In an interview with Fox News on Monday night, Ivanka Trump said most Americans do not support a guaranteed minimum wage because they don’t “want to be given something.”

“I don’t think most Americans, in their heart, want to be given something. I’ve spent a lot of time traveling around this country over the last four years. People want to work for what they get,” she said. “So, I think that this idea of a guaranteed minimum is not something most people want. They want the ability to be able to secure a job. They want the ability to live in a country where there’s the potential for upward mobility.”

The president’s eldest daughter, who along with her husband Jared Kushner earned at least $82 million in outside income while serving as senior White House advisers in 2017, was responding to a question about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) Green New Deal legislation, which offers a blueprint on how to rapidly decarbonize the U.S. economy in roughly a decade. The proposal also includes a job guarantee program that would provide a living wage to workers.

Although Trump insinuated that a living wage is a handout, she and her husband have made millions simply for breathing. According to her 2018 public disclosure form, Trump has received millions of dollars in interest, capital gains, and royalties from her business, her father’s business, and her husband’s business. In 2017, she earned nearly $4 million from her holdings in the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., as well as more than $2 million in severance pay from the Trump Organization after she left the company following her father’s inauguration.


Trump’s comments received a slew of criticism on social media, with some pointing out that the first daughter inherited much of her wealth and holds jobs that were handed to her by her father.

Has Ivanka Trump ever had a job that her father did not give her? https://t.co/J3ST0eAix1 — Eugene Scott (@Eugene_Scott) February 26, 2019

Her father inherited his fortune from his parents (and used tax evasion to protect it). She has lived off that inheritance as well as that portion of the money that belongs to you and me because it should have been paid as taxes. And now we are the grifters? Really? — Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) February 26, 2019

Others slammed Trump for overlooking major labor abuses at her clothing company’s factories in China and Indonesia, including low wages, forced overtime, and physical and verbal abuse.

No doubt the ethos that “people want to work for what they get” makes it easier to turn a blind eye to the sweatshop conditions in Ivanka’s companies https://t.co/KqQv5QsWnn — Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) February 26, 2019

On Monday morning, President Donald Trump praised his daughter for creating “millions of jobs,” in a speech to a gathering of governors. She has done no such thing.


“My daughter, Ivanka, who is going to be speaking later, is — she has been so much involved. So incredibly involved,” he said. “My daughter has created millions of jobs. I don’t know if anyone knows that, but she’s created millions of jobs.”