First daughter Ivanka Trump said in an interview aired Wednesday that when she disagrees with her father, “he knows it and I express myself with total candor” — but that she has no plans to comment publicly on those issues where she disagrees.
“I think there are multiple ways to have your voice heard — in some case it’s through protest and it’s through going on the nightly news and talking about or denouncing every issue in which you disagree with,” Trump said to CBS’ Gayle King on “CBS This Morning,” describing her new unpaid role as Assistant to the President. “Other times it is quietly, and directly, and candidly. So where I disagree with my father, he knows it, and I express myself with total candor.”
“I speak up frequently and my father agrees with me on so many issues,” Trump also said. “I don’t think it will make me a more effective advocate to constantly articulate every issue publicly. That means I’ll take hits from some critics who say I should take to the street... I think most of the impact I have over time, most people will not actually know about.”
Trump announced after her father became president that she would have an office in the White House’s West Wing and a security clearance, despite saying in a “60 Minutes” interview shortly after her father’s election that she was “going to be a daughter” and not play a role in the administration. After critics raised concerns that she would not be beholden to ethics standards, Trump announced late last month that she would become an official unpaid government employee.
Trump told CBS that she “was processing in real-time” after the election when she initially said she would not play an official political role. Eventually, she said, she “realized having one foot in, one foot out, wouldn’t work.”
The official title, she said, was to appease critics and ensure “that I’m holding myself to my highest ethical standard.”
Trump also said she plans to be vocal in her new role — just with those who matter in the West Wing: “I would say not to conflate lack of public denouncement with silence.”
Trump also hit back at criticisms that her family and she continue to profit from their businesses in the interview, saying that she would not have taken legal efforts to disassociate herself from her eponymous business if she not intend to heed them. Trump’s business has been placed in an independent trust while she serves in the White House, and she told King she had “no involvement in its management” though it is being controlled by family members.
“Just practically speaking, if my interest was making money or growing my business I would do far better to completely disengage and do exactly that,” she said.