On Monday evening, as word spread of yet more anti-Semitic behavior around the nation, it wasn’t President Donald Trump who was the first to speak out against the threats to regional Jewish Community Centers — it was his daughter, Ivanka Trump.
Like her dad, however, she used Twitter to remind her followers that the United States is a “nation built on religious tolerance” and that it’s important to protect houses of worship.
It isn’t unusual for Ivanka, who, along with her husband Jared Kushner, identifies as an Orthodox Jew, to speak out on such a heartfelt issue. But the President’s daughter has picked up where she left off on the campaign trail — as the softer, gentler side of her father’s gruff demeanor.
Whether handling topics like women in business, as she did when she convened a roundtable with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to help “level the playing field” for female entrepreneurs and working parents, or acting as de facto first lady and accompanying her father on a trip to comfort the family of a fallen soldier, Ivanka has been the humanizing force of the Trump administration.
The barriers of privacy that shrouded the children of Barack and Michelle Obama don’t apply to Ivanka, nor does she seem to want them for her own three children. From videos of her daughter singing pop songs in the backseat of her car to showing off baby Theodore’s first crawl in the White House’s State Dining Room, nothing seems off-limits.
Lately, Ivanka’s Twitter and Instagram feeds have been a mash-up of her personal and professional life, with the possible aim of letting her millions of followers see her close relationship with her father and, in turn, his with her own children.
“Grandpa Trump” became a thing last week when the President walked toward Marine One from the Oval Office, clasping both hands of his grandkids, 5-year-old Arabella and 3-year-old Joseph.
Arabella and Joseph had just watched the giant helicopter land on the lawn, staring out the windows of the Oval Office.
On Tuesday morning, following her previous night’s tweet calling for sensitivity to religious freedom, Ivanka was back to posting cute pictures of her kids, this time featuring Joseph with his nose pressed against the glass.
Sunday, it was baby Theodore’s turn in the spotlight, when his mom posted a super-static haired shot from a morning at her Washington, DC, home.
Blowing the lid off the hardscrabble attitude and language of the elder Trump was Ivanka’s specialty throughout the presidential campaign, when her kind words about her father served to help people view him as real-person-Trump, not name-calling-candidate-Trump.
However, Ivanka’s road to branding herself as approachable has hit a few hiccups, like the time she posted a photo of herself in a ball gown, ready for a night on the town, as chaos erupted at the nation’s airports over her father’s travel ban.
That misstep, which was criticized on social media, led to a week-long social media hiatus. Her next post was of daughter Arabella singing a song she learned for the Chinese New Year. After that, it was back to business, as she appeared at the end of the table while her father convened his Business Advisory Council.
One of the key items on the council’s agenda, Ivanka Trump pointed out on Instagram, was “leveling the playing field for women in the workforce,” another of the issues she focused on significantly during the campaign.