Donald Trump’s famously composed eldest daughter, Ivanka, accused a Cosmopolitan reporter of going “negative” and trying to “editorialize” by asking for specifics on her father’s newly announced maternity leave policy before abruptly ending a Wednesday phone interview.
Cosmopolitan’s Prachi Gupta asked Ivanka Trump why the campaign’s new proposal, which promises six weeks paid leave to new mothers, doesn’t apply to fathers and whether it applies to couples comprised of two male partners.
Gliding past Gupta’s point that mothers’ role as primary childcare providers exacerbates the gender pay gap, Trump said the plan still represented a “huge advancement” for mothers and lesbian couples.
“Right now,” Trump said, the plan focused only on mothers and did not apply to gay men.
Hillary Clinton has proposed offering twelve weeks paid family leave to new parents. Her campaign has cast Trump’s plan as “out-of-touch” and not reflective of “the way Americans live and work today.”
Trump became testier when asked what made her father evolve on the issue of maternity leave, given that he said in a 2004 NBC interview that pregnancy was an “inconvenience for employers.”
“I think that you have a lot of negativity in these questions, and I think my father has put forth a very comprehensive and really revolutionary plan to deal with a lot of issues,” Trump replied, criticizing Gupta for making a “comment like that” and arguing that her father has employed women at all levels of his company for “decades.”
Gupta said she didn’t mean to ask “negative” questions, but argued it was “relevant” to ask questions about past statements made by presidential candidates.
“You said he made those comments. I don’t know that he said those comments,” Trump said.
Gupta clarified that she was quoting directly from the NBC interview.
Trump reiterated that her father should be “celebrated” for his “really incredibly plan” before saying she had to “jump off” the phone.
