February 26, 2018

Ivanka Trump Thinks It’s “Pretty Inappropriate” to Ask Her About Her Father’s Accusers

Ivanka, a key administration emissary to women, admits she doesn’t believe them.

Ivanka Trump has attempted to nurture a public image as a backer of women’s empowerment. But, in remarks released by NBC News on Monday morning, she categorically denied the accounts of the nearly two dozen women who have accused her father of sexual misconduct spanning several decades.

In an interview conducted over the weekend, NBC’s Peter Alexander asked Trump about the allegations. The first daughter’s reaction was frosty: “I think it’s a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter if she believes the accusers of her father when he’s affirmatively stated that there’s no truth to it,” she said in a new interview that aired in full Monday. “I don’t think that’s a question you would ask many other daughters.”

Trump, of course, is not just any other daughter: She currently enjoys the vague title of assistant to the president, holds an interim security clearance, and has been one of the most visible female boosters of her father’s presidential campaign and administration. The interview was recorded in South Korea, ahead of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics’ closing ceremony, where Trump was representing the United States.

“I believe my father, I know my father,” she continued. “So I think I have that right as a daughter to believe my father.”

Her remarks echo the White House’s repeated denials and defense of Trump based on little more than his own word, as allegations against the president resurfaced and gained fresh attention amid the recent #MeToo movement.

It’s not the first time the first daughter has bristled when questioned about her father’s record on women. In a Berlin appearance in March 2017, earlier in the administration, she was asked to square her empowerment message with her father’s public attitudes toward women.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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