How Will Ivanka Trump Shape What Happens In The White House & The World?
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- With President-elect Donald Trump's wife Melania staying in New York for at least six months, some are looking to his daughter, Ivanka, as a surrogate first lady.
Ivanka is moving her family to Washington, and there's a lot of speculation over how she will shape what happens in the White House, CBS2's Cindy Hsu reported.
She was chosen to introduce her father when he announced his run for president in 2015. Now years later, she tweeted a photo Wednesday of an invitation to the inauguration, saying "Inauguration day has almost arrived!!! The last 19 months have been remarkable but this amazing journey is just getting started!"
#Inauguration day has almost arrived!!! The last 19 months have been remarkable but this amazing journey is just getting started! #MAGA ???????? pic.twitter.com/T8N84sF5MM
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) January 18, 2017
The 35-year-old mother of three is used to the spotlight, having grown up in the public eye as a model at 14 and later a powerful businesswoman.
"I think what's really interesting about Ivanka is that she's being called her father's most important adviser in the White House, and that she's going to be giving him substantive political and perhaps policy advice while he's president," said Dr. Richard Himelfarb, of Hofstra University.
She'll be taking on an unofficial advisory role and won't be on the White House payroll. Kate Andersen Brower, author of "First Women," told Hsu this gives Ivanka more freedom.
"She only has to talk to the press or be visible when she wants to be. So I think she's very strategic, and if she has a policy that she really wants to promote, that's when you're going to see her," she said.
First ladies spend a lot of time working on causes near and dear to them. For Michelle Obama, it's the "Let's Move" campaign and healthy eating for children. For Nancy Reagan, it was "Just Say No" to drugs. For Ivanka?
"For me, one of my life's missions is to disrupt these dated concepts of what it really looks like and means to be a working woman. The expression 'working man' is never heard," she's said.
Ivanka's also passionate about cutting the cost of childcare. She was just a child herself when her father started teaching her to dream big.
"I remember him telling me when I was a little girl, 'Ivanka, if you're going to be thinking anyway, you might as well be thinking big,'" she said.
Sound advice for a woman who's about to step into her biggest role yet.
The country hasn't seen a dynamic like this for more than 100 years. When Woodrow Wilson's first wife died a year and a half into his presidency in 1914, his daughter Margaret stepped into the first lady role.