I’ve never really doubted the fact that Karlie Kloss and I likely share the same liberal/Democratic politics. What I doubt is how she can even associate with her husband’s ridiculous family. This isn’t just a “my husband’s grandma is MAGA” situation. This is a situation where Karlie’s husband Joshua Kushner is super-close to his brother, Jared Kushner, and Karlie has to put her glossy girl-power brand next to the tacky fascist sh-tshow that is the Trump-Kushner White House. She threads that needle though, minus the occasional drama on Project Runway. And now she’ll do an event with the Biden campaign. An implicit endorsement, but I would assume she’s also making explicit endorsements too.
Karlie Kloss is a major advocate for girls’ science and tech education and, by her own description, a proud liberal. And so even though she’s married into the Kushner/Trump family, it’s not really a surprise she’ll be supporting Joe Biden’s election campaign. The supermodel and Project Runway host will appear Thursday at a Biden event focused on young people and STEAM, an expanded approach to teaching science, technology, engineering, art and math.
Also joining Kloss, 28, will be Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani and others — Dr. Morine Cebert Gaitors, Nancy Lu and Adrianna Williams.
The Biden campaign said in a statement that the event “will highlight the important work that is happening with women in STEAM.” Biden has several initiatives related to this, as part of his campaign.
A source close to Kloss explains: “For those who know Karlie, this event makes a lot of sense. She cares deeply about the future of women in STEAM and has always supported the candidates who stand for the issues she’s passionate about.”
Kloss launched Kode With Klossy in 2015 as a way to empower and inspire young women to become involved in tech. Throughout the year, the organization hosts learning experiences to help girls pursue their passion — and one of the most well-known programs is a free two-week bootcamp for teenage girls.
If you were confused by the acronyms, I had to look it up too. STEM is well-known, I think, and it stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. STEM-driven programs for girls are so valuable because there is simply a huge need to bring women into those fields and workforces. STEAM is all of that plus an “A” for Arts, basically trying to get girls to see the artistic side to science. Karlie’s brand is all about this – empowering girls and women, STEM, etc. It’s smart that the Biden-Harris campaign is doing events around STEM and that Karlie is part of it. And yes, the Kushner connection makes it even more interesting. I bet Joshua will not be joining her at this event!
Photos courtesy of Backgrid and Avalon Red.
STEM and STEAM are well known acronyms in education and corporate America; STEM for girls is particularly important because STEM careers are still predominantly held by men.
It’s so important to get girls interested in STEM for a lot of reasons, but one that stands out for me is their financial security. I went to a big engineering school and my friends who were in engineering programs didn’t interview for jobs, they interviewed companies. There are so few women who go to top engineering schools, that companies literally fight over them.
In South Africa the government started a drive to get girls into STEM in the late 90’s. And they sustained it. I went to varsity in 2003 and we were 8 girls in a class of 150 for Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering. Five years later when my youngest sister started they were up to 20. When I went back for a masters in 2013 the first year class had a 50/50 split.
The thing is, when I say the government pushed this, I mean they pushed it hard. I went to high school in a rural area that was quite remote, but we had multiple awareness sessions as well as a few visits from representatives of engineering departments at various universities. And even this large roll out had to be sustained for almost 15 years for them to reach parity.
Yup, these jobs pay so much better and are usually somewhat more secure. I started out majoring in international relations but then switched to a science degree (not for $$ reasons but b/c I realized it was a better fit) and it’s been SUCH a good move for my financial security. I’m so glad I had parents/teachers/friends in HS who encouraged me to keep taking math and science classes so I had the option of switching majors.
On the flip side, corporate America is all for expanding the talent base who can do these STEM jobs because over time, the supply/demand rules kick in and wages will eventually drop if there is a wider labor base who can do the job. Not a reason NOT to encourage women to pursue them of course, but a reason why corporations are supportive of the efforts when morally many of them don’t care two cents about women’s rights.
I find her so disgusting and nothing can ever change that now. It is what it is. Oh lord is that phrase like “who you gonna call?” now? You can’t use it without thinking of the orange diarrhea.
I really don’t get how/why, with all the fish in the sea, she would hook up with a Kushner. Yikes doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Her and husband should have publicly dissociated themselves from Ivanka and Jared the moment they had no issue praising white suppremacists or puting kids in cages at the border and separating them from their parents. I mean it’s one thing to have different politics opinions and values with family members. It’s another thing to have family members working inside a racist administration seeking to ruin people’s lives. I don’t Think I would be speaking with my brothers or even mother or father if they were working for the Trump administration. I don’t care about anything she has to say until she stop hanging with Nepotism Barbie and her husband.
+1
Karlie and Josh were dating long before Trump even had the idea of running for president so her evil in-laws were probably not a factor when they got together. Also, she doesn’t hang out with them and stays as far away as she can.
@Jamie, Ivanka was at her wedding right ?
That, and the brother had his sticky paws all over the attempt to set up a health data mining grift (“Oscar,” the data base that they tried to peddle in response to COVID).
If I were related to Hitler and of that epoch, I wouldn’t have him and Eva at my wedding, nor would I remain in contact with the couple just to not lose out on seeing nieces and nephews. For example.
@Lena – Probably, they had one super small wedding, then had the party out west. I feel bad for Karlie for having to have her at either, considering how the Kushner family treated her.
His family actually hates her, they wouldn’t even speak to her until she converted even though her and Josh Kushner had dated for years by that point (they were actually dating four years before Trump ever even ran for President). They only acknowledged her right before the wedding. Josh’s politics also aren’t the same as Jared. He shows up at DC marches (sometimes claiming observer status, sometimes not). Also, the fact that he didn’t let his family pressure him out of the relationship with her, which I found admirable.
His family looked down on her for being a VS model. His dad was in federal prison however so they family is warped.
The Kushners are demacrats and the Trumps were too, until Trump signed up to run as a republican.
Yeah Karlie and Josh are clearly Democrats. I’m not even sure Jared Kushner is really a Republican, nor Ivanka…
Wait, so, people like George Conway even though his wife worked for Agent Orange, because he was outspokenly anti-administration. But if it’s Karlie, married to someone who’s related to someone who works for Agent Orange, even if she is similarly outspokenly anti-administration, she’s disgusting and no one will listen to her? Seems like a double standard to me, honestly.
For the record, I’m liberal and I hate Agent Orange but I let people have their opinions and I respect those that are able to see past his rhetoric, regardless of who they’re married to.
Victoria – Karlie Kloss has not been outspoken against this administration. A few milquetoast statements in 4-5 years does not equal “outspoken.” So no, you cannot cry double-standard here. I have no idea what you’re saying in your last sentence, but this isn’t the time to respect people’s opinions when people’s opinions are destroying the country.
Not moi! I don’t buy what the Conways are selling, never have, never will.
It is a hard comparison to draw. Karlie is a model with some charitable endeavors living a celebrity life. George Conway is a political person, who is engaging in lobbying as a form of employment. So to me it makes sense he would be more vocal than her in a more effective way.
I do think Karlie can and should have done more to distance herself in the public eye, but I think in her head she probably views herself as cut-off from her inlaws already, years prior to the election, by virtue of how they treated her even before Trump ran for the presidency and how they continued to treat her and Josh well after they were engaged.
I don’t really care for Conway for the same reasons I don’t really care for Kloss. However, even I can recognise that Conway has the potential to cause more damage to Trump than Kloss has the potential to benefit Biden. With that said, all support is needed at this point and everyone should rightly be speaking up.
People like George Conway?
I think it’s more of an enemy of my enemy is my friend situation with him.
That’s a great lip colour on her. She looks pretty here.
Not everyone is up to totally cutting off their family members, even when their family members are violent criminals. (And actually even when they are the victims!) I don’t see how anyone can hold it against Karlie that she’s happily married to someone who has bad family members who he did not choose to cut off. It does not appear that karlie and her husband « sold out » or grifted. They just see his brother sometimes. Maybe they don’t want to be estranged from the nieces and nephews?
I’m with you, Lavande. People are SO JUDGY!! She’s married to a guy with a horrible family, but she’s working for good causes and is probably getting major crap for it from his family but she’s doing it.
Except that her husband works in the family business, and the two of them hang out with the same shady people as Jared and Ivanka.
She may not have the same political or moral visions as them, but she is complicit because she enjoy the benefits of being linked with them. Then she never really knows how to express on all the policies made in this administration, in particular the decisions of her brother-in-law.
What benefits? No one (who is already famous/rich) is trying to be linked to the trumps for social status these days. It’s the opposite of a benefit that she is linked to them
@lavande at the beginning of the pandemic here in the US a company her husband founded received a contract to produce COVID tests after Trump refused tests from the WHO. She and her husband are directly benefiting from their connections in the WH.
This right here. I’d be fully willing to believe that it’s just a difficult family situation, in-laws being awful and getting worse years into their relationship, she has no control over what her brother in law does, but Joshua is in business with his brother, and nothing Jared touches is clean or legit.
If my brother were doing the things Jared has been doing, we would not have a relationship right now, and absolutely would NOT be in business together.
Yeah, I think a lot of commenters don’t realize they have been a thing since 2012. Four years before Trump even ran for president. I think it is a bit much to start judging women for not sacrificing years long relationships with their significant others because their inlaws (with whom they clearly don’t have a relationship) are assholes. Much less to have to do so to maintain their own political credibility.
I agree that the Kushner affiliation hampers her as well, rather than benefits her. The project runway clip is significant to me, I think it was an industry middle finger to her, honestly, that they actually ran it.
Not sure why anyone wants to take time out of their day to defend Karlie f*cking Kloss. We all know she’s been with Kushner for almost a decade. And it is SUPER appropriate to judge someone for not cutting off their family when their family are the Kushners. A simple google search can tell you everything you need to know about the Kushners, separate from the Trumps. And then yeah, his brother is actively destroying our democracy. So, I’m gonna judge Josh and Karlie. If they had publicly disavowed his family and the Trumps, and cut them off, cool. But they have not done that. I personally wouldn’t find it hard to stop talking to my family if my family were the KUSHNERS.
Josh is as much of a grifter as his brother — and they’re very close.
It is a statement of *incredible* unexamined privilege to say you’re not going to “judge” someone for having Trump relatives. Not all of us share the privilege to be so cool girl and casual and nonjudgemental about what Donald Trump and Jared and Ivanka have done to this country!
I really don’t know how to feel with her. I’m not super angry for her marrying who she married. His family is garbage. He still associates with them but some people are just weaker when it comes to family. It’s not good, and overall it’s actually kind of sad. But my husband and I have parents who are so beyond what we believe politically that we might be on different planets. We didn’t cut them off, and maybe that makes us garbage humans. I know plenty of other people have cut their families out and I just don’t have the energy or strength at this point if I wanted to. That said – we can’t look at them the same way anymore. Knowing that they are so wildly different in the way that they vote truly has damaged the relationships. It’s probably never going to be the same to be honest.
Are your parents slumlords? Do they put babies in cages or force people into debt? Are they defrauding the public? Encouraging racism from the White House? If not, it is not the same. Having sh*tty opinions is one thing, it happens in almost all families. THIS is something else entirely. She’s having her cake and eating it too. I’m over it. You are the company you keep. Or choose.
Agree 100% Emmy. The Kushners were well known trash when they met, so to claim oh trump wasn’t running for President then, doesn’t cut it. This is an evil family, just like the Trump family.
Comments like Erin’s are how I know not to get my hopes up about the future of this nation. The passivity born from not being personally affected that’s framed as being reasonable.
Agreed. It’s pure privilege to say you aren’t willing to confront or cut off Trump-supporting friends and family members.
How is Erin cutting off her parents going to change anything? You think her parents will then magically change? No. That’s not how it works.
One of the ONLY ways to reach a Trump supporter is for someone they love to confront them. They are brainwashed and in a cult, I get it. You have more power than you realize simply because they care for you. There is a deeper connection. You should use that power for good and not passively lie back and say whatever, whatever.
With that said, I get it — this is an insane situation. Bizarre beyond description. I do have compassion that family can be difficult. But not as difficult and deadly as four more years of Trump will be for people like me who are poor and queer and don’t have healthcare.
GeeWhiz, I agree with you. It took me a long time to come to this conclusion but this is where I now live. I used to be of the opinion it’s her/his brother/father/mother/uncle/best friend etc., they shouldn’t be forced to turn their backs on them for being xyz. Now I know that unless or until well meaning people are willing to make the difficult choices and say enough to friends and relations where certain ethics are concern, we’ll really never get beyond this. It’s human nature I guess, but this is why things are the way they are.
@emmy, of course it would do something how do you think the sexual revolution of the sixties succeeded, the progress women have made in the last 50 years. People had to make difficult choices like these and force change. If the brother/sister/father/mother/uncle/aunt/best friend felt the social cost of these reprehensible views/behavior, they would indeed change, or at least not do/say some of what we’ve seen.
I remember after Trump won an actor I like but can’t think of his name right now, declared that people should quit these awful family members. I remember at the time many agreed, but it didn’t last because humans think they can have change with none of the sacrifices.
Oh suuuure, I’m positive that that’s how people are won over. Good god. And no, people cutting off relatives was definitely not how women’s rights were won.
Also, do we cut them off or keep trying to change their mind? You need to make a decision there because it’s not both.
@emmy. Absolutely women had to cut off family members and take a stand. Many suffered for it, but they did it, lost family financial support and much more. And no, sometimes you cannot reach them and so must distant ones self to take a stand. I’m not saying it’s easy or even possible for some people, but that’s how things change. The reason there has been so few lasting changes in bigotry is because most people who are not personally affected aren’t willing to make the sacrifice.
Cutting people off isn’t the most effective way to persuade them in all cases. Sometimes it is necessary. I’ve done this with family members before. Sometimes it is a better approach to keep distance but remain kind to people if you believe they might eventually change their mind. You step away from socializing with them as much but ‘leave the door open’ for them and you explain that you affirm them as a person but not their beliefs. If people are increasingly isolated and cast out and yelled at by their liberal friends, all that this does is drive them further into the rhetoric of Trumpism. Trump wants people to believe that the liberals hate them. The disconnection between the two parties is fraying the social fabric of our country with devastating results. Division and tribalism directly benefit Trump and by extension the Republicans because it affirms the worldview they parrot. I’m not going to play into that. The great Russian-American writer and activist Masha Gessen points out that in order for autocracy to thrive, one of the necessary conditions, perhaps the most crucial, is loneliness. I’ve distanced myself from people that I care about, but I’ve also made it clear that I will always be there for them if they need me. I still answer their calls. I’m not cutting them off, I’m stepping back.
Plus if they do realize the error of their ways, why would they want to come back to someone who has viciously rejected them before? (Obviously this would never happen with the Kushners, they are too far gone. They are the case where cutting people off makes sense). We should want as many people as possible under the big tent with us. We should want to win people over as much as we can, not shut them out. It’s much easier to ask to re-join a group again if you believe you will be accepted. I think about the tattoo parlors that will cover up someone’s hate tattoos free of charge. The person has decided they don’t want to have these hate symbols on their body, and the tattoo artist meets them where they are and helps them to re-integrate. We have to be able to allow people to re-integrate again without shaming them. Shame is useless as a social tool in the long term. It only makes people more entrenched and more prone to radicalization. Grace is far more compelling as a social force than shame, and far more persuasive and strategic in the long term.
“We didn’t cut them off, and maybe that makes us garbage humans.”
Yes it does and yes you are.
It’s extremely difficult with family, and I don’t think there is one clear cut answer that fits every single situation. For some it’s cut off completely, for others it’s a strained and changed relationship, as you said. Everyone has to make that choice for themselves and decide what their own limits are.
To me, when your family member is the one actually committing these atrocities and truly hurting people and destroying the country? They need to go.
Joshua out here coning and getting government money too.
She ain’t doing this to endorse. She doing it hoping no one will put 2 and 2 together about THEIR money trail.
All the Karlie apologists love to forget about joshua on the trump admin grift and loving it. and that money spends nice doesn’t it Karlie? But nope, they have amnesia. Who am I? Where am I? How did I get here?
What is the grift? I haven’t read about anything other than Thrive asking affiliates NOT to accept PPP money and affiliates taking the money anyway on a variety of pretexts (didn’t get the letter, Thrive isn’t on our board, etc.). His health care company, Oscar, if anything, is damaged by the Trump admin’s efforts to repeal Obamacare.
Jared and Karlie are just trying to whitewash their own reputations while they see the possibility of Trump losing the election.
@superashes： Cadre, a company Joshua & Jared set up in 2015, is worth 800 million. It’s a real estate type company & has off-shore investors shunting through a Cayman account. Directly against ethics that Jared shouldnt have foreign investors in his business while working in the White House *making Middle Eastern peace deal lol* (it’s reported he still has 20-50million in company).
Joshua says he talks to his brother every day! Grifters, all. Cadre got federal tax breaks like much of Joshua’s businesses.
Also, when Jared divested his other real estate etc. Investments when he started advising Trump guess who is his trustee…his brother Joshua, barf.
Like their sister going to China and directly implying selling US visa’s to Chinese investors via Trump, it’s all so dirty and there is so much disaster news that you need forensic reporting to keep up. Karlie and Joshua can peddle their pretend ‘liberal’ support while profiteering racism & fascism of the Kushners and Trump.
Lol she’s going to be Marchesa 2.0. With everyone defending her, she doesn’t need Wintour’s help.
For everyone comparing their own life choices with her’s, kindly remember YOU are not a celebrity and lack the privilege and power = a kind of autonomy not available to normal folks. She ‘chooses’ to stay very close to the wrong side. At the very least, we can try not to bestow social acceptance so quickly on someone like this.
Does no one remember those nauseating Vogue profiles on Ivanka.
Also, if the trump ladies want to be recognised for their philanthropy …they can go right ahead with that bs but it will never fool me. Anand Giridhardas has some amazing things to say about these wealthy scions practising philanthropy when their families wreak havoc.
“At the very least, we can try not to bestow social acceptance so quickly on someone like this.”
THIS. RIGHT. HERE. At *minimum*….
Yeah. While I don’t think Karlie has a relationship with the Kushners in any real sense (I don’t think she chose them, just Josh, who is a lifelong democrat, and his family actively hates her while absolutely loving Ivanka), I also agree no one should give these folks the benefit of the doubt either.
If Joshua and Karlie donated all the money Josh’s company has made from various contracts during the presidency and COVID because of his family connection to get Dems elected, they’d seem less complicit.
@Tiffany: Who are you to call another poster a “garbage human being?” How blindly hostile of you. Do you think rude, ignorant divisiveness like yours to Erin, about a situation you know virtually nothing about, helps ANYTHING, or ANYONE? Guess what: it doesn’t, it only distances people who are ALREADY on the same side of a cause, despite some inevitable variations. You have no idea what Erin’s situation with her own parents is; she may be dependent on them emotionally or financially, or they might be on her; they may be ill, old, or very beloved, despite extremely deep shortcomings, and perhaps parting from them entirely might cause immense devastation to her life. This does NOT make her “garbage.” To know so little about another person, and to judge so rapidly and cruelly, aids no one here. Trump is a genuinely garbage “human being”, but the minute you start spreading that word around on Celebitchy, towards fellow, long time, intelligent and compassionate posters, you make the word meaningless, petty, random, and inane.