September 16, 2016

Donald Trump Complains About Ivanka’s Cosmopolitan Interview, Admits He Hasn’t Read It

He slammed the publication as “a useless magazine, a worthless magazine.”

Mike Segar/Reuters via ZUMA Press

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Ivanka Trump’s recent interview with Cosmopolitan quickly went off the rails when she was asked to reconcile her father’s new child care policy with his previous statements criticizing working mothers. On Friday, Donald Trump stood up for his daughter by slamming Cosmopolitan reporter Prachi Gupta for having the nerve to conduct a serious interview.

“She was like attacked by this rather non-intelligent reporter, really attacked viciously,” Trump told Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo over the phone.

Trump also had harsh words for Cosmopolitan, referring to it as “a useless magazine, a worthless magazine” and saying that “it has gone downhill” since the death of longtime editor Helen Gurley Brown.

“She did him a favor, because who wants to read it in Cosmo?” Trump said of his daughter’s agreeing to do the interview with Gupta, apparently unaware that Gupta is a woman. “Nobody wants to read it in Cosmopolitan magazine any more. She did it to be nice.”

Trump also told Bartiromo that he hasn’t actually read the interview. “I heard the person—I haven’t seen it—but I heard the person was really rude,” he said.

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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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