'Go home!' Ivanka Trump inundated with backlash over dubious private island scheme

Thousands of Albanians have taken to the streets — and the internet — to rage against a planned luxury resort linked to Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, with protesters demanding the government cancel the project and chanting "Ivanka, go home."

The flashpoint is a proposed €4 billion ($4.7 billion) development — described by Prime Minister Edi Rama as an "extraordinary investment" — on Sazan Island and the protected Vjosa-Narta coastal wetlands in southern Albania. Ivanka described it in dreamy terms on a recent podcast.

"It's an unbelievable, beautiful, 1,400-hectare private island in the middle of the Mediterranean," she told host David Senra. "We swam to the island, we went on a hike, barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated."

She did not mention the protests.

On the ground in Albania, the mood was rather less romantic. Anadolu Agency reported thousands gathering in Tirana under the slogan "Albania is not for sale." TV Klan presenter Leftioni Peristere flagged AFP wire coverage of the demonstrations, which have now stretched into a fourth consecutive day — with police firing water cannons at crowds that included children.

One Albanian, posting a video of the country's stunning Adriatic coastline, put the stakes simply: "Do you know what we are protesting for?"

Another, in a widely shared video, was blunter. "All the blood, sweat, and tears that our people and ancestors have fought for is being sold by a leader who has betrayed us," he said, calling out Prime Minister Edi Rama by name.

Protest crowds have echoed that sentiment, chanting "Thieves!" and demanding Rama's arrest by SPAK — Albania's Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutors, who opened a formal investigation into the project this week.

Ivanka told Senra the resort is "the culmination of all of my experience in real estate, all of my travel, a lot of reflection on how I want to live, how I think people increasingly want to live."

Albanians, it seems, have thoughts about that too.