CNN anchor Jake Tapper acknowledged Wednesday that there’s a big discrepancy in the way the press covers Donald Trump’s adult children compared to how they treat Hillary Clinton’s only daughter, Chelsea.
It’s an idea that’s been said before, but Tapper drew new attention to it on Wednesday.
“It’s true,” Tapper said on Twitter in response to a colleague who said that Chelsea is never “grilled” the way Trump’s adult children have been.
Tapper noted that Chelsea doesn’t do as many media interviews as the Trump children, but said “there’s no reason to treat one adult child of a nominee with kid gloves while others get tough questions.”
Media critic Jack Shafer made a similar point about Clinton’s treatment by the press in February.
“The press covers her, of course, attempting to ask her substantive questions, but mostly she exists to grace the covers of magazines — Fast Company and Elle most recently — and be treated to lighter-than-air puff pieces,” he wrote.
but there’s no reason to treat one adult child of a nominee with kid gloves while others get tough questions.
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 5, 2016
Trump’s children, by contrast, are often asked in their own interviews to answer for their father’s controversial remarks and to any criticism his campaign may be facing that day.
In early September, Trump’s daughter Ivanka was asked to answer charges that her father is a sexist, but some have noted that Chelsea Clinton is not being asked about her father’s attitudes toward women.
Also in September, Donald Trump Jr. was asked to answer for his father’s tax history, but Chelsea has escaped similar questions.
