Karlie Kloss said she has never met Donald Trump while addressing how she handles being married into a family tied to him. On Wednesday, she told Emily Chang that she knows where she stands politically, even if the family dinner conversation can cross party lines.
St. Louis and the Kushner circle
Kloss, who is married to Joshua Kushner, said, “Well, I know who I am.” She added, “I know the values that guide my life and the issues that I care about,” then followed with, “So, you know, I haven't lost sight of who I am, but also, it's my husband's family.”
Joshua Kushner is Jared Kushner’s brother, and Jared Kushner is married to Ivanka Trump. That makes Kloss’s comments more than a casual family note: she is describing how she keeps a public political identity while connected by marriage to the Trump orbit.
Blue dot, red state
Asked about family dinners, Kloss said, “Well, we're sitting here in St. Louis, which is a blue dot in a red state,” and added, “Since as long as I can remember, I've always been exposed to a lot of different political points of view and I think that trained me for my life.” She then drew the line plainly: “You know, I'm a Democrat.”
She also said, “I think it's possible to have relationships with people who you politically don't align with, and I think this country has always been a place for, for dialogue.” She followed that with, “We have to be able to talk to each other.” For readers, that is the practical takeaway from her comments: she is not describing retreat from disagreement, but a way to live inside it without surrendering her own politics.
TIME Magazine in 2019
This was not her first public account of the same strain. In 2019, she told TIME Magazine, “It’s been hard,” and said she chooses to focus on the values she shares with her husband, “the same liberal values that I was raised with and that have guided me throughout my life.”
The through line is simple. Kloss is signaling that marriage to Joshua Kushner has not erased her politics, and she is drawing a line between family connection and ideological agreement. The unresolved part is how often she actually sees Donald Trump beyond the family relationship she described — and on her own account, she does not see him at all.
