In her first interview since becoming assistant to President Trump, first daughter Ivanka Trump hit back at critics who have called her “complicit” in the perceived ills of her father’s administration.
Ms. Trump told CBS News’ Gayle King in an interview aired Wednesday that if being “complicit” means being a force for good, then she’s guilty as charged.
“If being complicit is wanting to, is wanting to be a force for good and to make a positive impact then I’m complicit,” she said. “I don’t know that the critics who may say that of me, if they found themselves in this very unique and unprecedented situation that I am now in, would do any differently than I am doing.
“I hope time will prove that I have done a good job and much more importantly that my father’s administration is the success that I know it will be,” she added.
There have been numerous articles and parodies branding Ms. Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, senior adviser to the president, as “complicit” in the actions of Mr. Trump. Most notably, “Saturday Night Live” featured a parody of Ms. Trump in a commercial for “Complicit” perfume.
After a teaser for Ms. Trump’s CBS interview was released Tuesday evening, Merriam-Webster chimed in to provide the definition for “complicit.”
📈’Complicit’ is trending after Ivanka Trump told CBS “I don’t know what it means to be complicit.” https://t.co/qE6UcB8pUz
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) April 4, 2017
Ms. Trump said critics shouldn’t conflate her “lack of public denouncement” of her father’s policies with silence, arguing that there are many ways to speak up.
“In some case, it’s through protest, and it’s through going on the nightly news and talking about or denouncing every issue in which you disagree with,” she said. “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,” Ms. Trump said. “Where I agree, I fully lean in and support the agenda and hope that I can be an asset to him and make a positive impact. But I respect the fact that he always listens. It’s how he was in business. It’s how he is as president.”
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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