PAPA DON’T PREACH
It’s Trump vs. Trump as Ivanka disagrees with prez
Breaking from her father and boss yesterday, Ivanka Trump said that separating illegal immigrant children from parents is wrong and that the press is not “the enemy of the people.”
Ivanka Trump broke publicly from her father Thursday by calling the separation of migrant kids from their parents a “low point” of her time in the White House, while rejecting his claim that the press is the “enemy of the American people.”
“That was a low point for me . . . I feel very strongly about that, and I am very vehemently against family separation and the separation of parents and children,” Ivanka said at an event hosted by the political Web site Axios.
“These are not easy issues. These are incredibly difficult issues and, like the rest of the country, I experience them in a very emotional way.”
Calling immigration a “complicated” issue, she added, “I am a daughter of an immigrant. My mother grew up in communist Czech Republic.”
While Ivanka has privately expressed reservations about family separation, her comments at the Washington forum marked the first time she has publicly veered so sharply from her father’s policies.
But she also noted that her mom, Ivana, immigrated to the United States legally, and suggested other immigrants do the same.
“We are a country of laws. We have to be very careful about incentivizing behavior that puts children at risk of being trafficked, at risk of entering this country with coyotes [people smugglers] or making an incredibly dangerous journey alone,” she said.
Under President Trump’s “zero tolerance” crackdown on illegal immigration, more than 2,500 children were forcibly separated from their parents and housed in detention centers across the nation, including New York.
A federal judge in San Diego ordered that they be reunited, but Team Trump’s immigration and border security officials botched the effort, reuniting hundreds but blowing deadlines set by the court and even deporting parents of about 400 children who remain detained in the US.
Facing intense blowback, Trump later reversed the separation policy.
Ivanka, an aide to the president
who has said she would focus on children’s and family issues in the White House, has been torched by critics for not publicly denouncing the separation policy.
Comedian Samantha Bee called her out after Ivanka posted an Instagram photo of her cuddling her baby son.
“You know, Ivanka, that’s a beautiful photo of you and your child,” Bee said on her TBS show, “Full Frontal.”
“But let me just say, one mother to another: Do something about your dad’s immigration practices, you feckless c–t! He listens to you!”
Bee came under blistering attack for using the word and apologized.
Asked about Ivanka’s comments Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president has already claimed “he doesn’t like the idea of family separation. I don't think anybody does.”
But she then offered a defense of zero tolerance.
“We also don’t like the idea of open borders. We don't like the idea of allowing people into our country if we don’t know who they are, where they are going and why they’re coming. The president wants to secure our borders, which is why he has asked Congress to fix the law,” Sanders said.
Ivanka also said she disagreed with her father’s oft-repeated charge that the media is the “enemy of the American people.”
“I’ve certainly received my fair share of reporting on me personally that I know not to be fully accurate, so I have some sensitivity around why people have concerns and gripe, especially when they sort of feel tar- geted, but, no, I do not consider the media the enemy of the people,” she said.
Pressed by reporters to say whether she agreed with Ivanka’s statement, Sanders grew angry, slammed reporters for their coverage of the administration and refused to contradict the president.
Trump late Thursday tweeted a new version of his refrain.
“They asked my daughter Ivanka whether or not the media is the enemy of the people. She correctly said no. It is the FAKE NEWS, which is a large percentage of the media, that is the enemy of the people!” he wrote.
The president would later go off on the press, yet again, at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
“They can make anything sound bad,” he said, ‘because they are the fake, fake, disgusting news.”