Donald Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka, dismissed months of reporting on Wednesday that she has played a central role in her father’s presidential campaign, from advising him on policy to making decisions about who is included in his innermost circle.
“I don’t express my views on policy,” Trump, 34, said during an appearance at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit, noting that child care and advocating for women are two areas where she has, in fact, offered policy advice to her father.
“I’m not the campaign mastermind as people love to portray and speculate, and I’ve been very honest on that front,” she added.
Despite once being floated as a potential vice presidential candidate and watching her husband play an influential role in her father’s campaign, Trump dismissed the idea that she is a “surrogate” of any kind or a consultant.
“I hate the word ‘surrogate,'” she told Time editor-in-chief Nancy Gibbs. “I don’t think it appreciates the role that I’m playing as my father’s daughter.”
“My opinion is a distraction and it is, truthfully, I don’t believe all that relevant,” she later said.
The mother of three has traversed the country to stump for her father and was there to introduce him as the Republican presidential nominee on the final night of the GOP convention in July. Her unique role as a partner in the Trump Organization, owner of her own businesses and daughter of a major party candidate has made it tough for her to simply take her kids to school on a daily basis, she admitted during her interview with Gibbs.
“One of the challenging things is just operating,” Trump said. “Living one’s life with the intensity and the scrutiny of this process is a very hard thing actually to do.”
She continued, “I may have been naive going into this. Nothing in life prepares you for a parent running for president of the United States — nothing. There’s no training… It is very hard to live your life and continue to build and grow your business because there is this sort of cynical overlay.”
Most recently, Trump was forced to address a series of sexually explicit comments made by her father in an audio tape unearthed from 2005. The billionaire had spoken of grabbing women “by the pussy” and trying to bed a married woman.
“That’s not language that’s consistent with any conversation I’ve had with him personally or any conversation I’ve overheard, so it was a bit jarring for me to hear,” Trump told Gibbs, adding that she’s become accustomed to having to “just shrug things off” when her father has come under fire for his controversial comments or behavior.
“The media has been vicious,” she later said. “I think that the bias is very, very real and I don’t think I would have said this to you even a year ago, but I’ve seen it many, many times. It’s tremendous.”
