Matthew Dolan

Detroit Free Press

She may be the campaign whisperer in an often-blustery realm of Donald Trump.

Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, offered a full-throated but soft-spoken defense of her father's sometimes-controversial candidacy in an interview following his speech Monday before the Detroit Economic Club.

"He raised me to be a strong woman and voice my opinion," she told the Detroit Free Press. "I share with him when I agree and when I disagree."

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When asked whether she could provide some examples of where she and her father disagreed on policy or strategy, she demurred.

Her advice is provided "privately, because that’s the nature of our relationship," she said. "But I’m very inspired by what he’s done."

To critics who call her father's temperament "volatile," Ivanka Trump challenged the characterization, calling her father "incredibly level-headed."

"I think that he fights, and he’s strong, and he’s had to fight. He has a lot of people coming at him," Trump said sitting in a windowless room deep beneath Cobo Center, where the Republican presidential nominee addressed nearly 1,500 business executives and supporters.

Now is not the time to start telling Donald Trump to alter his approach after so much success, according to his daughter.

The New York City real estate magnate who has never run for elected office "beat 16 incredibly capable, competent people in the Republican primaries, so it’s not my place to tell him to change his campaigning style," Ivanka Trump said.

"I think he fights the fights that he feels are important for this country, and he'll bring that same spirit and that same energy to the White House," she added. "I think people want somebody who is going to fight for them."

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As for her position in her father's meteoric rise, Trump said she holds no formal campaign role. But she has been by her father's side often at key events over the last year. She and her brothers met with potential vice presidential running mates, including the eventual pick, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who introduced Donald Trump in Detroit on Monday.

Sometimes, she has been thrust directly into the spotlight.

When a USA TODAY columnist asked Trump what he would hope his daughter would do if sexually harassed, he replied: “I would like to think she would find another career or find another company if that was the case." Outcry from critics followed, questioning why a woman would have to leave a hostile workplace. Ivanka Trump said in a subsequent statement to the media that "harassment in general, sexual or otherwise, is inexcusable. At our companies, we do not tolerate harassment of any kind."

The 34-year-old married mother of three also has spoken on her father's behalf — most notably in her well-received address last month at the GOP's convention in Cleveland — while juggling a home life in New York with a senior executive position helping to run her father's billion-dollar empire. She added that as a member of the Millennial generation and as a political independent, her perspective has been an asset to her father in overcoming challenges and identifying opportunities in the family business and quest for the presidency.

"I have a very close relationship with my father," she said. "I always have, since I was a young girl. But over the last decade, I’ve worked right along side of him, side-by-side with both of my adult brothers at the Trump Organization," she said. "He’s been an amazing parent to me and an amazing father, so we have the great familial connection but we have also worked together as executives."

She graduated from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, the same school attended by her father. Before joining the Trump Organization in 2005, Ivanka Trump worked at Forest City Enterprises as a real estate project manager.



Like her father, the former model markets herself broadly — including fashion sense, upscale urban lifestyle and work-family balancing act — across a variety of platforms. Ivankatrump.com preaches ways to help women navigate life's ups and downs. Department stores carry her clothing line. Trump, like her brothers, serves as a vice president in her father's company, specializing in development and acquisitions.

In a earlier separate interview Monday with a local TV station, she dismissed the idea that her father has been politically wounded by low poll numbers and is seeking to reset his campaign. She also brushed back an idea floated by her father that Ivanka could join her father's cabinet, an idea she said she believes was made in tongue-in-cheek.

Donald Trump in his Detroit speech Monday argued that childcare is now the single greatest expense for many American families, exceeding the cost of housing in much of the country. Families under a Trump administration will be able to exclude childcare costs from income. He specifically cited Ivanka Trump's influence in formulating the policy, although details were not immediately released.

Ivanka Trump in Cleveland last month spoke about her own views on parental leave. She also addressed the struggles over equal pay for equal work among men and women, as well as the role of women employed by the Trump family.

Donald Trump is "going to be rolling out a very specific plan in the coming weeks, and it’s a very innovative one," his daughter said in the interview. She described mothers as subjected to a greater level of wage inequality when compared to women overall.

"This is something that structurally has to be fixed," she said.

Despite her focus on issues important to women, Ivanka Trump may face an uphill battle in converting some to her father's cause. Donald Trump's opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, is leading in recent polls among people just like Ivanka Trump: college-educated white women seen as a critical group in the November election.

Trump's daughter nevertheless defends her father as already embraced by many who trust him on national security and the economy. Fans flock to his rallies in a sign of their support for his overall message and proven leadership, she said.

"He’s going to be an unbelievable job creator," Ivanka Trump said.

But she also acknowledged that it is sometimes difficult for her to understand why people don't see her father as the warm and empathetic man she knows well. Part of the reason, she said, may be that he has been underestimated for far too long.

"They’re scared," Ivanka Trump said of her father's harshest critics. "They never thought that he’d be where he is."

She added that "I think there will be many people who will seek to diminish him." But Trump said she has faith in the American electorate to decide for themselves.

"Everyone has one vote, and the American people will make up their own minds," she said. "And they are coming out in droves in support of his fresh perspective, his honesty, his candor, his bold version for the future of this country. And the support has been tremendous."

Contact Matthew Dolan: 313-223-4743 or msdolan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @matthewsdolan.