"There is a considerably less than fifty-percent chance that anything like that ever happened," he told Bernstein, per "American Oligarchs."
In her 2009 book "The Trump Card," Ivanka even acknowledged the story was fake.
"The story stands as one of the first and best examples of how we work together as a family," she wrote.
If the Lego White House is real, where is it?
Recent images of the fireplace mantel in the Oval Office do not show any such Lego set. Here's one from a week ago, when Trump hung out with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi:
Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead; Lauren Frias/Business Insider
See? Lots of statues. No Lego White Houses.
Bloomberg News's White House editor Alex Wayne tweeted that none of his outlet's reporters have ever seen the Lego White House.
—Alex Wayne (@aawayne) August 28, 2020
Ivanka has been accused of violating the Hatch Act by speaking at the RNC event hosted on the White House South Lawn. The law bars federal employees, excluding the president and vice president, from engaging in political activities, including campaigning, with federal resources.
Her office told the Associated Press that she had been approved to speak at the convention in her personal capacity as Trump's daughter rather than her White House advisory role, although she spoke about the Trump administration's work throughout her speech.
Representatives for the Republican National Convention didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
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Friday, August 28, 2020
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