When Gupta asked whether the benefits would be extended to same-sex couples and questioned how the nominee’s prior statements about women – such as in 2004 when he called pregnancy an “inconvenient thing for a business” – reconcile with his current stance, Ivanka Trump accused her of injecting her own beliefs into the interview. It’s surprising to see this policy from him today. Gupta gently offered her an opportunity to address those comments, telling her, “Talk a little bit about those comments, and perhaps what has changed”. I’ll assume that Ivanka sincerely believes in “policies benefiting women+families”, but to erase the history of activism that has made paid family leave a viable issue during a national election is ignorant and insulting. “So I don’t know how useful it is to spend too much time with you on this, if you’re going to make a comment like that”.
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Gupta pressed on: “I would like to say that I’m sorry the questions – you’re finding them negative, but it is relevant that a presidential candidate made those comments”.
Just a reminder: This is a person who lives in the same world as you and me.
“There’s plenty of time for you to editorialize around this, but I think he put forth a really incredible plan that has pushed the boundaries of what anyone else is talking about”, said Trump.
In an effort to improve his performance among women, the Trump campaign recently launched its “Women’s Empowerment Tour”, on which Lara Trump, wife of Eric Trump, said, “We really don’t have any idea what we’re doing, except we said, ‘We’ve got to go out and tell people what a great guy Donald Trump is'”. “So I think that you have a lot of negativity in these questions”, she said.
Gupta assured Trump that she was not making the comments up. She said that the reason the proposal wouldn’t include to those groups is that “the original intention of the plan is to help mothers in recovery in the immediate aftermath of childbirth”.
“Well, those are your words, not mine”, Trump replied. Those are your words. “The plan, right now, is focusing on mothers, whether they be in same-sex marriages or not”, the businesswoman responded.
This is a giant leap from where we are today, which is sadly, nothing. [Fact check: The federal government now mandates 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected family leave per year.] Both sides of the aisle have been unable to agree on this issue, so I think this takes huge advancement and obviously, for same-sex couples as well, there’s tremendous benefit here to enabling the mother to recover after childbirth.
Ivanka Trump had hoped to use the interview with Cosmo to highlight the new childcare policy she had helped Donald Trump craft and introduce earlier this week.
Shortly thereafter, she cut the interview off. She finished her answer by saying, “I’m going to jump off, I have to run”.
“I think you have a lot of negativity in these questions”, Trump countered.
During the Cosmo interview, Trump also conflicted with the interviewer when she was asked why the paid leave proposal didn’t apply to homosexual couples or offer paternity leave. As New York’s Rebecca Traister chronicled in a post published Thursday, feminists and progressives-including Hillary Clinton-have been fighting for equitable and supportive family policies for decades.
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Ivanka made references to a “total tax-reform” plan that her dad would release on September 15, and added: “I’m going to jump off, I have to run”.
