November/December 2019 Issue

How the Media Boosts Ivanka Trump’s Stealth Damage-Control Campaign

Speak softly and carry a big schtick.

Evan Vucci/AP

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Outside of a single, breezy tweet invoking Thomas Jefferson to defend her father last month, first daughter and White House adviser Ivanka Trump has been relatively quiet on the topic of impeachment. But she took a moment from her efforts to empower women last weekend to tepidly push back on the president’s demands to publicly identify the whistleblower at the center of his Ukraine scandal. She mostly parroted Republicans’ complaints about impeachment—but some media outlets trumpeted her bold “break” with her father instead.
 
It was the latest episode in one of the most enduring storylines of the Trump era: Things are going off the rails, but never fear—Ivanka is quietly working behind the scenes to be the least-awful member of the administration, details of which are conveniently leaked to the press:
 

February 2017: The New York Times reports that Ivanka and sidekick Jared Kushner “helped kill” an executive order rolling back LGBTQ protections.

April 2017: Politico reports that Ivanka has “quietly reached out to” Planned Parent­hood as part of her “listening tour.”

April 2017: Eric Trump tells the Telegraph that a “heartbroken and outraged” Ivanka pushed her father to launch missile strikes on Syria after a chemical attack.

May 2017: Ivanka, who Axios states is “passionate” about climate change, is said to be working behind the scenes to influence her father’s decision to ditch the Paris climate deal.

June 2017: A US Weekly cover story trumpets that Ivanka “will always fight for what she believes in.”

June 2018: CNN asserts that Ivanka “agrees with her father’s sentiments that he hates the family separation issue and doesn’t want it to occur”—though she won’t say anything about it publicly.

September 2018: An unnamed source tells Vanity Fair that Ivanka told her dad to pull his nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

October 2018: The New York Times reports that only after “importuning” by Ivanka and Jared did the president speak out against anti-Semitism follow­ing a mass shooting at a synagogue.

April 2019: As Trump threatens to shut down the US-Mexico border, Jared pushes for immigration poli­cies in line with his and Ivanka’s “more moderate positions,” Politico reports.

July 2019: An anonymous source tells CBS News that the president “took heat” from Ivanka after he let his supporters chant “send her back” at a rally.

August 2019: As Trump dithers, Ivanka reportedly has been “quietly calling” lawmakers to gauge their support for new gun laws.

September 2019: Yahoo News reports “rumors” that Ivanka and Jared have suggested replacing Vice President Mike Pence with a woman on the 2020 ticket.

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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.

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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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