Ivanka Trump Forges New Role as a Trusted Aide to Her Father
Treasury secretary.
In interviews last month, she said she intended to act as a moderating force in an administration swept into office by nationalist sentiment. Other officials added that she had weighed in on topics including climate, deportation, education and refugee policy. Ms. Trump acknowledged she was a novice about Washington. “I’m still at the early stages of learning how everything works,” she said, “but I know enough now to be a much more proactive voice inside the White House.”
Ms. Trump, 35, a former model, entrepreneur and hotel developer, says she will focus on gender inequality in the United States and abroad, by aiming to create a federal paid leave program, more affordable child care and a global fund for women who are entrepreneurs, among other efforts. Her interest in gender issues grew out of a “Women Who Work” hashtag and marketing campaign she devised a few years ago to help sell $99 pumps and $150 dresses. On May 2, the career advice book she worked on before the election, whose title echoes her hashtag, was released.
By inserting herself into a scald- ing set of gender dynamics, she is becoming a proxy for dashed dreams of a female presidency and the debate about President Trump’s record of conduct toward women and his views on them. Critics see her efforts as a brash feat of Trump promotion by a woman of extraordinary privilege who has learned that feminism makes for potent branding.
In the two interviews, Ms. Trump talked about unleashing the economic potential of women — some of her phrases sounding like those of Hillary Clinton — and about finding a new role model in Eleanor Roosevelt, whose autobiography she is reading. Ms. Trump is reaching out to influential women like Ginni Rometty, chief executive of IBM, and Mary T. Barra, the C.E.O. of General Motors, and studying child care policy. She disagreed with critics about her motivations for embracing feminist themes.
“Suddenly, after my father declared his candidacy, it became that all the things that I was doing that I was praised for, the same people, the critics, viewed them through this different lens,” she said. “Somehow, all the same things they applauded me for as a millennial, as a female entrepreneur, were now viewed very cynically as opportunistic.”
Some former employees express surprise at her new policy interest, saying she was once reluctant to grant them maternity leave. But other observers call her the administration’s best hope for progress on gender issues and say they are encouraged to see a presidential daughter, and a top member of a Republican White House, advocate federal paid family leave.
“I hope she will go on to become a great champion in this area,” said Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, which is working with Ms. Trump on funding female entrepreneurs.
Ultimately, “the only test is whether she is able to achieve something other than personal gain,” said Umber Ahmad, a banker turned baker and one of several women quoted in Ms. Trump’s new book who now say they feel uneasy about being included in it.
Those close to Ms. Trump say she is generally business- friendly and socially liberal. But she has one skill unmatched by almost anyone else, family members and aides say: Ms. Trump (she calls him “Dad,” not “Mr. President”) can effectively convey criticism to a man who often refuses it from others, and can appeal to him to change his mind. “He trusts me,” she said. “I don’t have a hidden agenda. I’m not looking to hit him to help myself.”
But in her 35 years, she has left little traceable record of challenging or changing him.
“A lot of their real interactions happen when it’s just the two of them,” Jared Kushner, Ms. Trump’s husband and fellow aide, said.
Though their demeanors are different — she is guarded where he is unfettered — Ms. Trump is more like her father than most people realize, according to people who know them both. She has his eye for image and branding, his sensitivity to perceived criticism. The two even speak in similar streams of superlatives: “tremendous,” “unbelievable.”
Just as Ms. Trump joined the family real estate business in 2005, the Trump name became even more of a source of power and opportunity because of the new glow from the reality television show “The Apprentice,” in which her father starred. Even as Ms. Trump was in her mid-20s, learning her way around financing negotiations and construction details, she played an authority figure on the show, weighing in on contestants’ merits during the tense boardroom scenes.
The attention helped her license her name to products: fine jewelry (2007), shoes (2010), clothing (2010) and handbags (2011), all of which were promoted on the show. Later, Ms. Trump and those close to her described the period just before her father announced his candidacy as one of the most fulfilling of her life. She had managed to update her family’s brand from the older, flashy days, with sleek designs. She was personally developing a hotel at the site of the Old Post Office building in Washington, a historical property. And Vogue magazine profiled her as a paragon of millennial taste and accomplishment.
But the very first day of her father’s presidential campaign caused her problems: His remarks about Mexico’s sending rapists over the border caused two celebrity chefs to drop out of the Old Post Office project.
Speaking in her West Wing office, Ms. Trump appeared alternately energized, defensive and daunted.
For now, Ms. Trump acknowledges how much she has to learn and asks the public to be patient with her. “I do believe that in time,” she said, “I’ll get to the right place.”