During an interview with the Today show, White House staffer Ivanka Trump said she thinks each of the 14 women who have accused her father of sexual assault are lying.
But Ivanka — who sat down for an interview in Pyeongchang, where she was leading the U.S. delegation during the closing ceremony of the Olympics — didn’t say so directly.
Instead, Ivanka took umbrage at NBC reporter Peter Alexander’s straightforward question — “Do you believe your father’s accusers?” — and suggested it somehow violated her privacy as a daughter.
“I think it’s a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter, if she believes the accusers of the father when he’s affirmatively stated that there’s no truth to it,” Ivanka said. “I don’t think that’s a question you would ask many other daughters.”
Most “other daughters” don’t work for their father as a top political and policy adviser in the White House, however.
Ivanka went on to say that she believes her father when he says that all of his accusers are lying, because all daughters have the “right” to believe their dads.
“I believe my father, I know my father,” she said. “So, I think I have that right as a daughter to believe my father.”
Ivanka recently paid lip service to believing sexual misconduct accusers. Following Oprah’s rousing speech about sexual violence and women’s empowerment at the Golden Globes last month, Ivanka posted a tweet calling her comments “empowering and inspiring,” and used the #TimesUp hashtag, which is a movement against sexual harassment.
Just saw @Oprah's empowering & inspiring speech at last night’s #GoldenGlobes. Let’s all come together, women & men, & say #TIMESUP! #United https://t.co/vpxUBJnCl7
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) January 9, 2018
But Ivanka has repeatedly defended her father, who not only has been accused by 22 women of sexual misconduct but has also been recorded bragging about grabbing women without their consent.
The first daughter’s commentary on the subject has not been well received. Last April, Ivanka was jeered at the W20 Summit in Germany when she dismissed her father’s conduct by suggesting the media is responsible for unfairly portraying her father as a sexual predator.
“I certainly heard the criticism from the media, and that’s been perpetuated, but I know from personal experience, and I think the thousands of people who have worked with and for my father for decades when he was in the private sector are a testament to his belief and solid conviction in the potential of women and their ability do to the job as well as any man,” she said, as women delegates booed and hissed.
Boos and hisses from female delegates as Ivanka mentions her father pic.twitter.com/EwmYZqTJmt
— jenny hill (@jennyhillBBC) April 25, 2017
Trump’s sexual assault accusers came under renewed attention last week when the Washington Post ran a feature story about Rachel Crooks, a woman who says Trump forcibly kissed her and is now running for a seat in the Ohio legislature.
Trump responded to the article by falsifying Crooks’ account of being assaulted by him, the claiming it proved his innocence.