Ivanka Trump has opened up for the first time about her father’s court battles during a podcast episode where she also shed a tear talking about her ‘impossibly glamorous’ late mother Ivana.
During an on-camera interview with Lex Fridman, the 42-year-old spoke about the Donald Trump’s long series of legal entanglements and reveals why she decided to step away from her father’s 2024 campaign.
‘On a human level, it’s my father and I love him very much, so it’s painful to experience, but ultimately, I wish it didn’t have to be this way,’ Ivanka revealed.
Donald Trump faces charges stemming from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into election interference and the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, as well as charges for mishandling classified documents in Florida.
Separately, Trump, 78, faces charges for election interference in Georgia. He has pleaded not guilty on all charges.
Later on the podcast, Ivanka also grew visibly emotional as she was asked about her mother, who died July 2022 at the age of 73.
When asked about whether she missed her, Ivanka said: ‘So much. It’s unbelievable how dislocating the loss of a parent is.
‘And her mother lives with me still, my grandmother who helped raise us, so that’s very special.
Pausing to fight back tears, she added: ‘And I can ask her some of the questions that I would’ve… Sorry. I wanted to ask my own mom, but it’s hard.’
Ivana Trump was an Olympic skier and model who was married to Donald Trump from 1977 to 1990. Her daughter described her as ‘a remarkable, remarkable woman’.
‘She was a trailblazer in so many different ways, as an athlete and growing up in communist Czechoslovakia, as a fashion mogul, as a real estate executive and builder,’ Ivanka said.
‘Just this all-around trailblazing businesswoman. I also learned from her, aside from that element, how to really enjoy life. I look back and some of my happiest memories of her are in the ocean, just lying on our back, looking up at the sun and just so in the moment or dancing.
‘She loved to dance, so she really taught me a lot about living life to its fullest. And she had so much courage, so much conviction, so much energy, and a complete comfort with who she was.’
‘I have these vignettes in my mind, seeing her in action in different capacities, a lot of times in the context of things that I would later go on to do myself,’ Ivanka added.
‘So I would go almost every day after school, and I’d go to the Plaza Hotel and I’d follow her around as she’d walk the hallways and just observe her.
‘And she was so impossibly glamorous. She was doing everything in four-and-a-half-inch heels, with this bouffant. It’s almost an inaccessible visual.’
Ivanka was a senior advisor in Trump’s administration from 2017 until 2021, but she said she’s taking a step back from politics and has not been heavily involved in his second bid for the White House.
Along with her half-sister sister Tiffany, she recently celebrated her father’s 78th birthday by sharing a series of photos in sweet tributes on Instagram.
Trump’s eldest daughter first stated publicly that she would be absent from her father’s 2024 campaign back when Donald announced his third run for the White House in 2022.
She said at the time: ‘I love my father very much. This time around, I’m choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family,’ the former White House adviser said. ‘While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena.’
Fridman asked Trump to elaborate on her statement now that Donald has again clinched the Republican nomination and now may be the favorite to win in November.
‘It was a decision rooted in me being a parent, really thinking about what they need from me now. Politics is a rough business and I think it’s one that you also can’t dabble in, I think you have to be either all in or all out.’
Ivanka referenced ‘the cost’ her children would pay from her absence were she to go all in on the campaign trail, adding ‘I’m not willing to make them bear that cost.’
‘As their mom, I think it’s really important that I do what’s right for them. I think there a lot of ways you can serve, the enormity, the scale of what can be accomplished in government service, but I think there’s something equally valuable in helping in your own community.’
She said there was ‘a lot of darkness, a lot of negativity’ in politics and says it’s the opposite of ‘what feels good for me as a human being.’
Earlier on, Fridman asked Trump more about her famous father, wondering how his run for office changed her own life.
‘Nothing about our lives had been constructed with politics in mind,’ she said of when Donald first told her she was running.
‘It was an extraordinary experience, there was so much intensity and so much scrutiny and so much noise. That took, for sure, a moment to acclimate to. I’m not sure I ever fully acclimated to it.’
Ivanka cited ‘the process’ of learning the day-to-day workings of the presidency while on the job as a senior advisor as ‘the most extraordinary’ part of the Washington years.’
She also discussed the pressure to help her father, a neophyte in politics suddenly the leader of the free world.
‘My father had never spent the night in Washington DC before staying in the White House,’ she said.
‘He trusted us and our ability to execute and there wasn’t a part of me that could imagine a 70 or 80 year old version of myself that would have been ok with saying no.’
She also got personal beyond just her mother’s passing and spoke about how she challenges herself.
‘I was the child of two extraordinarily successful people and that could have been debilitating and I saw that in a lot of my friends who grew up in circumstances similar to that,’ she said.
‘They were afraid to try for fear of not measuring up and early on I learned to harness the fear of not being good enough, not being competent enough and I harnessed it to make me better.’
Ivanka was noticeably on the night her father announced his campaign launch in November of 2022. Trump called attention to the other family members in the room including wife, former First Lady Melania Trump and his middle son Eric.
Youngest son Barron, as well as Eric’s wife Lara and Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancé Kimberly Guilfoyle were also front-and-center at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago ballroom announcement.
Donald Trump Jr. missed the speech due to a flight hiccup as he was returning to Florida from a hunting trip.
Ivanka and husband Jared Kushner have worked to distance themselves from the tumultuous world of politics amid Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and his various legal woes.
They relocated to Florida with children Arabella, 12, Joseph, 9, and Theodore, 8, after Trump left office in January 2021.
It was a change of pace for the 42-year-old, who was heavily involved in her father’s presidency.
She was handed a prominent role in meetings with the G20 and Kim Jong-un, for which she was met with accusations of nepotism.
However, Ivanka has no desire to return to Washington, according to those close to her and her husband.
Ivanka herself voiced her desire for a quieter life in 2022.
‘This time around, I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family,’ she said in a statement.
‘I do not plan to be involved in politics. While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena.’
Kushner, meanwhile, was present at Trump’s re-election announcement. He served as Senior Advisor to his father-in-law until Trump left office.
That same year, Kushner launched his Miami-based investment firm, Affinity Partners.