Ivanka Trump appears to believe that the world should just fall down in awe at her father’s paid maternity leave and childcare policy—despite their glaring weaknesses—and she is not going to stand for any tough questions on the subject. She is simply not.
That stance was on display in an interview with Cosmopolitan, Trump first dodged a question on why it took her father’s campaign so long to release a plan. Next she explained that, basically, it’s fine to leave fathers out of the policy because, hey, it’s an advance over the status quo even without them, plus lesbians will benefit, so … um, not sure what that has to do with fathers. But it’s when Trump was asked about her own father’s past comments that the interview really went off the rails:
In 2004, Donald Trump said that pregnancy is an inconvenient thing for a business. It's surprising to see this policy from him today. Can you talk a little bit about those comments, and perhaps what has changed?
So I think that you have a lot of negativity in these questions, and I think my father has put forth a very comprehensive and really revolutionary plan to deal with a lot of issues. So I don't know how useful it is to spend too much time with you on this if you're going to make a comment like that.
The reporter, Prachi Gupta, didn’t let go, apologizing for any perceived negativity but defending the relevance of the question, and Trump—sounding a little like her father—said “Well, you said he made those comments. I don't know that he said those comments.” Offered a citation to exactly when Donald Trump made that comment about pregnant workers, Ivanka whined about Gupta editorializing, then tried to get back on message with a cheerful quote about how amazing this completely non-amazing plan is. But when Gupta asked how this plan, along with a border wall and tax cuts, would be paid for, it was the final straw: Ivanka quickly answered that the plan would be paid for, no worries, and then abruptly ended the interview, saying “I’m going to jump off, I have to run. I apologize.”
Let the record show that Ivanka never did really explain why we’re supposed to trust Donald to pass a policy to benefit pregnant workers when he’s made clear that he thinks pregnant workers are a problem.