Ivanka Trump Stunned By ‘Viciousness’ Of Dad’s Critics

Image by Getty Images

By Nathan Guttman June 12, 2017

Years around the Trump and Kushner family businesses did little to prepare Ivanka Trump for life under the Washington spotlight, she said Monday morning.

“There’s a level of viciousness that I wasn’t expecting. I was not expecting the intensity of this experience,” Trump said in a Fox News interview. Trump said she was “blindsided on a personal level” by criticism directed at the Trump administration. “But for me, I’m trying to keep my head down and not listen to the noise and just work very hard to make a positive impact on the lives of people.”

The rare interview was part of her effort to promote the president’s jobs initiative, which he is rolling out this week. The First Daughter is scheduled to travel with President Trump to Wisconsin, where he will try to shift public attention towards his jobs push and away from the Russian investigation.

Ivanka Trump was also asked about her visit to Israel with her father last month. She described her prayer at the Western Wall as “truly an unbelievable moment” which was “deeply personal.”

Trump also mentioned having met during the trip with Muslim leaders in Saudi Arabia and Pope Francis in the Vatican. “To have covered the three largest world religions over the course of four days, it was deeply meaningful,” Trump said.

Judaism is not one of the world’s three largest religions.

Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected] or on Twitter @nathanguttman

Nathan Guttman, staff writer, was the Forward’s Washington bureau chief. He joined the staff in 2006 after serving for five years as Washington correspondent for the Israeli dailies Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. In Israel, he was the features editor for Ha’aretz and chief editor of Channel 1 TV evening news. He was born in Canada and grew up in Israel. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO