Ivanka Trump mingles with the world's power brokers, but in a new interview, admits she has no real influence in the Oval Office. The former New York socialite gave a recent interview with the Financial Times in which she was described as "one of the most powerful first children in White House history."
But that power is limited, apparently.
“Some people have created unrealistic expectations of what they expect from me," she said in the interview. "That my presence, in and of itself, would carry so much weight with my father that he would abandon his core values and the agenda that the American people voted for when they elected him."
"It’s not going to happen," she added. "To those critics, shy of turning my father into a liberal, I’d be a failure to them.”
Financial Times reported that there are murmurings that Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, may be abandoning their posts in the White House sometime soon, perhaps even in 2018.
The couple now has "access to world power brokers," according to the Times, "but concerns continue to mount about how the couple's reputations will survive their political foray."
The incident in Charlottesville was especially difficult for Ivanka, considering Judaism, her religious faith, was targeted by the white supremacists. Beyond a simple statement denouncing the protests, Ivanka's fingerprints could not be found in the White House's response to Charlottesville, which failed to adequately condemn Nazism and white nationalism.
The Times described it as "a muted response to a difficult incident and highlighted some of the continuing misconceptions about Ivanka Trump."
Ivanka again reiterated that she tries to stay in her lane in her White House role, knowing that she cannot moderate her father's radical beliefs on immigration and diversity. Still, Ivanka said she worries at night about decisions she'd make that would turn out to be meaningless.
"I think the weight of the decisions that are made in this building are such that you can't leave it at the door in the same way that you could in the business world," she said. "Lives are impacted in a very different way."
Her only contributions thus far have been outmaneuvering recently ousted White House staffers such as Steve Bannon. For that, she got a glowing endorsement from her husband, who told FT that Ivanka could accomplish anything "she sets her mind to."
Ivanka's public relations team has been criticized for actively seeking sympathetic press hits. Apparently she has to go abroad to an England-based publication to get the review she wants.
Shares