Ivanka Trump got her moral compass from her father, she reportedly told rich GOP donors
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Ivanka Trump got a little personal with wealthy Republican donors at a mid-August fundraising retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Or at least she flirted with intimacy. Asked by the moderator, former Entertainment Tonight host Mary Hart, what personality traits she inherited most from her parents, Ivanka Trump quickly said her mother set a strong example of how to be a successful and powerful woman, Politico reports. "And her father? He passed onto her his moral compass, she said, according to two event attendees."
President Trump is not generally known as a paragon of moral rectitude, but if this seems like too-good-to-check political gossip, Ivanka Trump said something similar in public, at the 2016 Republican National Convention, Politico notes. "My father taught my siblings and me the importance of positive values and a strong ethical compass," she said at the time.
The point of Ivanka Trump aligning herself with her father's moral proclivities wasn't to bare her inner ethical sanctum, though, but rather to create an illusion of intimacy with the 120 elite donors shelling out good money to hear her speak at House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's (R-Calif.) mountainside fundraiser, Politico notes. Most political families do similar farming-out of family anecdotes by children and siblings.
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.
"You have to have a draw to convince donors to write a $50,000 check to come to a fundraiser," one close White House adviser told Politico. "The president and vice president are obviously a draw, and Melania Trump would be amazing, if she would do it. The next best things are the kids."
"It's the storytelling that has become the selling point," Tammy Vigil, an associate professor of communication at Boston University, tells Politico. "The stories may not actually be accurate, but it still gives people a sense of connectedness." So it's possible Ivanka Trump was lying about her father setting her moral compass? Don't think about that too hard. Read more at Politico.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
-
‘Restaurateurs have become millionaires’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Earth is rapidly approaching a ‘hothouse’ trajectory of warmingThe explainer It may become impossible to fix
-
Health insurance: Premiums soar as ACA subsidies endFeature 1.4 million people have dropped coverage
-
NIH director Bhattacharya tapped as acting CDC headSpeed Read Jay Bhattacharya, a critic of the CDC’s Covid-19 response, will now lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
-
Witkoff and Kushner tackle Ukraine, Iran in GenevaSpeed Read Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held negotiations aimed at securing a nuclear deal with Iran and an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine
-
Pentagon spokesperson forced out as DHS’s resignsSpeed Read Senior military adviser Col. David Butler was fired by Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin is resigning
-
Judge orders Washington slavery exhibit restoredSpeed Read The Trump administration took down displays about slavery at the President’s House Site in Philadelphia
-
Hyatt chair joins growing list of Epstein files losersSpeed Read Thomas Pritzker stepped down as executive chair of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation over his ties with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
-
Judge blocks Hegseth from punishing Kelly over videoSpeed Read Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pushed for the senator to be demoted over a video in which he reminds military officials they should refuse illegal orders
-
Trump’s EPA kills legal basis for federal climate policySpeed Read The government’s authority to regulate several planet-warming pollutants has been repealed
-
House votes to end Trump’s Canada tariffsSpeed Read Six Republicans joined with Democrats to repeal the president’s tariffs
