Presidential adviser Ivanka Trump is shown during her visit last month to the Golconda Fort in Hyderabad, India. (Manish Swarup/Associated Press)
In telling the tale of President Trump’s decision to embrace accused sexual predator Roy Moore, Politico reports:
His daughter Ivanka Trump told The Associated Press in mid-November that “there’s a special place in hell for people who prey on children.” She was repeating a statement from the White House’s legislative director, Marc Short, who used the same phrase days earlier in an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd.
One is forced to ask: What good is Ivanka Trump? She was there to protect the Paris Accords, right? Nope. She was there to settle the president down, prevent him from errant decisions and cringe-worthy remarks? No, she sure didn’t do that.
She was supposed to elevate women’s issues. But my colleague Anne Applebaum wrote in April:
When Trump appeared on a stage in Berlin … purportedly to discuss women in the workforce, she did not seem qualified. On the contrary, she provided a shocking reminder of the damage that the Trump lifestyle brand will do (and has already done) not just to America’s “image” but to America’s reputation as a serious country, even to America’s reputation as a democracy.
Why was she there at all? The other panelists — the Canadian foreign minister, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund and German Chancellor Angela Merkel — raised no eyebrows because their official functions explain themselves.
She was supposed to push for some kind of child-care credit. But she got little quite little, Business Insider reports:
GOP Sens. Marco Rubio and Mike Lee and White House advisor Ivanka Trump scored a partial victory in the form of an expanded child tax credit in the newly passed Senate Republican tax bill, which cleared the chamber on Saturday.
But an amendment sponsored by the senators to enlarge the credit for millions of poor families was voted down, despite earning bipartisan support. … Experts argue the expanded credit is regressive because it will stay capped at $2,000, rather than being adjusted for inflation. High-income families will ultimately benefit the most from the expanded credit because they’ll be able to cash in on the full amount.
We don’t know how the tax credit will wash out in the bill’s final version. (And it’s far from clear that Ivanka Trump was a decisive voice in the minimal expansion of the child tax credit.)
In short, all those singing her praises a year ago and assuring us that she and her husband would make certain that the president didn’t stray too far into Crazyland must be disappointed, if not embarrassed. Rather than guide her father, Ivanka Trump has ineptly provided cover. Rather than promote the causes of working women, she has become a symbol of nepotism, cronyism and nouveau riche excess.
Next time she is interviewed, Ivanka Trump should be asked:
- Do you believe your father’s accusers?
- If someone did the things your father is accused of, should that person be forced to leave office?
- How do you feel about your father endorsing someone who prompted you to say “there’s a special place in hell for people who prey on children”? Does it anger you? Sadden or embarrass you?
- Is rampant sexual harassment a threat facing working women? Did you listen to your father’s accusers describe the effect of their encounters with the president on their careers and lives?
- What evidence is there that your father listens to your advice?
Certainly she’ll refuse to answer such questions or deflect them. However, her inability to confront the hard facts suggested by the questions and to champion effectively women and children brings us back to the question of whether she is a prop, complicit in her father’s immoral and corrupt administration:
At this point, does anyone really believe Ivanka Trump has had a “positive impact” on the administration or the country?