Paul Morigi/Getty Images Fourth Estate Ivanka Should Quit If she can’t handle legitimate questions about her father, she shouldn’t serve in his White House.

Jack Shafer is Politico’s senior media writer.

Assistant to the president Ivanka Trump dodged the press like a professional on Sunday when NBC News’ Peter Alexander asked her in a sit-down interview, “Do you believe your father’s accusers?”

Taking a short pause to consider a question she had to know was coming, Trump responded: “I think it’s a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter if she believes the accusers of her father when he’s affirmatively stated there’s no truth to it.”


Nice try, Ivanka. Labeling something as “inappropriate” works if you’re a harried parent and you don’t have time to explain to your kids why they shouldn’t stick their dirty hands into the guacamole. But in adult-on-adult conversations, the “I” word almost always lands as an attempt to strike down the question and shame the questioner without explaining why the question is invalid. And it isn’t invalid. The president’s extramarital ways have been Page 1 news for a year and a half, and the topic continues to consume the press as new allegations about his conduct surface. If anything, it would be inappropriate to withhold such a vital question from public discussion, especially from an assistant to the president.

Trump pleads for recusal from the question, though, not because the question itself is wrong to ask. She pleads for recusal because she thinks it’s wrong for the press to ask a daughter such a question after her father has issued his denials. Do daughters of presidents who are also assistants to the president really get to wave such a flag of privilege? No way. No journalists can make any public official answer a question, so if Ivanka Trump wants to say “no comment,” she should help herself. But to declare a question illegitimate requires more explanation than she volunteers.

Having planted her flag, Trump pours some quick-drying cement at the flagpole’s shaft with her next comment.

“I don’t think that’s a question you would ask many other daughters,” she said.

How to unpack?! Obviously the press won’t ask many other daughters the question because not many other daughters have a father whose alleged paramours have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for their silence. Not many daughters have a father who was caught bragging about his sexual assaults on a live mic and then publicly apologized. Not many fathers have been accused of sexual misconduct by at least a dozen women. For those fathers who have such a reputation, it would be reasonable to ask their daughters such questions if they worked for their fathers in government.

As long as Ivanka Trump holds an official position in the White House and offers her views on public policy, it’s hard to imagine a Page 1 question she shouldn’t be asked.

The interview didn’t end there. After shaming Alexander for his “inappropriate” question, after berating Alexander for singling her out for this unseemly grilling, Trump answers the question! How inappropriate can a question be if the subject answers it?

Trump wants to have it both ways, shaming with one breath and answering with another. She says: “I believe my father, I know my father, so I think I have that right as a daughter to believe my father.”

Because she’s connected to her father by blood and because blood inspires pure tribal loyalty, Ivanka Trump concludes that she can believe what she wants to believe about her father’s conduct. Unconditional belief in him, she says, is her “right as a daughter.”

Where did Trump learn this logic? Just a wild guess, but maybe from her father, whose sense of personhood has granted him the right to believe in all sorts of nonsense that’s devoid of reason. He believes exercise will destroy you. That germs are worse than disease. That sleep puts you at a disadvantage. That hair is important. The president expressed another fantastic view on Monday, saying he would have rushed into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had he been present during the shooting. Sure, Mr. President, it’s your right as president to think you’re an action hero.

If Ivanka Trump wants to recuse herself from the tough questions, here’s what she should do: Withdraw from the very public political life she has chosen. Reporters hang on what she says because she possesses political power. By resigning her position, by ceasing to advise the president, by ending her official role as the president’s emissary, that power will vanish and so will most of the press corps’ interest. Oh, reporters will still cover her as a rich celebrity and as presidential offspring but as a non-official, she won’t owe reporters any answers. If she still wants to call questions about her father's questionable conduct “inappropriate,” I won't agree with her. But I won’t fuss.

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Maybe Ivanka Trump thinks of herself as American royalty and therefore above reproach. Offend me with a question via email: [email protected]. My email alerts advise my Twitter feed, and both of them are in rebellion against my RSS feed.

