This puts Ivanka Trump in quite the pickle. On the one hand, if she says no, her position would be very much at odds with her self-proclaimed interest in women's issues, and she would find herself very much on the wrong side of public opinion—something about which she and Jared Kushner, both of whom have been exiled from the elite social circles and high-society cocktail parties that used to be at the center of their lives, care deeply. On the other hand, if she says yes, she'd be calling her father a lying misogynist and a serial sexual harasser on national television. Alexander's is, admittedly, a tough question.

It is also a fair one. Given her choice to stake out a position as a proud champion of women, she should be prepared to discuss conduct within the administration that one would expect her—if her beliefs are sincerely held and not transparently performative—to find objectionable. More importantly, Ivanka Trump is not, as she puts it, "many other daughters." She is a full-time White House employee who undertakes substantive policy work on its behalf, and it is perfectly legitimate to demand answers from her about it. This is true even when the specific subject matter, by virtue of her familial ties, might make her feel squeamish and uncomfortable in a way that staffers unrelated to the president by blood might not.

I don't believe Ivanka Trump belongs in the executive branch of the federal government any more than the other vapid New York City media personalities who have improbably burrowed their way in there and now expect to be fêted as quasi-royalty everywhere they go. But for as long as she has a West Wing office with her name on the door, she is a public servant first and a daughter second. It is not our fault that she is a beneficiary of shameless nepotism, and she doesn't get to hide behind it whenever she finds it convenient.

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