- Kloss is married to Josh Kushner, the brother of President Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner. Kloss has been open about her political differences with her in-laws and the Trump family.
- The Kushner family initially did not approve of Kloss and Kushner's relationship and were openly critical of it.
- For her birthday last year, Karlie Kloss posted a YouTube video explaining some of the lessons she learned over the past year, one of which was: "Your voice and your vote matters. So register and show up at the polls because we all deserve change in November."
- In October 2020, she posted a voting selfie on Instagram while wearing a Biden Harris mask.
- In 2021, she Tweeted that she has “tried” to tell her in-laws that “inciting violence is anti-American.”
Karlie Kloss— who is married to Joshua Kushner, the brother of White House senior advisor Jared Kushner and brother-in-law of First Daughter Ivanka Trump—has long been open about the "complications" of having different political views than her in-laws, and previously confirmed that she and her husband voted Democrat in 2016 and that she did in 2020.
After a pro-Trump mob that broke into the Capitol yesterday to disrupt the Congressional certification of President-Elect Joe Biden, Kloss is speaking out once again on social media.
“Accepting the results of a legitimate democratic election is patriotic. Refusing to do so and inciting violence is anti-American,” Kloss wrote on Twitter.
When a Twitter user with the handle “Overdress Jen” replied to Kloss's statement saying “Tell your sister in law and brother law,”—meaning Jared and Ivanka—the model and Project Runway television host responded simply: “I’ve tried.” (Overdress Jen has since deleted her Tweet.)
The political divide within the Kushner family is by now well documented: Josh is a lifelong Democrat who has marched for gun control legislation, while Jared a senior advisor to his father-in-law, President Donald Trump. But less widely reported is the division within the family over Josh’s relationship with Karlie Kloss, which was detailed in Vicky Ward’s recent book Kushner, Inc.
In her extensive reporting on Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner's road to becoming the "self-styled Prince and Princess of America," Ward, who is has been a Town & Country contributing editor, also details the dynamics of the Kushner family, lead by Josh and Jared's domineering father Charles. Charles, the son of Holocaust survivors, built a formidable real estate empire in New Jersey, and was convicted in 2004 of 18 counts of tax evasion, making illegal campaign contributions, and witness tampering. He served 14 months in Federal prison.
Kushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump
Kushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump
The drama begins on the very second page of the book, which chronicles the Kushner family’s celebration on the evening of President Trump’s inauguration in January, 2017. The family was ensconced in the Trump International Hotel in DC, where they had observed shabbat.
Charles reportedly "turned nasty" toward Josh, venting his dislike for Kloss. “Josh, we expect you to do the right thing," Charlie told his younger son, according to one source. “The person you are with is not the right person.”
Josh, according to Ward, "absorbed his father’s abuse in silence." According to multiple sources, Charles and his wife, Josh's mother Seryl, disliked Kloss in part because she was not Jewish. Ivanka Trump, Jared's wife, had also been a Gentile when they began dating, but had converted to Judaism before her marriage to Jared.
But, writes Ward, the Kushners saw Ivanka differently.
Ivanka, they explained, was different. She was a Trump. She was also, like Jared, real estate royalty. And she’d attended an Ivy League school, the University of Pennsylvania. Kloss grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St Louis, and hadn’t even been to college when she and Josh began dating.
Jared apparently shared his parents' less-than-favorable opinion of Kloss. When Josh and Karlie first began dating, Ward reports that Aaron Gell, then-editor of The New York Observer, a newspaper owned by Jared, offered the elder Kushner brother his congratulations. In response, “Jared said something like, ‘Don’t worry. The family is going to take care of that. We’re not very happy about him dating a shiksa. We’re hoping he’ll move on.’ He also said ‘She’s not that smart,’ which I don’t think is true.”
Ward writes that she’s heard from multiple sources that the whole family “spoke horribly” about Kloss behind her back, and referred to her as “the lingerie model.” She also writes that “Josh told Gary Cohn and others he was not allowed to bring Kloss to holiday family gatherings. For six years they refused to even meet her.”
Despite this tension, Jared and Josh reportedly remained close. And although the family eventually warmed to Kloss once it became clear that she and Josh were going to get engaged, Ward suggests that the marriage remains a source of tension in comparison to the Jared's union with Ivanka, which they embraced wholeheartedly.
Ward writes that the Kushners don't seem to understand how Kloss is perceived by many of their friends and contemporaries. “The sad irony is that Charlie and Seryl have got it backwards: in the liberal circles in which they travel, Kloss is a far more admirable role model and champion of women in the workplace than Ivanka.” Ward notes that Kloss set up Kode with Klossy at 22, and has featured pioneering women in STEM on her YouTube channel.
Ward also notes that Kloss has made no secret of her political convictions, speaking out regularly in favor of gun control. “While Ivanka postured on social media, Kloss was authentic and passionate. Who she was now related to wasn’t going to change that.”
