How Ivanka Trump Sparked a Revolution in Albania

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1:14I want to talk to you about Ivanka Trump. Until she posted that video the other day, the one with her daughter speeding down the beach on top of a horse, maybe Ivanka had been a little out of sight, out of mind for you. But you know who has not forgotten about Donald Trump's favorite daughter? Albania.

1:37All summer long, tens of thousands of everyday Albanians have taken to the streets to protest Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, because they have bought up beachfront property, stuff that Albanians thought was protected, and they plan to build a massive resort on top of it. Slate's image in West Nights went all the way to Albania to figure out why everyone was so pissed.

2:02Imogen West-Knights: If you were Ivanka Trump, how comfortable would you feel stepping foot in Albania these days? I would think carefully about where I went. But the thing is, they do. The Trumps have been there, but they come. Locals are telling me they come with like a huge entourage and all the streets get closed. So no one sees her if she comes. Why aren't Americans in the street every day of the week for 100 days? I don't know. Maybe you guys should be out there. I'd be like, hmm, maybe we should look into that. Maybe. Today on the show, what Albania's fight against the Trump family could teach the rest of us.

2:41I'm Mary Harris. You're listening to What Next. Stick around.

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5:18so Imogen you're here to tell me the twisted tale of why so many Albanians have taken to the streets to protest the Trump family this is basically happening because Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner seem very keen to develop a wildlife area that most people thought was protected and you actually went to Albania this summer to understand what's going on here tell me what you found? So yes, I spent five days in Tirana, the capital, and Vlor, which is the city next to the development that Kushner and co want to make down there. And it was fascinating because I think before I got there, I thought that these protests that have been going on against the development would be very anti-Trump, would be quite Trump-focused, because that's the reason that this development has reached international press like you know it's the trump connection and oh this dastardly family doing more dastardly things but there um it's become so much bigger it's a it's kind of a complex story to tell because yes the the bare bones of the facts are jared kushner and ivanka trump have bought an island and a peninsula in albania to develop into luxury villas and a hotel.

6:40But although protests began against that, it's developed into a way bigger movement where people are protesting the Albanian government, corruption. It's a sort of focal point for tensions that already existed there. And that's why it's been so long lasting. I think if it had just been, let's protest this development, I don't think the momentum would have kept up. But we are now in something like the hundredth day of protests.

7:10Imogen West-Knights: More than that, I think. Yeah, which is wild. So I guess before you get into your thesis about what's going on here, I just want you to describe what's going on in the ground. Like why did you want to go there? Like was there a video you saw or something where you're like, I kind of see this for myself? I think honestly the thing that made me interested in the first, but you see videos of protests all over the world, right? You know, lots of things to protest, was discovering that it had been happening every single day without fail for something like 40 days. And I thought, you know. You say it's like 7 p.m.

7:44Imogen West-Knights: at night. People just start, like, they get home from work and they're like, okay, time to hit the streets. Time to hit the streets. Out we go. Same time. Every day. And there are people going every single day without fail. And talk to me about how many people. At the beginning, it was really big. It was like 100 ,000 people. You know, So Albania is not a terribly big country. That's massive for a small nation. And they would protest outside their parliament buildings. And it has inevitably gotten smaller because, you know, 100 ,000 people is a lot to have for that length of time. But it remains.

8:17Every time I spoke to someone about the protest while I was there, they were like, oh, you know, you won't be impressed. It's smaller now. But it really, it's not, you know, it's not like four cranks outside an office. It's thousands and thousands of people are down there. protests. Yeah. It's like, I've been to small protests. Like I know what that looks like. Um, so I would just, I was really interested. I was like, what is behind the longevity of this movement? You know, why, how are they doing it? How, why are they so angry about this thing? And how are they keeping up the momentum in the way that they are?

8:47Imogen West-Knights: And these protests come to have this moniker, the Flamingo revolution. Tell, explain. Okay, so the flamingo moniker comes from the fact that Kushner and co. want to build these luxury villas in an area known as the Via Zanata, which encompasses loads of wildlife habitats like pine forests and coastal areas, but also a lagoon. And in this lagoon, flamingos nest. It's the only place in Albania that flamingos do nest. It's this thing that locals are super proud of, this beautiful creature in their habitat nearby where they live. So the flamingo would obviously be in a bit of a pickle if you built 10 ,000 luxury fillers in the lagoon where it lives.

9:36And so and it's also it's a it's a nice kind of it's an easy visual symbol, right? like everyone knows what a flamingo looks like they're eye-catching so it has become the mascot

9:45Imogen West-Knights: of this movement and we should just lay out how far down the road jared kushner and ivanka trump are here like jared has pushed out pictures of like here's what this could look like these sort of it's almost like star wars in these kind of like villas that are like built into the beautiful like scenery uh and shoreline um so this is really it's being imagined and some construction has started right yes so it's not this is very much not theoretical like there have been construction boots on the ground for this and as you say the architectural renderings of the project already exist and they do have this kind of like tatooine yes tatooine yeah and the well the reason these protests began is due to the construction beginning.

10:38So people like environmental activists and people very closely tied into construction in Albania have known about this project for years. It's been in the pipeline for like, I want to say four years, but kind of the average Albanian wasn't aware of it going on because there was no physical evidence of it happening. And then construction, until the bulldozers arrive on site, start erecting all this fencing along the peninsula which is this like untouched strip of coastline um near vloor but there are little villages nearby and the residents of one of this little village uh noticed obviously that there were these huge heavy machinery units arriving and people in hard hats tearing things up so they went down there to find out what was going on protest against it and a security guard for the construction site dragged this older man to the ground and someone filmed it.

11:37And the clip got uploaded to social media and from there, kind of the rest is history. It went like ultra viral in Albania. And now all over the country, people are seeing this and being like, hold on, what's happening here? This doesn't seem right.

11:51Imogen West-Knights: Well, it's interesting because like around the same time, Ivanka Trump began to do, begin to speak about this project. Like she did a podcast interview where she talks about it right away. She talks about it in these very romantic terms. I'm working on an incredible project with my husband in the Mediterranean. It's massive in scale. I think that's an understatement. Can you explain? It is. Like I was on this boat trip and we stopped to swim at this island and we walked barefoot to the top and it was so beautiful. And like, we just want to, you know, make this beautiful development and it's quite large.

12:32Imogen West-Knights: You know, she says it, it's like, ha ha ha. Like our development is quite large. It's a, it's a weird interview, but it's funny that like these things are kind of happening all at the same time. Yeah. I, I, I sort of looked into this. I was like, is this just coincidental that this happened at like almost on the same day, these, these, because the constructions begin and the protests happen and the video starts going viral of the man being dragged to the ground and Ivanka goes on this podcast and starts waxing lyrical about the site. I couldn't work it out. I mean, I think they just happened at the same time and therefore it all kind of blew up in public consciousness at the same time.

13:07Imogen West-Knights: It's interesting because you look at the reporting about this trip where theoretically Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner think about developing this site. And there's been reporting that it's not just that they were on some yacht. No, it was a Rothschild yacht. Rothschild yacht. And then the prime minister arrives and is like, hello, welcome to my country. So it's like, it seems from the very beginning that like whatever interest they had in this island was very much like twisted up with the politics of the country. Politics of the country and just the money making potential. You know, I think the sinister thing among many sinister things about Ivanka Trump is that she's managed to spin this kind of, oh, you know, it was just a chance encounter with this beautiful beach.

13:53And I was, you know, like swimming in the water. And I just think it's transparently nonsense. You know, it's a business venture. And the whole point is that they're going to make a huge amount of money from selling these luxury villas to their friends, the global elite. And in the process, kind of ruining a national treasure of an ecological site. You can tell I've been slightly kind of radicalized by going there. You kind of have. Yeah, yeah. No, it was just extraordinary, the kind of righteous anger of every single person I met over the five days I was in Albania, all of whom were like, this is categorically wrong and I cannot allow it to go ahead.

14:32Imogen West-Knights: But you know who else is righteously angry? Albania's prime minister. Like he did. He did an interview with the Financial Times. His case for this development is it's a historical chance for Albania to dot, dot, dot, like make money essentially. Um, and he's also, I think at some point he says like, fuck you. Like he's angry. He's angry. He's always been a pretty outspoken kind of a dude, not very, um, PR trained, I would say. But yeah, no, in that interview with the Financial Times, he's saying, you know, like to the protesters, to the people who are against of development. Literally, fuck you, in quotes.

15:11And that's, in some ways, you kind of have to respect it. Like, he's just, he's not even pretending to care about what his people want. It's like, this is what we're doing.

15:21Imogen West-Knights: Well, what do the people, what do the protesters say about the idea that, like, okay, this is a financial opportunity for Albania? Like, go become the next Amalfi Coast. Well, what's complicated about all of this is that Albania does need money. They're one of the poorest countries in Europe. The monthly average income is like a thousand US dollars. It's poor. There's a lot of poverty there and a lot of problems. It's not that they're against tourism. Like tourism done right is obviously a great thing for Albania if it can be sustainable, if it can create jobs, if it can cycle money through the local economy.

16:00But their problem, one of the problems that they have with this Trump development is that it's not really tourism of the kind that is going to generate money for the local economy. It's not like that. Because it's mostly real estate. those 10 ,000 villas will be sold. 10 ,000. It's so many. 10 ,000, 10 ,000. It really is. It will render the area kind of unrecognizable. These are Rothschild yacht people that they're going to be targeting to buy these things. They're going to be priced so that only the very wealthiest can afford them. Those people are not going into the local towns and villages and spending their money there.

16:44It's all kind of siloed. It's not connected, people were telling me, from the rest of the Albanian economy.

16:50Imogen West-Knights: Well, that's their concern, at least. I mean, like, how much do we actually even know about what this turns out to be? It's fear. A lot of it is just people are so scared of what might go ahead there and they won't get a say in it. But there's not very much detail that's yet been given out. And yet construction has started. So they're like, OK, well, it's happening. We need to prevent it from happening in case it turns out to be something that ruins the landscape and doesn't produce jobs. It's interesting, too, because you found people were mad not just at the prime minister of Albania, but even like his main opponent.

17:28Imogen West-Knights: Like people were just like, we don't like how the government's working. This is indicative of something larger. And they didn't seem to have a lot of faith that things would go differently if they kind of replaced the guy who's currently in charge who'd been on the yacht blessing all this with Jared and Ivanka. Yeah. So the other guy at the moment, the opposition leader is a man called Sally Barisha, who was previously the prime minister. And the thing about Albanian politics is that it is constantly, the government are constantly under fire for corruption charges, many of which are like highly credible.

18:04I mean, the ins and outs of it are slightly dull maybe, but there are lots of reports have been done into things like how construction projects are used to launder money in Albania, money that comes from drug trafficking. And so they're very used to this idea that people in charge, even democratically elected people in charge, are likely to prioritize under the table deals, creating income and return for investors over making life better for the average Albanian, if that makes sense. So given that, these protests have been going on for more than 100 days.

18:47Imogen West-Knights: There are recent reports that protests have become violent. I actually don't know how credible to think about, like, how credibly to think about that. I think it's mostly that, like, Parliament is back in session. So it's like people are there to see it and there's more to clash with. There's more to push against, right? Yeah. But I guess my question is, what would it look like for these protests to succeed, given the fact that, like, the general, like, distrust is kind of with everyone? Yeah, it depended on who you asked, really. I think a lot of people would like a general election. There are other candidates and other parties that they could vote for.

19:27There's a party called, well, I'm going to mangle their name. It's something like Lovizia Bashkir, which means the Together Movement. It's like their left party. And they are running on a platform of anti-corruption, anti-this development and developments like it. So there would be options if there was a general election. But yeah, there was quite a lot of just like generalized despair about how difficult life has been in Albania and the kind of empty promise of a democratized country that has never quite turned out to be what they hoped it might be when communism fell.

20:06Imogen West-Knights: Do you think this project is going to happen? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Despite the protests? I kind of think so. Yes, because, I don't know, maybe I'll be surprised, but the response - Well, the prime minister is very dug in. He's like, this is happening. He's dug in. He is dug in, and he will ultimately kind of get the say. Although there are legal contests being made about the project, but my understanding, and my understanding is I guess somewhat limited from only having been there for a short time but is that um court cases in Albania are um long processes that don't always uh result in result in a verdict like there are certain court cases involved with this development that have been running for 20 years and just no conclusion is being reached and so things are stalling and then going ahead and then stalling and but it's a lot of money on the table it's something like 1.4 billion dollars are at stake for albania in this project which is needed but it's a question then of like what will happen with that money will it be sustainable is it just a shot in the arm for the next five years and then all the jobs created in construction will disappear because it's constructed and then yeah it's it's I was I was daunted when I got there because I thought this would be a relatively straightforward like Trump's trying to build something people don't want it but it turns out that the story is so much wider and deeper and that people's frustrations with their country that are coming out as a result of these protests are very very wide-ranging

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23:44Imogen West-Knights: You know, you didn't just go to the protests. You actually went to the coastal place that is where this all would be constructed. There's the island of Cezanne and sort of the surrounding area. What was that like? What did you find when you went there? Yeah, so there's these two bits. there's the island and then just over the bay there's the peninsula the peninsula is very very beautiful it's peaceful it's a nature reserve you know it's full of these like different species of birds and it's a beautiful day and there's nobody there really but you can see already the construction the paused construction it's been sort of like put on hold or it was over the summer anyway while the protests were raging I think because they sort of hoped that the protests might just fizzle out and then they could get started again um And the idea, just to be totally clear, the idea is like development on the peninsula and on this island, right?

24:39And the island is like where Jared and Ivanka go. And like the peninsula is like more development. Yeah, exactly. So I think the idea on the island is that they want to do a sort of super high end hotel resort. And then over the bay will be these like privately owned villas. That's the kind of core of the project. but it really it was quite striking that you it's almost like you'd be you'd be walking down a path in this um peninsula you turn left and it's like stunning nature birds habitats all that kind of thing and then you turn right and it's like churned up earth and like chain link fencing that used to that has been like it's really really weird and one of those things looks very nice and one of those things does not.

25:28I mean, obviously, the construction is construction, but the plans for what they want to build there are also so at odds with the untouched, peaceful nature of what already exists. So it's kind of funny that she's been talking about, you know, we want to do it as respectfully as possible. It's like, this is not as respectful as you could possibly be.

25:48Imogen West-Knights: I don't know if there's a way to build 10 ,000 villas respectfully. No, I don't think that's a respectful number. You know, you can't. it's just not a thing um you also kind of fact check fact check divanka like she does tell this story about like you know it sounds like she's just swimming and we just like went up to this island barefoot walked to the top is i mean you are not doing that there is there is you your feet would be in shreds within about 15 minutes it's like exposed rock and gravel there's unexploded landmines yeah the mines were really a lot when you were like there are mines here and like also like an under underground like hideouts from world war ii it's it's a sort of military base you know it's and it's it's covered in landmines and there's hardly any paths and there's also the sea edges are filled with like rusted machinery you are not this is not Like Puerto Rico has similar situations to this, but like it is a lot to deal with and manage.

26:58Yes. And she wasn't, there's no way she can't have been, she cannot have walked up to the top of that mountain barefoot. There's no way. She just didn't do it.

27:07Imogen West-Knights: You kind of had this emotional moment too with locals, right? Where you went to them to just kind of understand who's actually living in this area and how they would be impacted if all of this construction happened were you expecting that no I wasn't expecting the emotion maybe I should should have been really um yeah so I went to this village Zvernet which is the the peninsula is called the Zvernet peninsula and the village of Zvernet has got like 200 permanent residents in it they own the land and it's been kind of requisitioned from them by various dodgy dealings over the last 20 years. And they want it back.

27:52They don't, they feel like, okay, if you want to develop something here, then you have to buy the land from us. It belongs to us. It's been in our families for literally hundreds of, you know, I think one person said they've been there since like 5 AD, it's not like 500 AD. I'm talking about like centuries and centuries of their family being on this land. and it's a poor area they've hardly got any pension in Albania and most of the residents are elderly and all of their children have moved abroad to support to be able to send money back home so I went to this village kind of slightly with my just my journalist hat on like okay let's get some vox pops and hear how people feel but they were really really emotional like crying angry and I had this nice woman Bruno who was helping me who was translating but I didn't I almost didn't need a translator they were just like raging and raging against because someone had finally come to talk to them was how they felt they were like okay someone can say to somebody outside Albania what is going on here because they've just not had not many people even in the Albanian media have been to the village to talk to them somehow but they feel like they're not really being given a platform to protest this thing.

29:12Imogen West-Knights: What do they say to the idea of like, well, money would come here, that would be good for you? Well, they were like, okay, if it's now the case that this land can be developed for tourism, let us do it. You know, our families want to do it. We would like to be the ones to work on it. If you want to have tourists here, we could set that up. You know, we can sell the land, we can establish all the things that you need for tourism they're not against that they do they want and need money but they're against this land being like whipped out from under their noses and sold to elites who they don't really see it as tourism i guess is what i'm saying because it it's it's more like it is colonialism yeah yeah so here's this question i have after your travels what's happening in this smaller in a smaller protected area of Albania.

30:06It's kind of just a teeny tiny taste of what the Trumps have been doing in the United States. Like Albania, I would like you to meet Washington, D.C., right? Like, so what do you think is the difference? Like, what is your theory here? Like, why aren't Americans in the street every day of the week for 100 days? it's because there's a very clear focus, I suppose, with this. It's like, whereas in America, it feels, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like Donald Trump and his cronies are doing something highly objectionable most days. And there's a kind of potential fatigue that comes with that.

30:49It's like, okay, well, what are we going to protest now? Like, which of these things is it going to be?

30:53Imogen West-Knights: Well, that's smart. It's like, it's fun. Like there's a, there's a solid focus that you can like, you can like grab onto. This development is the thing that we're going to rally around and then it can bleed into a bigger movement from there. But I think that helps. But someone, when I was there, described it as the boiling frog experiment, that for some reason this came at a moment where tensions have been building and building and building and building and they felt like fed up and fed up and fed up. And then this video comes out of an older man being dragged to the ground and they just think, you know what, that's enough.

31:23Like we have had it up to the eyeballs for years and years, decades of corrupt politicians. But I don't know. I mean, what do you think? Why do you think it hasn't happened that way in America?

31:35Imogen West-Knights: I do have a theory of the case, because a couple of things stood out to me from your reporting. And some of it may be just like your focus and who you spoke to. But it seemed to me that the protests, as you've said, are bigger than Trump. Like the protagonists of the protest, it's not Trump. It's actually like Albanian sovereignty is what is happening here. And I think that creates a different kind of propulsion. Like if you are just focusing on this one bad man, I think it can give you a really hot flash of anger, but I'm not sure that that hot flash of anger endures. If you are like fighting for something that is for you, that is like a positive direction that you're moving your country, especially in Albania, after there have been like years of rough going for Albanian democracy, like there's lots of evidence over the course of years of things you don't like.

32:40And then this one thing happens. It's kind of the straw that broke the camel's back. And then there you are. Like it's you have both the focus and you have the endurance. That's what I read when I was listening, when I was reading your article i i think that that puts it well yeah i think that's that's what it is because it has it has been a really rough period i mean the 20th century i guess more broadly for albania and it's been a time of like massive turmoil huge change communism was very very isolated and extreme there then it came to an end in 1991 and then you have the civil war in 1997 which was very bloody and impactful.

33:20And then democracy was supposed to be this thing that was going to improve the lives of Albanians. And it kind of hasn't. There's still so much poverty and deprivation and corruption in the country that you're right. It's a kind of buildup of pressure over many, many, many years. And now the kind of young generation of Albanians, all they've known is this broken democracy. It's not like they're like, oh, well, at least it's not communism because they didn't have communism so it's like the thing that they've had has so far do you see what i'm saying it's like yeah but it's amazing they haven't given up on democracy

33:56Imogen West-Knights: do you know what i mean they're not like well this democracy thing isn't working out they're just sort of like let's do more democracy and see if we can i wondered if that was like a memory of like they probably have relatives who remember like here's what it was under communism you know what i mean and like and the civil war and like they can't they they have a memory of bad times too but it was remarkable to me that they were like no let's like be in the streets protesting i was like oh yeah interesting i think it's also that they don't quite see what they've had with sally barisha and um eddie rama for example as proper democracy exactly because they're kind of propagandists and they have this kind of cult of personality not dissimilar to Enver Hoxha, the communist guy, just in a different political regime.

34:46So they sort of see them as like not doing democracy fairly somehow. Like, yes, they're getting the votes, but how are they getting the votes? And there's all this, there's, you know, how deep do you want to go? There's charges of like voter fraud and all of this stuff. They want what they see as like real democracy, like Western European democracy, uncorruptible, which whether that exists or not, ha ha ha.

35:10Imogen West-Knights: Yeah. I mean, it also seemed to me that there were good examples from all around Albania of what it doesn't want to become, like coastal areas where they feel like they've been developed and people can't afford housing there anymore. You know what I mean? Like they have these sort of like counter examples right there of like, we don't actually want that. and also just seems like in the United States I really feel like being preyed upon is a novel experience and Americans may just be like waiting for it to go away yes and like it struck me that in Albania people were like no we got to fight for that to stop actually this has only just occurred to me and obviously shoot me down if you think there's no viable comparison, but it kind of reminds me a little bit of the data center stuff.

36:01Like suddenly people are like, oh, someone wants to build something really huge and horrible and profitable on my land. I don't think so. But those are kind of isolated. You'll get like one farmer in rural America who's like, no, but maybe, I don't know.

36:16Imogen West-Knights: But it's building. I feel like it's becoming a thing and politicians are like, oh, how do we use this? How do we prevent it? You know, clearly, yeah, very similarly. And hopefully in the United States, which is like a very large country, these data centers are going kind of everywhere. Yeah. So I think that's another hard thing in the United States, like marshalling enough people in enough places to be mad about a thing. Well, that's, yeah, I think that's a really fair point. Like Toronto, I mean, it's not, there have not only been protests in Toronto, but the fact that it is a small enough country and lots of people do live in Toronto and Toronto is not a very big city.

36:51If you're, if you're, if you're mad, you're probably very near somewhere you can go to be with other people who are mad. How do you think this battle ends? I really don't know. I really don't know, you know, because I hope that they don't give up. You know, that's not very, like, neutrally journalistic of me, but I, you know, power to them. I hope they win. But I don't know. Rama seems very, very, very, very set on doing this, and it doesn't really look like... The Prime Minister, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Unless the courts can stop it. And that's difficult because there's a lot of money flowing around.

37:29And as I said, you know, corruption is quite rife there. I don't know. I really don't know.

37:35Imogen West-Knights: And as we have learned in the United States, like the courts are not necessarily going to save you. Well, yes, exactly. You might think, well, but it's illegal, so it can't happen. And then you're like, oh, it just happened anyway. So not a teary one, this, unfortunately. If you were Ivanka Trump, how comfortable would you feel stepping foot in Albania these days? I would think carefully about where I went. But the thing is, they do. The Trumps have been there, but they come, locals are telling me, they come with like a huge entourage and all the streets get closed. So no one sees her if she can't.

38:13Yeah.

38:14Imogen West-Knights: So maybe she'd be fine. Oh, boy. Imogen, I'm really grateful for your time and your reporting. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. Imogen Westknights writes for Slate.com, which is where you can find her article all about what's happening in Albania right now. You're going to want to check it out. All right, that's the show. What Next is produced by Evan Campbell, Patrick Fort, and Madeline Thames-Ducharm. Paige Osborne is our senior supervising producer. Mia Lobel is the executive producer of podcasts here at Slate. Ben Richmond is the senior director of podcast operations. And I'm Mary Harris.

38:49Go track me down wherever you are on social media. You can find me on Instagram at Hey Podcast Mary or on Blue Sky at Mary Harris. All right. That's the show. Catch you back here next time.

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