Ivanka Trump appeared on the her father's favorite show "Fox & Friends" on Monday to discuss President Donald Trump's reaction to fired FBI Director Comey's testimony last Thursday, her boss' political plans for the coming weeks and how she feels about the negative media coverage.
While no one was surprised that Ivanka said she supported her father during the interview, her take on the media and her family was what drew headlines.
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"There’s a level of viciousness that I was not expecting," Ivanka said. "I was not expecting the intensity of this experience. But this isn’t supposed to be easy,” she added. “My father, and his administration, intends to be transformative and we want to do big bold things. We’re looking to change the status quo, so I didn’t expect it was going to be easy. I think some of the distractions and some of the ferocity was I was a little blindsided by on a personal level.”
As social-media users were quick to point out, Ivanka Trump's surprise at people being "vicious" is in and of itself surprising, considering the things her father has said and done.
During the interview, Ivanka Trump tried to focus on the importance of the administration's staging last week of "Infrastructure Week," which was highlighted by the U.S. president's bashing on Twitter the mayor of London less than 48 hours after a terrorist attack there, the president's belly flopping into tensions between Qatar and other Middle Eastern countries, the fired head of the FBI's calling the president a liar and Donald Trump's response (calling Comey a "leaker").
"So, last week — while it didn't get the level of headlines, it will ultimately have a much more important impact — was Infrastructure Week," Ivanka said. "Focusing on the commitment to rebuild this country, rebuild rural locations which have fallen into great disrepair, repair our waterways, air traffic control. So there were a series of very important and big and far-reaching initiatives on infrastructure."
Ivanka dodged questions about possible tensions in the West Wing involving her husband, Jared Kushner.
"There is a 24-hour news cycle that gets fed by and is encouraged by lots of salacious details," Ivanka said. "But, at the end of the day, we're all focused on the work, and that's very true for Jared. So, he, you know — he's somebody who just likes to get things done. So, he doesn't get involved in, sort of, all of that."
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