Ivanka Trump cut short an interview with Cosmopolitan published Wednesday after being asked about some of Donald Trump’s past comments about childcare and maternity leave.
Trump criticized the interviewer for having “a lot of negativity” in her questions.
Trump had hoped to highlight the Republican presidential nominee’s new childcare policy, which she helped craft and introduce this week.
But the candidate’s daughter bristled when interviewer Prachi Gupta asked, “In 2004, Donald Trump said that pregnancy is an inconvenient thing for a business. It’s surprising to see this policy from him today. Can you talk a little about those comments, and perhaps what has changed?”
“So I think that you have a lot of negativity in these questions,” Ivanka Trump said, according to Cosmopolitan’s transcript. “So I don’t know how useful it is to spend too much time with you on this, if you’re going to make a comment like that.”
She said the question was “an unfair characterization of his track record and his support of professional women.”
Gupta pressed on: “I would like to say that I’m sorry the questions — you’re finding them negative, but it is relevant that a presidential candidate made those comments. So I’m just following up.”
“Well, you said he made those comments. I don’t know that he said those comments,” Trump said.
Presented with the source of her father’s quote — an NBC interview in 2004 — Trump shot back that “there’s plenty of time for you to editorialize around this,” and again pitched the campaign’s new childcare policy.
“I hope that regardless of what your political viewpoint is, this should be celebrated,” she added.
Trump also clashed with Gupta when asked why the campaign’s paid leave proposal didn’t apply to gay couples or include paternity leave. She said that the reason the proposal wouldn’t include to those groups is that “the original intention of the plan is to help mothers in recovery in the immediate aftermath of childbirth.”
“So I just want to be clear that, for same-sex adoption, where the two parents are both men, they would not be receiving special leave for that because they don’t need to recover or anything?” Gupta asked.
Trump said: “Well, those are your words, not mine. Those are your words. The plan, right now, is focusing on mothers, whether they be in same-sex marriages or not.”
She said child-bearing mothers in lesbian couples would be eligible under the plan.
When Gupta pivoted to asking Trump about how Donald Trump proposed to pay for some of his most expensive policy proposals — such as the border wall with Mexico, infrastructure investment, and increased defense spending — Trump said that the policies would all be paid for as a result of the Trump campaign’s forthcoming tax reform plan.
Shortly thereafter, she cut the interview off.
“I’m going to jump off — I have to run. I apologize,” Trump said.
Around 12:30 p.m. ET, Cosmopolitan’s link to the story appeared to be down and gave a 404 error, but it returned online shortly thereafter.
She later tweeted, “@Cosmopolitan, your readers do & should care about issues impacting women & children. Keep the focus where it belongs—advocating change.”
Trump’s efforts to help roll out her father’s maternity leave policy proposal and to make his candidacy more palatable to young women were also complicated Wednesday when The Huffington Post reported that she misstated the Trump Organization’s own maternity leave policy.
Trump told reporters and “Good Morning America” that the Trump Organization offers employees eight weeks of paid leave. But The Huffington Post found hotels and casinos run by subsidiaries of the Trump Organization offer no paid family leave, but rather adhere to federal law that requires only businesses allow women to take sick leave and vacation.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign has criticized Trump’s maternity proposal for focusing only on women and not fathers. That issue was also raised during the Cosmopolitan interview.
“The original intention of the plan is to help mothers in recovery in the immediate aftermath of childbirth,” said Ivanka Trump.