Ivanka Trump claims she doesn't 'voice dissent publicly' because that would mean she's 'not part of the team'
In an interview with the Financial Times published Thursday, first daughter Ivanka Trump effectively blamed her silence over her father's response to the violence last month in Charlottesville, Virginia, on her unwavering commitment to being a team player. "To voice dissent publicly would mean I'm not part of the team. When you're part of a team, you're part of a team," Trump said. "That doesn't mean everyone in the White House has homogeneous views — we don't, and I think that's good and healthy — but that doesn't mean we're publicly undermining [each other] and this administration."
Even behind closed doors, Trump, who is also a senior adviser to the president, claimed that it's "unrealistic" for people to expect she could change her father's mind on key issues. "That my presence in and of itself would carry so much weight with my father that he would abandon his core values and the agenda that the American people voted for when they elected him, it's not going to happen," Trump said. "To those critics, shy of turning my father into a liberal, I'd be a failure to them."
Notably, she didn't mention that time she reportedly heavily influenced her father's decision to bomb Syria in the wake of the country's chemical attack.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Catch the full interview at the Financial Times.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Who is paying for Europe’s €90bn EU loan?Today’s Big Question Kyiv secures crucial funding but the EU ‘blinked’ at the chance to strike a bold blow against Russia
-
Quiz of The Week: 13 – 19 DecemberQuiz Have you been paying attention to The Week’s news?
-
What’s causing the non-fiction slump?In the Spotlight Readers are turning to crime fiction, romantasy and self help books as a form of escapism
-
Son arrested over killing of Rob and Michele ReinerSpeed Read Nick, the 32-year-old son of Hollywood director Rob Reiner, has been booked for the murder of his parents
-
Rob Reiner, wife dead in ‘apparent homicide’speed read The Reiners, found in their Los Angeles home, ‘had injuries consistent with being stabbed’
-
Hungary’s Krasznahorkai wins Nobel for literatureSpeed Read László Krasznahorkai is the author of acclaimed novels like ‘The Melancholy of Resistance’ and ‘Satantango’
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's viewSpeed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history