Ivanka Trump claims she and Jared Kushner “discovered” a protected island between Albania and Italy and made an entire country really angry

Ivanka Trump went on a podcast last month and said she’s “working on an incredible project with my husband in the Mediterranean.” She said they “discovered” the island while sailing with friends. They swam to it, hiked barefoot to the top, and were “captivated.”

Discovered it. Like Christopher Columbus. Like nobody in the history of civilization had ever looked at a map of the Adriatic Sea and noticed the island sitting between Albania and Italy.

Sazan Island has been there for thousands of years. It was a secret communist military base during the Cold War. It’s in a UNESCO-adjacent protected environmental zone full of flamingos and sea turtles. Albania has known about it forever. Italy has known about it forever. Every sailor in the Adriatic has known about it forever.

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner discovered an island…lol

Ivanka Trump announces that she and her husband, Jared Kushner, are building a massive off-the-grid private island in the middle of the Mediterranean.

The island spans 1,400 hectares and currently has no power.

They will be working with some of the world's greatest living… pic.twitter.com/0yJqr3nHSw

— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) June 2, 2026

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner sailed past it on a yacht, swam to shore, walked up a hill with no shoes on, and decided they discovered it. Now they want to build a billion-dollar luxury resort on it and the entire country of Albania is in the streets protesting.

Nobody gives a shit that you hiked barefoot to the top of a hill. That’s not a discovery. That’s a vacation. You didn’t plant a flag on the moon. You walked on a beach that fishermen have been using for centuries and decided it would make a great spot for a hotel.

The “Flamingo Revolution” Is Real

Arnavutluk’ta “Flamingo Devrimi” protestoları 7. gününde

🔺Tiran’da Ivanka Trump ve Jared Kushner’in 2 milyar dolarlık lüks tatil köyü projesine karşı protestolar büyüyor.

🔺Projenin flamingoların yaşadığı koruma altındaki lagünleri ve kıyı ekosistemi tehdit ettiği için… pic.twitter.com/kcqvZfNeS5

— serbestiyet (@serbestiyetweb) June 7, 2026

Albanians have been protesting for seven consecutive days and counting. They’ve dubbed it the “Flamingo Revolution” because the island and surrounding Vjosa-Narta protected zone are home to flamingo habitats, sea turtle nesting grounds, and other wildlife that environmentalists say will be destroyed if the resort development goes forward.

The protests escalated when excavators and bulldozers showed up on site without any public consultation. No community meetings. No transparency. No development permits made available to the public. One day there were pristine dunes and nesting sites. The next day there were bulldozers cutting trees and ripping up the landscape. Footage of an activist being dragged away from the construction went viral. Thousands have been marching in Tirana every night since.

The Albanian government claims there’s a development permit but nobody has seen it. The anti-corruption prosecution office has opened an investigation.

Bulldozers that were on site have been removed, which protesters believe is an attempt to quiet the anger rather than actually stop the project. Environmental officers have already mapped the destruction of at least one sea turtle nest from the bulldozers that were there.

Reminder: Nobody Voted for Jared Kushner

This is the part that keeps getting me. Jared Kushner is not an elected official. He doesn’t hold a government position. He’s the president’s son-in-law and a billionaire real estate developer who is somehow involved in everything, everywhere, all at once.

Israel. Gaza. Iran. Saudi Arabia. Now Albania. The man has his fingerprints on geopolitics across three continents and the only qualification on his resume is that he married the right person.

Nobody in Albania voted for Kushner. Nobody in the United States voted for Kushner. He’s a private citizen with a real estate company called Sazan Real Estate Development LLC who is building a billion-dollar resort on a protected island while an entire country protests against it in the streets. His security team is clashing with protesters.

Albanians are marching nightly. Environmental groups are mapping destroyed wildlife habitats. And the Albanian prime minister is saying the project will go forward “as long as I am here” because he doesn’t want Albania to have “the stigma of being a country where investors are met with hostility.”

That’s a sitting head of state telling his own citizens to shut up because a billionaire American developer wants to build hotels on their protected land. Kushner’s company released a statement about “responsible stewardship, environmental enhancement, job creation, and creating long-term value for local communities.”

The standard developer press release that gets copy-pasted for every project that bulldozes a natural habitat to build luxury accommodations for rich people. Responsible stewardship doesn’t start with destroying sea turtle nests before anyone in the community knows what’s happening.

The Corruption Angle Is Right There

Albania’s socialist administration is already embroiled in a corruption scandal. The deputy prime minister was charged last year and parliament blocked her arrest. Now the anti-corruption office is investigating the Kushner resort development. The prime minister who’s championing the project has been in power since 2013 and is pushing it through despite massive public opposition and zero transparency.

A billionaire American developer with deep political connections wants to build a luxury resort on a protected island. The sitting prime minister is forcing it through against the will of his own people. The anti-corruption office is investigating. Bulldozers showed up before anyone knew what was happening. Development permits exist but nobody can see them.

I don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes between Kushner and the Albanian government. I don’t know what deals were made or what was promised. What I do know is that when a billionaire shows up in a small country with one of the lowest GDPs in Europe and starts bulldozing a protected environmental zone while the prime minister tells protesters to be quiet, the optics are as bad as they can possibly get.

The Flamingos Didn’t Ask for This Either

A protected island with flamingos, sea turtles, and untouched natural habitats being turned into a luxury resort for wealthy tourists. Environmentalists say the wildlife will be destroyed.

Conservation groups have already documented damage to nesting sites. The protesters adopted the pink flamingo as their symbol because that’s what they’re fighting for. Not politics. Not anti-American sentiment. The flamingos. The turtles. The ecosystem that exists on a protected island that was supposed to remain protected.

One young woman told CBS News in Tirana, “It’s not that I don’t want this country to be grown and to be known worldwide and to have a lot of tourists. But it’s not the best place because that place is part of UNESCO and I don’t want the flamingos and any kind of animals to be destroyed from their homes.”

That’s a reasonable position from someone who loves their country and doesn’t want its natural heritage bulldozed so a billionaire can build a hotel. The Albanian people deserve better than having their protected land developed without consultation, transparency, or any meaningful input from the communities that live there.

Jared and Ivanka didn’t discover anything. They found a beautiful island that was beautiful specifically because nobody had built a resort on it yet. Now they want to change that. Albania is fighting back. The flamingos can’t fight for themselves. Someone has to.

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