Trump says Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner will not be on his economic taskforce after furious backlash

President’s daughter and son-in-law have already been given roles far outside their experience and expertise

Donald Trump has denied that his daughter and son-in-law will sit on a new council to oversee the US's return to normal economic life, despite early reports to the contrary.

Fox News initially reported that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner would sit on the “Opening Our Country Council”, a White House-appointed body that will supposedly also feature Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and the director of the United States National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow, among others.

However, at his daily press briefing on 13 April, Mr Trump said that the two have not been invited to be on the council after all.

The reported makeup of the council has shifted several times over the past week, with Mr Kushner and Ms Trump’s appointments proving especially controversial. Mr Trump’s latest about-face on who is included only muddies the water further as he continues to insist the country will before long be ready for a return to normal economic life.

Mr Kushner’s role in various of the administration’s key priorities has been a bone of contention since the start of Mr Trump’s presidency. Most recently, he has been charged with running a coronavirus taskforce of his own despite having no experience in public health or disaster management.

Appearing in person at a recent press briefing, Mr Kushner was widely criticised for saying the federal stockpile of personal protective equipment was “our stockpile”, meaning it existed only as a supplementary resource for the states. The definition of the stockpile on the government site was changed after the press conference to match Mr Kushner’s words.

Ms Trump, meanwhile, has been regularly credited by her father for creating “millions of jobs”, a claim for which there is no basis. She has also taken on a diplomatic role on several occasions, appearing in her father’s stead at summits including the G20, where she was famously snubbed by European leaders.

Mr Trump’s worry about the coronavirus lockdown’s damage to the US economy has been a running theme of the outbreak. For much of March he reiterated that the country would be reopened by Easter in what he called a “beautiful timeline”, even as public health experts warned that doing so could result in hundreds of thousands of deaths. The president later rowed back on that plan.