As an advisor to Donald Trump when he was the president, Ivanka Trump was often asked about key social issues concerning her father’s campaign policies and opinions. One such incident took place in September 2016, when Cosmopolitan asked Ivanka about a childcare and maternity leave plan proposed by Donald ahead of the November 2016 election.
When pressed to elaborate on the policy’s focus on maternity leave for women, while seeming to neglect paternity leave altogether, Ivanka appeared to be caught off guard. “So it’s meant to benefit, whether it’s in same-sex marriages as well, to benefit the mother who has given birth to the child if they have legal married status under the tax code,” she told the publication. “But the original intention of the plan is to help mothers in recovery in the immediate aftermath of childbirth.”
The interviewer subsequently asked Ivanka why men in same-sex couples wouldn’t see any benefit from the new proposal and hadn’t been factored into the policy. “The plan, right now, is focusing on mothers, whether they be in same-sex marriages or not,” the former president’s daughter replied, and she refused to elaborate any further on the issue. Rather than offering any understanding regarding the need for equality, Ivanka merely doubled down on her father’s ideas.
