You can't run a government like a business. You can't expect someone with no policy experience to be able to translate "deal-making" to governing. The Trump regime is demonstrating, though, that you can expect inexperienced business people to completely fuck up when they try to venture into policy. Case in point, Ivanka Trump toddling off in secret to make nice with Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards, not understanding that PP would then be pissed off when her father betrayed them.
Their under-the-radar meeting—a rarity between a well-known Democratic activist and a close adviser to a Republican president—has not been previously reported.
“The purpose of the meeting, from Cecile’s point of view, was to make sure that Ivanka fully understood what Planned Parenthood does, how it is funded, and why it would be a terrible idea for Planned Parenthood to be removed from being able to see Medicaid patients,” said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “The main thing that Cecile Richards was doing was explaining that the money doesn’t actually go to abortions—we get reimbursed the same way a hospital does. We were clearing up misinformation about how this works.” […]
But the strategic outreach hasn’t seemed to earn Ivanka Trump much public goodwill. Since Ivanka Trump’s sit-down with Richards, what started as a cordial relationship has soured—and any effort on the part of the politically savvy first daughter to back-channel to the non-profit has transformed into a bitter battle since Ivanka Trump assumed an official administration post.
Richards, fighting the Trump administration, has publicly rebuked Ivanka Trump for her “deafening” silence on the healthcare bill. On Wednesday night, Richards again took aim at the first daughter, now a senior White House official with a security clearance and an office in the West Wing.
“Anyone who works in this White House is responsible for addressing why women are in the crosshairs of basically every single policy we've seen in this administration,” Richards said, speaking at the Women in the World conference in New York City.
This wasn't a business deal Trump could broker with a meeting and feigned interest. And if you believe Trump paid any attention at all to the policy side of this, well, look at her father's policy. Planned Parenthood defunding remains a part of Trumpcare. Her father's first Supreme Court pick is as hostile a jurist as we've seen to women's reproductive rights—including allowing employers to decide whether workers can have their family planning and reproductive health covered by their insurance.
We don't know yet if Trump is going to be as malign an influence as everyone her father has surrounded himself with, but we do know she's pretty much a worthless one. She is as out of her element as the occupant of the Oval Office.