How the Media Boosts Ivanka Trump’s Stealth Damage-Control Campaign

Speak softly and carry a big schtick.

Evan Vucci/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
Outside of a single, breezy tweet invoking Thomas Jefferson to defend her father last month, first daughter and White House adviser Ivanka Trump has been relatively quiet on the topic of impeachment. But she took a moment from her efforts to empower women last weekend to tepidly push back on the president’s demands to publicly identify the whistleblower at the center of his Ukraine scandal. She mostly parroted Republicans’ complaints about impeachment—but some media outlets trumpeted her bold “break” with her father instead.
 
It was the latest episode in one of the most enduring storylines of the Trump era: Things are going off the rails, but never fear—Ivanka is quietly working behind the scenes to be the least-awful member of the administration, details of which are conveniently leaked to the press:
 

February 2017: The New York Times reports that Ivanka and sidekick Jared Kushner “helped kill” an executive order rolling back LGBTQ protections.

April 2017: Politico reports that Ivanka has “quietly reached out to” Planned Parent­hood as part of her “listening tour.”

April 2017: Eric Trump tells the Telegraph that a “heartbroken and outraged” Ivanka pushed her father to launch missile strikes on Syria after a chemical attack.

May 2017: Ivanka, who Axios states is “passionate” about climate change, is said to be working behind the scenes to influence her father’s decision to ditch the Paris climate deal.

June 2017: A US Weekly cover story trumpets that Ivanka “will always fight for what she believes in.”

June 2018: CNN asserts that Ivanka “agrees with her father’s sentiments that he hates the family separation issue and doesn’t want it to occur”—though she won’t say anything about it publicly.

September 2018: An unnamed source tells Vanity Fair that Ivanka told her dad to pull his nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

October 2018: The New York Times reports that only after “importuning” by Ivanka and Jared did the president speak out against anti-Semitism follow­ing a mass shooting at a synagogue.

April 2019: As Trump threatens to shut down the US-Mexico border, Jared pushes for immigration poli­cies in line with his and Ivanka’s “more moderate positions,” Politico reports.

July 2019: An anonymous source tells CBS News that the president “took heat” from Ivanka after he let his supporters chant “send her back” at a rally.

August 2019: As Trump dithers, Ivanka reportedly has been “quietly calling” lawmakers to gauge their support for new gun laws.

September 2019: Yahoo News reports “rumors” that Ivanka and Jared have suggested replacing Vice President Mike Pence with a woman on the 2020 ticket.

GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

payment methods

GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate