Ivanka Trump, President-elect Donald Trump’s daughter, has been calling members of Congress about child care legislation, a transition source told CNN.
The source said she’s been calling Ways and Means committee members, female members of Congress she met on the Hill in September with Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and other members of Congress.
The news was first reported in Independent Journal Review.
In September, the President-elect unveiled a set of policy proposals aimed at making child care more affordable during a speech in suburban Pennsylvania.
Trump, speaking alongside Ivanka, said he would seek to make child care expenses tax deductible for families earning less than $500,000 and called for establishing tax-free accounts to be used for child care and child enrichment activities.
He also called for guaranteeing six weeks’ maternity leave by extending unemployment insurance benefits to working mothers whose employers do not offer paid maternity leave.
“For many families in our country, child care is now the single largest expense — even more than housing,” Trump said. “Our plan will bring relief to working and middle class families.”
Before her father spoke in September, Ivanka Trump said affordable child care is a top concern of hers and added that her father is “in a very unique position to do something about this problem.”
“Little focus has been put on how best to alleviate enormous financial burdens child care places on low-income and middle-income families,” Ivanka Trump said in her remarks.
Ivanka Trump will likely play an important role during her father’s presidency, She and her husband, Jared Kushner, have been shopping for houses in Washington. Their titles in Trump’s administration have not yet been worked out.
