Ivanka Trump interview: "If being complicit is wanting to be a force for good ... then I'm complicit"
In her first interview since becoming Assistant to the President, Ivanka Trump addressed critics who have said she and her husband, White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner, are "complicit" with President Trump.
"If being complicit is wanting to, is wanting to be a force for good and to make a positive impact then I'm complicit. I don't know that the critics who may say that of me, if they found themselves in this very unique and unprecedented situation that I am now in, would do any differently than I am doing," Trump said. "So I hope to make a positive impact. I don't know what it means to be complicit, but you know, I hope time will prove that I have done a good job and much more importantly that my father's administration is the success that I know it will be."
In March, "Saturday Night Live" also parodied the president's daughter in a commercial skit for a perfume called "Complicit."
Trump also shared why she doesn't publicly speak out on issues ranging from Planned Parenthood and gay rights to climate change.
"I would say not to conflate lack of public denouncement with silence," Trump said.
The president's daughter said there are multiple ways to have one's voice heard.
"In some case it's through protest and it's through going on the nightly news and talking about or denouncing every issue in which you disagree with. Other times it is quietly, and directly, and candidly," Trump said. "So where I disagree with my father, he knows it, and I express myself with total candor. Where I agree, I fully lean in and support the agenda and hope that I can be an asset to him and make a positive impact. But I respect the fact that he always listens. It's how he was in business. It's how he is as president."
Trump also addressed criticism about the qualifications of Kushner, who is playing a key role in foreign affairs and running the White House Office of American Innovation, but has had little experience in diplomacy.
"So, you know a lot of people would say the same about how could somebody successfully win the presidency who had never been engaged in politics and my father did that and Jared was instrumental in helping his campaign succeed," Trump said. "So, you know Jared is incredibly smart, very talented, has enormous capacity. He is humble in the recognition of what he doesn't know. And is tremendously secure in his ability to seek informed viewpoints. He has an amazing team that my father has built at the White House, and that he's built that's helping work on each of these initiatives. So you know the myth that he is operating in a silo is just that."
Watch the full interview Wednesday, April 5, 2017 on "CBS This Morning," which airs 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. ET/PT.
