Ivanka Trump Calls Family Separations A 'Low Point,' but Twitter Wonders Why She Didn't Speak up Sooner
Despite positioning herself as a champion for women’s rights, Ivanka Trump has repeatedly drawn criticism for refusing to speak out against some of her father’s most controversial viewpoints. (Remember SNL’s “Complicit” perfume ad?)
Most recently, critics noted how conspicuously quiet she’d been on the topic of the family separations that resulted from the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy. But on Thursday, she broke her silence and said the issue was “a low point” for her.
During an event with the news site Axios, Trump, who is also an advisor to the White House, shared her thoughts on separations at the border, which have splintered nearly 2,700 parents and children. An interviewer remarked that some administration officials have come to regard the policy as a “low point.”
“That was a low point for me as well,” she said. “I feel very strongly about that. And I am very vehemently against family separation and the separation of parents and children.”
She went on to describe illegal immigration as an “incredibly complex” topic, but didn’t offer further insight or potential approaches the administration could take. “These are not easy issues; these are incredibly difficult issues,” she said. “And like the rest of the country, I experience them in a very emotional way.”
Trump has been tight-lipped on immigration in the past. In 2017, after the president announced he would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, she again described the issue as “complicated” and called on Congress to act.
On social media, many people wondered why Trump has waited so long to to share her views about family separations, especially since she held opposing beliefs. According to some reports, Trump had donated $50,000 to a church helping to care for migrant children, but she never used her position to publicly denounce the policy while children were still being forcibly removed from their parents. She was even slammed at one point for posting what some called a “tone-deaf” photo holding her son amid the crisis.
https://twitter.com/marwilliamson/status/1025122687306346496
https://twitter.com/johnpavlovitz/status/1025031160626388992
In the same interview, someone also asked Trump if she believed the media was “the enemy of the people,” as her father has suggested in the past. She seemed to split from her dad yet again, claiming she does not share that opinion.
“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’re sort of targeted,” Ms. Trump said. “But no, I do not feel that the media is the enemy of the people.”
A few hours later, her father chimed in on the interview with a tweet that read, “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!”
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