In an impressively careful interview with CBS anchor Gayle King, first daughter Ivanka Trump enigmatically predicted that “most of the impact” she has during father’s administration the public “will not actually know about.”
King worked hard over the course of her Tuesday interview to press for an admission from Trump that she’s a subversive liberal sympathist embedded in a Republican administration. For her part, Trump insisted upon keeping any policy differences private, arguing that her discretion allows her to be a more effective advocate on behalf of those ideas when it counts.
King asserted, “You have a couple [critics] that say, ‘Why isn’t Ivanka speaking out? Where is she on Planned Parenthood? Where is she on gay rights? Where is she on the rights of women? Where is she on climate change?'”
“I would say not to conflate lack of public denouncement with silence,” Trump, a newly minted White House adviser, responded.
Later in the interview, Trump returned to that point in her response to a question King posed about whether she served as a “moderating force in the White House,” explaining, “You asked me … about people who criticize me for not taking to social media on every single issue, and I would ask them if that would render me more effective or less effective with the people ultimately making decisions.”
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That argument functions clearly as a concession that her suspected disagreements with conservatives on many issues do exist. In essence, the first daughter’s reasoning heavily implies that, far from being “complicit,” her public silence actually enables her to promote and defend those liberal policies more effectively than if she were transparent about them in the media.
And she’s right.
As context, for instance, Politico reported in February that Trump and her husband Jared Kushner successfully helped “lead the charge” to kill an executive order drafted to rollback Obama administration protections for LGBT rights in the workplace.
If the first daughter publicly continued to champion the policies of politicians she’s backed previously — progressives such as Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D.N.Y. — it would make the work of already-suspicious conservatives who wish to minimize her influence in the White House much easier. For right or wrong, it would also damage her father’s reputation with powerful movement conservatives whose willingness to embrace him took some significant amount of effort.
Conservatives should, of course, recognize that it’s not the end of the world to have an influential left-of-center voice in the White House. Whether or not she accepted an official position in the administration, her father obviously values her input highly. A far more interesting question would probe how Ivanka Trump’s beliefs have changed (if at all) since the president stepped into the Republican primary almost two years ago.
While the Left reflexively castigates Trump for maintaining public silence, her strategy to maximize her influence is actually far more sophisticated than their desire for open dissent. Without knowing exactly where the first daughter actually stands on most issues, however, it is difficult for Trump’s supporters and detractors alike to evaluate whether that strategy is a cause for concern or celebration.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
