Ivanka Trump: 'My Father Is A Fighter'
CLEVELAND (CBSNewYork) -- Ivanka Trump spoke Thursday about the lessons she learned from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as her father and as a business leader – and said they would make for the very qualities needed for a president to move the country in the right direction.
Speaking at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ivanka Trump said her father had made great sacrifices to enter the race as a political outsider up against 16 competitors.
"For more than a year, Donald Trump has been the people's champion," she said. "And tonight, he is the people's nominee."
She said as president, her father would bring change that would not be possible under a career politician.
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"Real change the kind we haven't seen in decades is only going to come from outside the system and it is only going to come from a man who has spent his entire life doing what others said couldn't be done," Ivanka Trump said. "My father is a fighter."
COMPLETE CAMPAIGN 2016 COVERAGE
Ivanka Trump said she had seen her father fight for his families, employees and company and is now the same for his country.
"That's been the story of his life and, more recently, the spirit of his campaign. It's also a prelude to reaching the goal that unites us all when this party, and better still this country, will know what it's like to win again," she said.
Ivanka Trump went on to describe the values she said her father passed along.
"My father taught my siblings and me the importance of positive values and a strong ethical compass," she said. "He showed us how to be resilient, how to deal with challenges and how to strive for excellence in all that we do. He taught us that there is nothing we cannot accomplish, if we marry vision and passion with an enduring work ethic."
Ivanka Trump said her father had taught her that "potential vanishes into nothing without effort," but she said he had always been generous and giving.
"My father has a sense of fairness that touches every conviction he holds," she said.
Ivanka Trump said further that her father "listens to everyone," and asks everyone from the engineers and superintendent to the painters and the electricians for their feedback when he is constructing a new project.
She said her father would fight for equal pay for equal work – focusing in particular on women with children.
"A Trump presidency will turn the economy around and restore the great American tradition of giving each new generation hope for brighter opportunities than those of the generation that came before," Ivanka Trump said. "In Donald Trump, you have a candidate who knows the difference between wanting something done and making it happen."
Ivanka Trump added that one of her father's greatest qualities is that he is "incapable of thinking small.
COMPLETE CAMPAIGN 2016 COVERAGE
"When I was a child, my father always told me, 'Ivanka, if you're going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big,'" she said. "As president, my father will take on the bold and worthy fights. He will be unafraid to set lofty goals and he will be relentless in his determination to achieve them. To the people all over America, I say, when you have my father in your corner, you will never again have to worry about being let down."
Ivanka Trump asked the American people to judge her father not by his promises, but by the results he has already achieved in business and personal values.
"Judge his values by those he's instilled in his children. Judge his competency by the towers he's built, the companies he's founded and the tens of thousands of jobs he's created," she said. "He is the single most qualified person to serve as the chief executive of an 18-trillion-dollar economy."
She said with Donald Trump as president, the U.S. would have a fighter with a record of achievements in hits corner.
"Come January 2017, all things will be possible again. We can hope and dream and think big again. No one has more faith in the American people than my father. He will be your greatest, truest and most loyal champion. This is the fighter, the doer, that you have chosen as your nominee," Ivanka Trump said.
