Ivanka Trump has spoken much about empowering women and gender equality. However, she rarely connects those ideas to the policies and rhetoric of her father, the president of the United States who just pulled protections for female federal employees and has been accused by more than a dozen women of sexual assault. While many have called Ivanka a hypocrite, even a plastic feminist, others have simply called her complicit in her father’s sexism and discrimination.
Ivanka doesn’t have much to say to the haters, though, because she has no idea what complicit means. Or at least that’s what she told Gayle King of CBS News when asked about the term: “I don’t know what it means to be complicit, but 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.”
But if people are using this term to describe her—even in SNL parodies—what does she think about that?
“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,” she said. “So I hope to make a positive impact.”
NEW: Critics accuse @IvankaTrump of being "complicit." She responds, tomorrow on @CBSThisMorning. PREVIEW: https://t.co/uuUKCN8OuA pic.twitter.com/ux43afjsm4
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) April 4, 2017
In case Ivanka was still curious as to what complicit means after talking with King, Merriam-Webster jumped in to school her.
📈'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
This was Ivanka’s first interview since her father became president. She went on to tell King in her trademark calm and poise that when she disagrees with her father, he knows it. But she also “leans in” and supports his agenda when she agrees.
“For me, this isn’t about promoting my viewpoints,” she said. “I wasn’t elected by the American people to be president. My father is going to do a tremendous job. And I want to help him do that.”