Donald Trump tested a few new claims about his daughter Ivanka Trump’s role in his presidential administration during a “fireside chat” with Moms for Liberty on Friday night in Washington D.C.
In a wide-ranging conversation with co-founder Tiffany Justice—which covered transgender rights, Trump’s Scottish heritage, and Elon Musk—the former president claimed Ivanka gave up “making so much money” on her shoe line to take on a serious role in his administration. “It was so hot,” he said about her shoe, clothing, and accessories business, which shuttered in 2018 due to poor sales, NBC News reported.
Trump said he initially wanted to appoint Ivanka as United Nations ambassador, recalling that he told her she “would be a great ambassador to the United Nations, United Nations secretary.” He added, “There’d be nobody to compete with her. She may be my daughter but nobody could have competed with her, with her rat-tat-tat, the whole deal she’s got.”
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However, Trump said Ivanka wanted to focus on “helping people get jobs.” He added, “She would go around, not a glamorous job, to see Walmart, to see Exxon, all these big companies to hire people.” And Ivanka “hired millions of people” during her time in his administration, said Trump.
Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner’s obscure senior roles in Trump’s administration had previously raised ethics concerns. Together they reportedly made $82 million while serving as Trump’s advisers.
The Moms for Liberty crowd was mostly mum on the Ivanka claim, so Justice steered the conversation into more familiar talking points, with Trump proceeding to bash Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats, and ABC network, which will host their debate on Sep. 10.
“She didn’t want to debate,” Trump claimed of Harris, describing her as a “Marxist” and “defective person.” He added, “They were not happy about it but they got the network that they wanted.”
Trump then slammed gender-affirming surgery. “Think of it, your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation,” he said, before veering off into rants about his former reality TV show The Apprentice, President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, and his own Scottish heritage.
“Do you know that some of the biggest, smartest, most brilliant leaders come from Scotland?” he told the audience. “Or at least, you know, their parents came from Scotland. Scotland did very well in this country.”
Trump then recounted how his parents fell in love and got married.
“They were married for six and half decades. A long time,” Trump said. “I said, ‘Pop, I’m not going to be able to beat you.’”
Now on his third marriage, Trump was right.
