At an event hosted by Axios, a news outlet, on Thursday, Ivanka Trump was asked whether she concurs with President Trump’s frequent description of the news media.
“No, I do not,” she said. Asked to elaborate, Trump offered what she said was “my own personal perspective.”
“I’ve certainly received my fair share of reporting on me personally that I know not to be fully accurate,” she said, “so I have some sensitivity around why people have concerns and gripe, especially when they sort of feel targeted, but, no, I do not consider the media the enemy of the people.”
Ivanka Trump was also asked by Mike Allen of Axios to share the high and low points of her tenure in the White House.
Allen brought up the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy on immigration. More than 2,500 children were separated from their parents as a result of the policy. Allen suggested that may have been a low point, and Ivanka Trump agreed.
“That was a low point for me,” Trump told Allen. “I feel very strongly about that. I am very vehemently against family separation.”
She went on to say that “immigration is incredibly complex as a topic.” Before President Trump issued an executive order reversing his own policy on family separations, his daughter reportedly asked her father to end the practice. Publicly, she remained silent, prompting harsh criticism in some quarters.
“These are not easy issues. These are incredibly difficult issues,” Trump said. “I experience them in a very emotional way.”
As a high point, Trump cited the president’s commutation of the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson,a 63-year-old woman serving life in prison for a nonviolent drug conviction after her case was brought to his attention by the reality television star Kim Kardashian West.
Ivanka Trump said she was moved by watching news coverage of Johnson leaving prison and running into the arms of her waiting family.
“I was crying,” she said. “It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. It reminds you of the real impact you have on people.”
