How Ivanka Went from Daughter to Special Assistant
Just a few days after the 2016 election, Lesley Stahl sat down with the then president-elect and his family to talk about the campaign, the transition, and the roles his children would play in a Trump administration.
Stahl pointedly asked Ivanka Trump if she was going to have an official position within the Trump White House. "People think that you’re going to be part of the administration, Ivanka," Stahl posed. To which Ivanka responded simply, "I’m going to be a daughter."
"I’ve said throughout the campaign that I am very passionate about certain issues. And that I want to fight for them," Ivanka said at the time. "Wage equality, childcare. These are things that are very important for me. I’m very passionate about education. Really promoting more opportunities for women. So you know, there’re a lot of things that I feel deeply, strongly about. But not in a formal administrative capacity."
Not even five months later, and Ivanka is a government employee with security clearance, a West Wing office, and the title of Special Assistant, a title which sounds far less significant than it actually is.
So what happened? In an interview with Gayle King, Ivanka attempts to explain how we got from there to here:
"When I spoke to - 60 Minutes it was - I think five or six days following the election," she said. "And - and I was processing real time the new reality and - and what it would mean ... I realized that having one foot in and one foot out wouldn’t work. … And the reality is that it - it all happened very organically for me."
She continued, "I had to determine that my husband and I, we both wanted to be in D.C., that it was viable to move our children, that they would be happy in the new environment. After I decided I wanted to try, I needed to divest with numerous businesses. So did my husband … And I wanted to understand where I could be an asset to the administration. About how I could help my father and, ultimately, the country."
Just how "organic" the evolution of this role really was is debatable; Maggie Haberman, the White House correspondent for the New York Times reported that her new office has been "held aside for her since Trump took office," suggesting that she took on the role only after the enormous public backlash over issues concerning nepotism and conflicts of interest in the early weeks of Trump's presidency quieted down a bit.
But regardless of how she got to be a federal employee, what her role will be is largely still undefined, especially considering a first daughter working in the West Wing is wholly unprecedented.
When King pushed her for specifics on what her new position will entail, Ivanka's answer was nebulous, "I think for me, what it means is that I’ll continue the advocacy work that I was doing in the private sector - advocating for the economic empowerment of women. I’m very focused on the role of education… I’m still my father’s daughter. So to me the - this particular title was about giving critics the comfort that I’m holding myself to that highest ethical standard. But I’ll weigh in with my father on the issues I feel strongly about."
But don't expect to see the first daughter voicing her opinions publicly anytime soon.
"I would say not to conflate lack of public denouncement with silence," she said, explaining why she has yet to speak out publicly on LGBTQ and women's rights, which many see as threatened under a Trump presidency. "I think there are multiple ways to have your voice heard. In some cases, it’s through protest and it’s through going on the nightly news and talking about or denouncing every issue on which you disagree with. Other times it is quietly and directly and candidly. So where I disagree with my father, he knows it. And I express myself with total candor."
"I think most of the impact I have, over time most people will not actually know about,"
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