I've lost track - are we paying Jarod and Ivanka, or are they not taking a salary? Lord knows they don't need the money - they're making plenty of dough just being in Trump's orbit. Last year, between the two of them, they earned $82 million through their investments, trusts, dozens of real estate transactions, and an advance of nearly $300,000 for Ivanka's book, "Women Who Work", because, of course, she's an expert on working moms...
Oh, and let's not overlook the $4 million Ivanka earned from her interest in the Trump International Hotel in DC - you know, the one that houses most of Trump's international visitors, diplomats and lobbyists - I'm sure it's a mere convenience, and has nothing to do with the Trump family making hay while the sun shines. And hey, where else can one dine on a seafood pyramid called “the Trump Tower” that costs 120 bucks (tip NOT included), and get the chance to see DJT sitting nearby eating... oh, I don't know - maybe a big slab of chocolate cake?
62
Like many I still live in the shock of the trump presidency. This is a nation that fought for independence from the oppression of the British monarchy and stormed the beach in Normandy. This is the nation that put a man on the moon. This is a nation that dealt with its blood stain of slavery. This is a nation that gives protection to all religions. This is a nation that professes that all men are created equal. This is a nation built by immigrants.
This is a nation that elected Donald Trump along with his family and cronies. I wish that those who elected and support this narcissistic, bully man child would have the decency to migrate elsewhere, perhaps to a country run by one of trump's autocratic rulers and leave America to those of us who believe in its stated values. We are not a brand, we are a democracy.
89
Extreme insensitivity. Far too many "Let them eat cake" moments. If she is his senior adviser, then she too is responsible for these policies. Otherwise what is she doing all day? The narcissism doesn't fall far from the tree.
64
Don Junior Ivanka and Eric,
The offspring of Donald J Trump
Intellectually far from mesmeric
And morally all of a lump
Unreservedly follow their father
In creating such US disunity -
Acquiescent and supine, they’d rather
Sit still and exploit opportunity
75
Reading this and the comments, again I wonder what the Fourth Estate thinks its role is now, when, as o we are on the verge of authoritarianism 'trumping ' democracy and such pervasive overturning of rights for nearly all of us. This is corruption of America as we have conceived it that demands some form of revolution.
But touting in your headlines how all this is just strengthening the Trump base, whoever that is, seems irresponsible because there are no stats/facts to back that up, are there? And the assertion itself strengthens the Trump base, or could.
I have respected this paper for decades but it just seems no longer as unbiased or as accurate as I had thought. Someone recommended UK sources to me recently for straighter fact-based news on America. Now that's a sad commentary-- King Geo's country getting one over on us finally.
30
Do Ivanka and Jared (and Trump for that matter) ever see their minor children? Who are they to talk about children and family when they jet-set all over and leave their kids with the nanny in NY or wherever? Puh-leaze.
41
One does not have to be a family member to be contaminated by the toxic substance Donald Trump has released on the nation. His mendacity and malice has infested the nation with poison destroying civility and veracity. The only antidote for the nation is to kick him and his Republican Trump cult acolytes out of office ASAP.
63
The most important line in this column: "Donald Trump is the meanest man I ever met." And that seems to be ok with a large number of Americans. And that worries me a great deal.
403
Maybe Ivanka is tapping her head in the photo to see if her brain is still operating. Place your bets.
But I think she will find it is hollow, especially if it is that area of brain devoted to empathy, morality, and a conscience.
The Trumps: Another new high for a low in this country.
74
Ivanka and Jared will be alright. They will be able to hawk beauty products,fashion and condominiums in new markets: Places with a populace yearning for make-overs. Places with plenty of underdeveloped beachfront. Daddy is busy establishing beach heads for them. Ahead lie golden opportunities in North Korea, Russia, Hungary, The Philippines and their ilk.The leaders of these nations will welcome them with open arms, Daddy's little girl and her boy toy. RAW
107
Actually, the large breast implants gave Ivanka away from the very start. Al. Trump women from Stormy Daniels to Melania have large implants because it is how Trump the misogynist thinks women should look. Ivanka has completely bought into Trump's view of women and his warped value system. Part of that value system is pretending to care about others when you clearly do not.
174
All of trumps world is plastic, cheap and tasteless. He never got why he was not accepted into the so called elitist.
Not being very smart and a crook is another deterrent. Why would his family be any different. Really surprised any one would follow him.
57
America hangs its head in shame. And maybe, just maybe, no one cares after all.
125
Ah, but Maureen, you knew it all too in the summer and autumn of 2016, but badmouthed Hillary and portrayed Trump as a really nice guy.
Your column is spot on, but your hypocrisy and your role in electing Trump make me ill.
172
The old saying goes that you have to love yourself before you can love others. Perhaps this applies to the Trump clan?
16
Ivanka Trump was a prime mover in the Rosarita Beach condo scam. The whole thing was very smoothly done, and all investors lost their money. It was so smoothly done, I can't believe it was the first one, but I haven't heard of any others - yet, there have to be more. At that time people were impressed with the Trump name. Here in America, not so much anymore. I guess Russia is the last place Trump can get money, and he is willing to sell out the U.S. and our allies to get even richer. I think only the stupidest investors would go along with any investment they recommended, of course these are the same people that voted for Trump. I do believe an end to this sordid tale is coming, it's just been too insane to continue, the players' hubris too overwhelming. In the end, where will they go? Sara Sanders won't be able to eat fried chicken in any restaurant in the DC area, and Pence won't be able to be a Methodist. And, there is the loneliness. All of Trump's cohorts will be in jail, maybe he will, too.
73
Everything about Ivanka (and her husband) is fake. She wanted to brand herself as a soft, humane member of the administration and as a force for empowering women. All she’s done is empower her father’s vile policies and enrich herself. She has no business holding any public office. And if there were a way we could excommunicate both of them, I’d be for it. Unfortunately, I don’t think Judaism has a similar procedure.
47
They really are the Bluth family from Arrested Development, just not nearly as funny.
19
I look forward to the morning they are all sentenced in the American version of the Nuremberg trials.
51
Trumpian fakery at their best. Ivanka, a byproduct of her father's vacuousness, can't help it; her social distance from the poor (and that includes immigrants to be, the one's that could have made her life easier) is so large that they are invisible to her, hence, unable to see her own arrogant behavior. She is not alone, of course, as faux elites ('money speaks') try to appear relevant. Poor rich Ivanka, and poor rich Donald, irremediably lost in their own labyrinth, petty to a fault. What remains a mystery is the adoring crowd, their base, willfully thoughtless, applauding a stupid stance where all the lying became the dogma truth.
28
She's part of the Trump regime. She's part of the problem. She's not qualified to counsel the President of the United States of America. She's weak intellectually and has no courage or vision. She's corrupted by her business practices and unfamiliar with service to others. She's only there cause she slipped into the Oval Office with Daddy.
141
Look at the parents. The mother of Ivanka looks like a clown. The father is cruel. All the wives, step children and aunts and uncles. Everyone is worried about being disinherited. Now, the divorcees start among the children. The family of Trump is fractured.
30
Whether they concern Ivanka or Hillary, Obama or Trump, Ms. Dowd's columns are mean rather than meaningful. I feel only empty when I finish one.
66
I haven't read The Daily News since they had all the line scores for the previous day's major league baseball games on the back page.
But on Ms. Dowd's report that, in reference to Ivanka, it carried a headline, "DADDY'S LITTLE GHOUL," I believe it deserves a 'second look.' (No doubt it won't actually get a second look from me -- but, 'on' that headline alone, it DOES deserve one!!!)
14
Trump spits on us and our desire for a civil society everyday and Ivanka is running around grabbing deals for herself. Trump insults everyone and supports a war on what he calls elites. We hear you Mr. President and your daughter is chum for New York raised sharks . . . cue Jaws theme music:
Ivanka needs a good criminal lawyer for her role in Trump charities and Trump Tower Panama City, which was her pet project. New York State has a well timed lawsuit pointed directly at the entire Trump family. Let the fun begin . . .
35
Hopefully, America is finally seeing that, under all the plastic surgeries, Botox, fillers, lip injections, keratin hair treatments, designer clothes, Instagram filters, and half the MAC counter at Saks, is someone just as venal, corrupt, greedy, and soulless as Dear Ol' Daddy.
161
Well done Maureen. Another spot on column.
8
Finally! I can agree with something Maureen Dowd wrote.
10
Ivanka is just another grifter Trump. And she doesn’t come off as very bright.
Trump Sr surrounds himself with his know-nothing family putting them in positions of power they have no qualifications for. When Ivanka, a shoe retailer, represents the USA on some trip to foreign soil, it is cringe worthy and embarrassing as an American. Almost as bad as the reality tv show host in the Oval Office. When will this nightmare end?!
These people need to go sooner than later. And preferably to jail.
194
Since day one, the Trumps have cashed in their chips on the handsome profits they've made as denizens of the White House. That right there is the focus of their laser beam, everything else is secondary -- if even that. There is nothing complicated to be unpacked about Ivanka Trump: first and foremost she is the heiress careful not to put herself at risk of disinheritance from her daddy's fortune. We expect far too much from this stable of grifters then they are capable of giving. They did not and do not care because they have never had to. To them, empathy's unnecessary if you're fabulously rich. No moral compass is required when you've got, or are getting, all the money in the world. They don't even pretend at being honest charitable donors of any kind unless, of course, a significant tax cut is involved. The Trumps have no cause other than themselves.
74
It's interesting to see how children of abusive fathers cling to the abuser and reproduce his behavior. I remember a PBS documentary with a girl recounting a story of how she and her father would get together and debase her mother. Abuse is power and many children seem to want that power. The Trump family is an object lesson in hurt. It may explain his base.
64
Remember people said there was no way Trump would be as crass, cruel and corrupt once he got to office and realized the enormity of being POTUS? Remember when Ivanka and Jared were going to have a liberal compassion to add to the White Housebased on them growing up as very liberal?
And remember those same people said he was going to fix their health care? He was going to drain the swamp? He’s a Straight shooter?
Reality - he is that crass, cruel and corrupt. Ivanka and Jared brought a business plan, not compassion.
Health care is getting fixed by going after preexisting conditions.
He drained the swamp and dig deeper for his own swamp. If being a straight shooter means throwing ten lies against a and being able to hit one with unlimited tries, he’s a straight shooter.
He’s going to help the little guy. By imposing tariffs on Canada?
But none on Russia.
84
It seems to me that this 'senior advisor to the President' is just another self-centered, hypocritical, spoiled, superficial individual who is using her father's position to increase her family's wealth. She doesn't care about women or children or families. She certainly doesn't care about this country. If it doesn't add to her pocketbook, it doesn't interest her.
With Donald Trump as a father, should we have expected anything else?
57
Kids wrapped in tinfoil crying on floors. Kids kidnapped and taken across state lines.
Ivanka & Jared complicit by their silence.
Only when Ivanka saw harsh coverage did it occur to her "dad's election was in jeopardy.
Then she said something.
In 2017, the first week during the airport crisis of chaos from his Muslim ban, she posted images of herself & Jared in designer clothes out on a fancy date.
Awful AND clueless. Tone deaf AND self-centered.
78
We can only hope a mass of indictments will rain down on the Trump Crime Family's henchmen and lackies in the near future. At that point, we will likely see all of slime behind the Trump brand's poor facade come to light. The evil corruption kabuki of the Trump administration has played out sufficiently. Time for the dustbin of history to accept this freakshow presidency.
47
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. There's your column. It took only eight words.
76
Yes, Donald Trump is a bad person–a terrible role model for America and the world. And guilt by association is so easy to use against those you hate. That's politics.
But do Trump "resisters" really care about illegal immigrants and those seeking asylum as much as they care about their government jobs, contracts, political power and their establishment perks?
I don't think so. I think the Trump haters are weaponizing the victims of South American and Mexican politics and criminals.
The kids in retention probably are receiving the best care they've had during their short lives. They're being fed, clothed, educated and protected from most vultures, if not from those in the "resist Trump" campaign that is being waged by the hard left.
I don't like Trump or his family, but I don't like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi who seem to be career promoters of political division and hate in their quest for political power.
There is no greed worse than the greed for political power. You see it reeking throughout the political, journalistic, legal, religious and Business Roundtable establishments.
18
What evidence do you have that Trump "resisters" do not care about illegal immigrants and "weaponizing" them? Even a seasoned journalist, Rachel Maddow, could not contain her tears when she was reading about "tender age" shelters. How cynical can you get, without any evidence? And the argument about quality of care echoes the arguments for residential schools for Native children, and other supposedly well-intentioned detention centers. Shame, shame.
37
"The kids in retention probably are receiving the best care they've had during their short lives. They're being fed, clothed, educated and protected from most vultures"
Talk about dehumanizing children. They're alone, some had to flee by themselves the violence in their towns, others small and helpless are ripped from their mother's arms and put in detention camps with indifferent or hostile people supervising them. They are human children, how can you be so devoid of feeling? And so unaware of how cruel this is. But Trump is mean, insensitive and cruel and so are his supporters.
48
Being separated from their parents is the cruelest treatment Stephen Miller, Sessions and 45 could come up with. And, as someone who has conducted psychotherapy treatment with child sexual abuse victims for years, you can bet that predators have swarmed to get the facility jobs. In mine and your name and with our tax dollars.
46
Not sure writing unflattering juicy commentary on the prez's daughter is a good idea. Sure fair game and all that, being under the public microscope, but as another reader points out - this is exactly the thing that rallys the oppostion
16
Since she’s his advisor it’s fair game.
24
This is the only reasonable explanation for why he has such high support among republicans. Also supported by evidence highlighted by the nyt
3
I quote Ivanka from Ms. Dowd's Op-Ed piece:
Introducing him at the 2016 Republican convention, Ivanka assured the crowd that he had “empathy and generosity,” as well as “kindness and compassion.”
And then there's the quote one of DJT's inner circle as saying:
Even then, before all the horrors that would follow, it seemed like fan fiction. As a former top Trump administration official recently told me, “Donald Trump is the meanest man I’ve ever met.”
These apparent contradictory quotes are actually not a contradiction at all. I believe the old-fashioned colloquialism is: "putting lipstick on a pig".
It's still ugly, no matter how it gets spun by the PR machine. We're not winning, we just look stupid for having been taken in by all the flim-flam.
As for the administration's accomplishments, there's just one. The largest transfer of wealth to the rich, and an accompanying transfer of debt to the poor and future generations.
No, with the exception of a few hundred uber-wealthy families, we are all losing. Recovery from this rape of America will take generations.
126
Back in the 40's and early 50's, my D.C. grandmother, who was blind, listened to radio soap operas all day--"Our Gal Sunday," "Backstage Wife," "Lorenzo Jones." Mom would leave us at Grandma's about once or twice a week while she went shopping or played bridge with her 3 bridge "girls," who smoked like fiends and downed many tiny glasses of sherry for hours
We didn't like being left at Grandma's because she used to shush us all the time, saying, "I can't hear my stories; be quiet!" We thought these "stories" were stupid, and all of us grew up despising soap operas. Once I was trapped in a hospital bed, with the TV blaring some soap opera, but I couldn't get out of bed to change the channel (B.R.--Before Remotes).
Now I am getting emotional flashbacks with the diabolical characters, dealings, and ugly viciousness of the 24/7 Trump soap opera. But, as I remember the soap operas Grandma listened to, the main characters were noble and true blue, always struggling against nasty people and tragedy.
On the 24-hour Trump soap opera, the main characters are all duplicitous villains and inflict tragedy on everyone they can for their own gain and with apparent pleasure.
I am feeling trapped again, like a helpless kid, with no way to change the radio station or TV channel, as the Trump show gets worse and more cruel every day, including the Trump princes and princess, who are like their wicked father.
Somebody please change the channel, or better yet, cancel this horrible show!
68
Ivanka is a vapid, vacuous spoiled rich girl. She didn't understand the Scarlett Johansson portrayal of herself on SNL as complicit, because she doesn't know anyone beyond her own little world. She doesn't understand or care that cutting funding to Planned Parenthood left thousands of women without health care, or that her factories are employing girls as young as 12 and paying them pennies a day, she doesn't understand or care that her father's policies are hurting women in the work place (let's not pass legislation that guarantees equal pay), or that even if she hasn't been sexually harassed, millions of women have been. She has been ostracized by many in NYC and Washington, but she doesn't understand why.
83
She has been sexualized and sexually harassed by her father but identifies with and protects the perpetrator. Like “Daddy” she has no empathy or ability to see anything outside her self-interest.
20
it's hard when you've had everything handed to you all your life and then you come face to face with reality.
dylan had something to say about this, you know.
18
Phony inauthentic mindbendingly corrupt. Elected by 60 million people. Now he has vast discretionary power that can bring countries to economic ruin. He can launch US military attacks. He can nuke the world. His family has easily spun a web of corruption and he makes no effort to hide. He has adoring fans loving every bigoted hate mongering bon mot. His daughter was supposedly the nice concerned Trump.
37
They would seem quick to walk away. How fast did they leave Atlantic City? Who bailed them out?
15
When one learns in life at a young age that branding is everything, it is highly likely they will view branding as 'normal'. There is nothing normal about Ms. Trump=Kushner or her father do. Anyone who understands brands, understand they are hard to build and when the luster ends, the brand changes irreparably.
The question which American citizens must answer in regards to Ms. Trump and all things Trump is this. Will we stand up for our Constitution and its 'world-wide brand', or will we allow these super narcissist Trumps to superimpose their brand of narcissism and self-aggrandizement over us and our world-wide brand?
Ms. Trump and Mrs. Melania Trump's actions over the last several weeks should be a wake up call to which brand we must grasp and hold tightly as we remove the Trump brand from our government.
29
As long as the US economy is doing well, the majority of Americans do not care what cruelty is being done to immigrant children and other vulnerable people. They will tune out the constant focus of the media on Trump's antics and dismiss his lawlessness, ignoring the lasting damage being done to their society and democracy.
28
Wait til consumer prices skyrocket due to trade wars, interest rates climb and healthcare coverage vanishes or cost double all because Trump's artistic deal making.
But do not fret... the Ivanka and her wealthiest friends are massively richer thanks to Trump's "Tax cuts for the Rich!"
37
Our science prof should have checked the polls. Overall two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump's immigration policy, only 28 per cent approve, although support is stronger among Republicans, according to a recent CNN poll.
17
Maybe Ivanka is symptomatic of the "Electra complex" and she just never grew out of it. When I was a little girl I wanted to marry my daddy until about the age of nine back in 1963 when Paul McCartney showed up on my radar. Then it was "Good-bye Daddy" and "Hello Paul!"
14
The most telling moments about someone, ie Ivanka, is when no one else is looking. The tip off for me was when the Trump family sold its name to a developer for a condo project in Roserita Beach, located in the Mexican Baja just below the US border. It was sometime during the real estate boom of 2002-06. At a cocktail party for investors Ivanka went up to a woman who had written a $250k check, her life savings, to buy a condo for her retirement. Ivanka introduced herself saying, I understand we'll be neighbors. Of course this thrilled the buyer, and confirmed her opinion she had made a good investment for her senior years. After watching "The Apprentice" I saw Ivanka enough to know she wouldn't be caught dead on Roserita Beach. That would have been the red flag that would have made me cancel my contract and get the heck away as fast as possible. The LA Times, where this story was published, also wrote the building was never built and the investors lost all their money. Ivanka, who asked if the woman wouldn't mind if she might stop by to borrow a cup of sugar, was unreachable for comment.
78
Re: Melania and her jacket --- i still can't believe she owns any wearable that costs only $39.
( This is not disrespect because I'm glad she went. Just an observation.)
8
I stopped at the image of Ivanka flashing the hot dog vendor. If I knew any skilled artists, I’d certainly suggest this as a mural.
22
Ivanka will be able to buy the best friends money can purchase.
33
PLEASE! I just want to know when they will be gone and will there be anything left of American empathy for the downtrodden.
36
I can't for the life of me understand why anyone ever believed that Ivanka ever cared about anything but herself? Has she ever done one selfless act in her life that wasn't a publicity stunt? I guess people were desperate to believe somebody in the White House would have a moral compass.
37
Emily Jane Fox aptly put Ivanka Trump's value yesterday on MSNBC. Ms Fox noted that New Yorkers, those that knew Ivanka, said that in New York "she was useless but harmless. In Washington, Ivanka is useless but toxic." Invanka, like all of the Trump women are all glitz but not an ounce of substance. Anyone who believes otherwise are simply motivated by hormonal instincts rather than actual Ameica's historic values.
80
The Trumps remind me of the Kardashians. And it would be just fine if Donald and family were private actors. Despite today's NY Times article suggesting Donald's support grows among Republicans, I hope, but do not predict, people will reject the Trumps as political actors if for no other reason (and there are plenty of other reasons) than their incompetence.
24
The question is why this is not discussed every day on all TV shows and newspapers. You only hear daily about the uneducated desperate folks who find a way to get into the country. But hardly ever hear why the smart employers have not been arrested daily and put in jail.
24
Right on the mark!!!
5
I want a wall I WANT A WALL I want a wall and I'll break things until you give it to me.
Including the whole country and the world unless I get what I want.
43
The whole family is about grifting. Nothing more. There’s no “there” there. Stop trying to expect more. It ain’t gonna happen.
70
ivanka should be shunned at every public place. i can't imagine how she has the nerve to show her face anywhere, especially in nyc.
72
There's an air of resignation and muted panic setting in among anti-Trumpers. Basically, he's getting away with everything, and his base has not only solidified, but grown a bit. If Democrats don't take back the House in 2018, then one will have to wonder whether their voters just don't care enough. Or, alternatively, it will prove that the Democratic Party simply can't bring forward people and ideas that really resonate.
The separation of families at the border will prove to be a blip. The families, most of them, had no business trying to enter the country to begin with. Many will perceive their suffering as self-inflicted. As with Charlottesville and much else, it's yet another shock that will simply wear off.
9
Garbage to anyone claiming that Democrats have no ideas. They want to preserve Social Security and Medicare - which , let me remind you -- working people pay into their entire working lives and thus, are not a "handout." Democrats want strong relationships with our long-time allies, not with enemy dictators - Putin, Un, etc. Democrats, since FDR, recognize the need to protect the welfare of ALL OF THE PEOPLE -not just rich - and support labor laws to protect working people and children, support for education, and also have a social concern for those who do need at some point government support such as Children's health insurance, food support, subsidized (not free) housing. I could go on and on but the most appalling thing about Trump is his cruelty and greediness, using the office of the President to enrich himself and his family, to try to gain status to rich elites who previously wanted nothing to do with they uncouth, bully, con man.
50
The Trumps are little more than a crime family. They have a thin veneer of what passes for class and “success” with Trump supporters, but beneath that is nothing but hollow greed.
94
All these beautiful and accurate Comments are telling grand truths but to what purpose? No where near enough people are listening and responding in a Trump-defeating way. We need so much more. So much!
49
The Buddhists tell us that the harder it is for one to feel compassion for another human being because of that person's unloveable behavior or circumstance, the more important it is for us to work on generating that compassion for them. In my mind, Ms. Trump , despite all outward appearances of beauty, success and privilege, may just be one of those persons who could use our compassion the most.
15
First get him away from the levers of power, then you can exercise all the compassion you want.
While you can have compassion for people who do not have compassion for people, at some point you have to stand up and stop them. Simply hoping they will understand that their behavior is atrocious, by setting a good example, osmosis, wishing, or thoughts and prayers - isn't enough. Actions have consequences. Sometimes you have to pick up that ugly stick and use it.
Well, then, count me out as a Buddhist because I am not wasting my energy on having compassion for her or anyone else in that family.
17
The caption is at odds with the essay. Ivanka Trump has had influence on her father’s presidency. She shares his values, so the effect of her influence is to further his agenda. What people had naively hoped for was for her to have different values and thus mitigate the harm.
82
W Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 but won the electoral college.
Trump the same in 2016.
If one believes in God, one has to wonder what He is doing to our country.
Personally, I get up every morning and ask Him how more than 5% of Americans could fall for the Trump con but, so far, no answer.
120
Easy. He told a whole lot of people what they already believed -- that they were victims, and more than that, that our whole country is a victim. Which is pretty funny when you think about it. The US, the richest and most powerful country in the world, a victim? Yet some people eat this stuff up. Pathetic.
12
There is 0 evidence that God intervenes in the affairs of Man. Ask yourself what you can do not what God can do. The buck stops with us not God. Sorry for that admonition.
8
Independent--Nothing fails like prayer. Try action.
1
"Ivanka Trump hasn’t had the influence on her father and his presidency that many people hoped for."
And tRump was going to grow into the job
And anyone with an iota of intelligence knew neither of those things were possible.
I think that was just the usual 'thoughts and prayers' - which we now need for our country - run by a family of deplorables for a basket of deplorables
91
The little man did grow into the job. It took him a year but now, our country has become his biggest reality show. Every day is a new outrageous episode. He has grasped the levers of presidential power all too well. We were better off a year ago, when he was forlornly rambling around the ugly little White House.
19
Ah, Trump family values. Truly a model for our children?
49
Ms. Dowd, You are spot on promoting Ms. Fox's "Born Trump" in truth seeking about the personalities who are now running this country. "Ivanka and Vodka," lays bare the shallowness of this grifter family's world view and psychological imperatives that drive them. Sadly, the only rationality to this Presidency I am able to construct comes from personal insight.
21
Ivanka Trump married a Jared Kushner and campaigned for a Donald Trump to become President. That says it all, really.
This is an unnecessary article - and will win votes for Trump from his base.
31
Yes, just as Dowd's vilification of Barack Obama won votes for Trump. Which leads me to believe that her aim, like that of Trump, is to further her own brand at the expense of the reading--and voting--public.
15
To all of the Trumps, we are the "little people." In their self absorbed smugness, we are but bit players in their reality show. In history, circumstances such as this have been a precursor to revolution and violent overthrow, in France, in Russia, and even in colonial America, just to name a few. The Trumps would not know this because they are ignorant of anything but themselves.
92
Fitzgerald's narrator said it best in his summation of Tom and Daisy Buchanan; "They were careless people...they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
It is in their nature and their particular breeding. Ivanka is phony. Charming and well-dressed and pretty, she was the softer side of the Trumps. She is a Trump nonetheless. Why did we ever expect anything different?
The American people, maybe all people, continue to be taken in by beauty, fashionable clothes, and good manners. We want to look at a striking blonde mother as really a richer and more polished version of us, much as we would like to think Angelina Jolie actually cooks for her brood of children and cleans the toilet. We read People Magazine or US and love the pages that show celebrities hoofing it downtown for a cup of coffee or taking their dogs on a walk, kids in tow. So, why is it surprising, then, when we are "taken" with poor little Ivanka. We give a pass to the pretty, to the rich, to the well-dressed and perfectly coiffed. We always do. We want to be like them somehow.
That Ivanka is really a callow nasty human should really not be much of a surprise. That everything that should be real and authentic is really posed and practiced really should not shock anyone. We have only ourselves to blame for being seduced by image over substance.
136
No one ever seems to write about this: if Ivanka publicly crossed her father she would certainly suffer a terrible fate.
Her father shamed and ridiculed her on Howard Stern and other public outlets - can one doubt he's been better to her in private?
My guess is she's his emotional prisoner and can't step an inch away from his influence - emotionally or financially - without great, great risk.
74
I've noticed that he largely lays off Eric, who is reportedly by far the brightest and most business-savvy of the Trump children (except for Tiffany, perhaps). He also largely stays out of the limelight, which may be easier because his father doesn't care about anyone other than himself.
Ivanka is not an indentured servant. She could announce tomorrow that DC is proving difficult for her children and decamp back to NYC. Jared could fly in on weekends, which I think is probably more often than she wants him around anyway. She somehow manages to be pretty and breathy while at the same time exuding utterly no sensuality. I imagine Jared's function in her life is done.
She has so much dirt on her father that even he wouldn't go after her. She's there because it's making her rich(er).
45
Ivanka Trump is a grown woman, married and with over 800 million dollars personal fortune. She does not need her ‘Daddy’. She’s there, as is her husband, because it’s advantageous for them for present and future money-making deals, and because these selfish, know-nothing two have deluded themselves into believing they, too, can run the country. They are terrible people. Vote!!
29
Risk of what? Getting a real job and living like the people who elected her old man in the first place?
5
When asked in an interview about her father's denials of bad conduct with women, payoffs, Playmates and the like, Ivanka icily retorted that it was an inappropriate question to ask a daughter about her father. Her cool, coiffed disdain played well with Trump's base, but sent a red flare up for anyone concerned about the effects of nepotism in this administration.
I would say to Ivanka, "You are a senior advisor to the president. In that capacity you need to put aside personal feelings and perform as any other person holding that job must: professionally, honestly, with America's best interests at heart. There are no exemptions or special treatment for daughters. Asking for that shows how out of your depth you are."
Her tone deaf photos, her benefitting from Chinese trademark approvals, her profits from the Trump hotel in D.C., her husband's inappropriate meetings with countries from which relief for his unwise real estate investments might be forthcoming, and various other profits and benefits with dubious ethical implications all pale in comparison to her silence as children were ripped from their mothers. Her purported advocacy for women, children and families is as fake as the implants her father wanted her to get.
145
In the 1990 film, 'the Grifters', Lilly Dillon tells her counterpart to get off the grift because he, 'hasn't got the stomach for it.'
Watching the Trumps grift their way thru this scam they thought would be over on November 9th, 2016 continues to turn out stomachs of even the toughest characters. But while elections were made to coalesce a majority, governing is meant to preserve our truths: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...those are the simple virtues immigrants across our southern border are seeking and will continue to preserve...if we only let them in.
Ivanka is a chip off the old block. Her illusions of what winning looks like are running thin. She has no idea what she's doing.
94
I'm not a huge SNL fan and am usually disappointed when I watch a skit that seemed promising from the reviews, but the "Complicit" perfume parody of Ivanka was spot on and I recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it yet.
85
Nothing is an accident, says the I Ching today. Indeed providence has bestowed privilege and opportunity on all the Trump children, but not a vital interest in working for the good of mankind. And certainly not honesty or credibility, with such duplicitous behavior in all of them--Trump never taught them those principles because he lacked them himself, a congenital defect.
So here we are on the threshold of absolute dictatorship, being spoon fed his neighbors-authoritarianism a baby spoon at a time. And 90% of Republicans will not relent in their blind trust toward him. My, oh my!
89
Some Republicans like George Will and Schmidt are real Republicans and not turning in to Trumpians. If only there were many other true Republicans.
60
The sad aspect of the GOP is that the party has morphed into an image of Dear Leader similar to the No Nothing political party in the 1800s. Until the real conservatives either recapture it or form another political party, the rest of us have to put up with them.
1
And yet, as a friend of mine pointed out, they have yet to acknowledge that they, as well as Brooks and a few other writers for this paper, cleared the stage for Trump and helped get him elected. And Will, in his last column calling for Democrats to be elected in November, still has some childish names for them
9
"an infinite pit of need". That 's the best description of Donald Trump I've ever read.
186
Pieces like this reveal more about the author than the subject. The focus on illegal aliens while never mentioning the literally thousands of U.S. citizens who have been victimized by illegal aliens. The lack of acknowledging that most Americans love being an American not globalists. People on the left kept asserting that Trump is just a day trader that he doesn't ever think beyond today, yet every single piece by the left on the immigration neglects the incentives that are created if illegal families are allowed to stay in America. This lack of short-sightedness and implicit attack on the importance of being an American citizenship will increase Trump's re-election.
14
If as you claim, Americans don’t love being globalists, should America withdraw from the global economy? And statistics show that Americans are more victimized by other Americans than by immigrants. Despite Trump’s claims, crime rates among immigrants are low.
54
It makes no sense to speak of crime victims in absolute numbers. The crime RATE of immigrants (documented or not) is LOWER than that of the native born population in this country. Anti-immigration attitudes are being driven, in large part, by false data and mistaken impressions. This is the key, not an unwillingness to acknowledge nuance in the debate. Clearly some communities, more than others, are struggling to deal with immigration difficulties, but it is simply false to assert that immigrants are a crime risk. More importantly, it is short sighted. If we were to stop permitting immigration tomorrow, those best and brightest (and yes I include the desperate families at our southern border) will go elsewhere, they will improve themselves through sheer hard work and determination, and make their new countries stronger and more economically successful. If we take ourselves out of this, we lose. Period.
48
Afraid you're wasting your time. Trumpers like Matthew have zero interest in facts.
The road forward runs through the November elections. To vote for any Republican is to vote against America, against Americans, against all decency, against all morality.
3
In the normal course of matters, people who are close to a U.S. president have a special status for the rest of their lives. Advisors, speech writers and top level aides often become lecturers, authors and welcomed guests on media and at universities. They are remembered favorably for their time near the top.
Prediction: no one who has touched the Trump presidency will emerge undamaged, including his daughter Ivanka. This is a downward sucking spiral that pulls in everything and everyone around him. Some will go to jail, or at least face indictment and trials, some will try to hide from the infamy of his presidency, all will suffer.
There is no doubt that ripping children from their parents at the border, with no evident plan as to how to re-unite them, constituted a human rights violation. Only in the most extreme circumstances would such a measure be permissible for the safety and well being of children and parents. Otherwise, it was an exercise in sustained cruelty.
Is there still time for Ivanka to speak up and speak out on future outrages? What would it take, if not this week, to bring concerns to a boil?
Silence in the face of outrages speaks volumes, bringing abundant condemnation almost as much as the right wing media by defending the "summer camps" to which the children were being exiled, perhaps never to return to the loving arms of desperate parents.
76
I wonder if Maureen thinks that Ivanka is even worse than Hillary. Or is that a bridge too far?
61
Lesothoman--NO. That IS the bridge, and it's RIGHT HERE not far. She's much, much worse. At least, Hillary is helping people, regardless of how she got the means to do it.
41
Speaking of bridges, if Ivanka looks around her former home town, does she see the smoldering landscape of burnt bridges? Will she ever be able to go out in public here again? If she ever steps outside her bubble, will she be greeted with spontaneous cries of "SHAME...SHAME?"
4
With a father like Trump Ivanka has never had a choice of her own. What is Hillary's justification for always choosing personal power and self-advancement?
1
**Resubmission** It was more a "Mengele moment" than a "Marie Antoinette high point" with this modern American Addams family as children were snatched away from their parents and sent to concentration camps. There is no caring and no compassion, but only callousness and cruelty born of narcissistic need and greed. The Trump approach to the "final solution" to Hispanic immigrants (aka "zero tolerance") fleeing here for their very lives is to arrest them and treat them like "criminals" and "animals" as Donald "Gomez" Trump calls them that they're actually seeking refuge from. And, of course, Morticia chimed in by saying "I don't care." They are wicked and Ivanka has been revealed as Madame Morrible (yes it rhymes with ...). And, now the frightening reality has set in that it is America that is "on the rocks" as they suck the lifeblood out of our democracy.
48
Morticia! I knew the FL reminded me of something familiar, but Morticia of Chas Addams’ concept and further versions, is not a bad lady. Natasha, Boris’ companion is more like it. She really would not care.
2
I'm constantly in awe how many people have dreams of being famous, rich and like royalty. Ivanka was fascinated by the Kennedy's and imagined herself as Jackie. Reminds me of Elizabeth Holmes' fascination with Steve Jobs.....and hopefully with the same result. CAUGHT and convicted.
64
The Trumps are the antithesis of selfless public servant. More like, self serving, narcissistic, money sucking, pathological parasites.
119
Maureen Dowd is better at attacking women than men. Quelle surprise! (not that I have any sympathy for carefully crafted Ivanka: she reminds me of science fiction characters that look like men's ideals and are full of maggots or some such when the skin morphs).
Hair and makeup - Clinton and Ivanka and Pelosi - the downfall of women, that they are judged on appearances rather than substance. Dumpy Merkel takes the high ground.
33
The apple never falls far from the tree, and vultures tend to flock together. With Trump as a role model, how could Ivanka be any different? She and her husband have profited greatly from their "unpaid" jobs in the White House -- to the tune of more than $80 million, according to their recent financial disclosure forms -- along with pay to play patents from China; more than $600 million in loans from Apollo Management and Citibank; and investments in Kushner properties by Israel's largest manager of pension funds.
24
She was mostly raised by her mother. So the apple doesn’t fall far from the trees in the orchard in which it grows.
3
For some time, I too have wondered whether Trump and Ivanka think they can simply return to the 'glamorous life' of Manhattan and European capitals, after having ravaged this country and our allies and others around the world? Do they think no one cares? No one will remember?
Do they really think they will be celebrated?
32
My first thought on seeing the quote from Maryanne Trump was, why don't we ever hear from DJT's siblings? Doesn't anyone try to interview them? I want to know what they think. Or did they sign non-disclosure agreements too?
33
What a shame that the "real" Ivanka -- swearing, smoking, flashing (that poor, hapless hot dog vendor!) -- is labeled "cooler". How many cries for help can one girl have? I'm not saying I feel sorry for the despicable woman she grew into, but the child Ivanka seems to have been mauled by her cold-hearted father's parental care.
Let's not allow Ivanka to become the metaphor for America.
28
Another ad feminem piece by a woman whose own immoralities should result in a visit to the confessional every week or two. Forget the vodka. Take the marijuana cookies she made for instance. Why they can put a pundit in a place far loopier than Xanadu. Yet, here Ms. Dowd berates Ivanka for many of the same sins as her own. But the media is no longer interested in fairness or salving their own sins before they call out the transgressions of all the political Others. And who is their cheerleader in charge of cheering on the Leftist brigade? None other than herself.
10
Ivanka is a nothing burger in the real world, to use the words of her brothers. Why did you waste a column on her?
9
Maureen, you had always in your missives prior to DT winning the presidency presented the man as an anachronism and humorous foil ... not the ogre many saw with his more than boorish bellowing during the primaries. That puts you about a rung lower than his enthralled deplorables. So, here you are with :
" Even then, before all the horrors that would follow, it seemed like fan fiction. As a former top Trump administration official recently told me, “Donald Trump is the meanest man I’ve ever met.”
You were close to the Donald orbit in NY weren't you? ANd now you write puff pieces like these ...trying to make up?
15
Ms. Dowd puts it a bit more cordially, but Samantha Bee was right.
NOT my president
108
Yes! Samantha Bee was EXACTLY right!
16
Maureen, this is a particularly nasty and mean piece of writing, I would ask the NYT to censure you for it. I dislike Trump and his sycophant supporters and his policies, and I applaud any dispute of their legitimacy. So write that Ivanka has been silent on the children, suggest it undermines the public image she projects, question her suitability to represent American; but do not engage in a public evisceration of a young girl’s psychological development, even crueler if it is true. Your writing today is as callous as those you condemn.
12
Tell me you're joking. And Miss Ivanna (Ivanka) hasn't been a "young girl" in a long time. She labels herself a senior advisor to the POTUS. She should be able to take a little criticism.
16
The "young girl " is 36. That used to be responsible adulthood.
16
Ivanka and Jared are the reason why their are rules and laws against nepotism in the White House.
46
All brand, no soul. Just like Daddy.
36
Pretty simplistice analysis of someone trying to do "the right thing" within the confines of being a daughter and knowing what is effective long-term in managing her father. Everyone should just give the Ivanka a major break.
5
Why should Ivanka Trump Kushner have a 'major break?' She presumes to be a government official. She plays on her role as 'first daughter.' She made $82 million last year while 'serving.' Living a public life in government in this fashion invites, deserves and, indeed, requires scrutiny by not only the press but by independent government agencies.
22
Faux people.
39
Anyone that thought this entitled do-nothing would have any impact on her corrupt, venal and incompetent father needs their head examined.
She was/is in it all for her and her tacky, sullied and sleazy brand and her father's sewer businesses.
They could care less about America.
Everyday they are walking sandwich boards and poster children for violators of the emoluments clause.
50
It's hard to perceive anyone having been raised by this wretched man (your president) as being anything other than his mini-me. Breast implants as a teenager??? I think Melania is just like him--hard to get over wealth and live otherwise since that takes real character--think there's any hope for Barron? Doubt it.
22
One can only thank God I wasn't born into the Trump family.
15
This column is People Magazine, not NYT. Sheesh.
15
Ivanka's values are as deep as a mud puddle and just as dirty.
36
"an infinite pit of need — a time-sucking vampire who fed off those around him to sustain his own vanity.”
Never was a truer statement uttered about this ogre and his related trolls
42
Grifters. Every one of them.
50
What pointless drivel. Its about the policies, not the personalities, a point the in house NYT gossip editorialist cant seem to understand. Cmon, Mo, you missed a couple of lines trashing the Clintons.
Anyone who describes anything but the mango Mussolini's policies and how we all need to vote, is writing to hear themselves talk, so to speak. And Dowd is the worst.
12
It's not pointless - Trump installed her into the White House which she is leveraging to make money in violation of the emoluments clause. It appears that Trump foreign policies are crafted more to serve his, Ivanka's and Jared's business interests than those of the United States of America. SHE is an example of the Trump administration's corruption, yet the uninformed FOX viewers idolize her. We must expose these hypocrites, liars and thieves NOW. If they had been properly exposed during the campaign perhaps Trump would not be sitting in the White House.
5
You buried the lede: "As a former top Trump administration official recently told me, “Donald Trump is the meanest man I’ve ever met.” How about a column on that?
35
We’ve not had much invective directed at Ivanka in the Times. Maureen has filled that gap. Does it help Maureen? Does it help us?? Not a bit, I’m afraid.
14
It's obviously helping a lot of readers. Even you commented on it.
Ivanka owns her role in this Administration.
7
If someone sets themselves up as a beacon of hope and high office then they are open to criticism no matter who they are. Ms Dowd is just being even handed by taking pot shots at these people regardless of their political colour. No one is perfect and some less than others.
PS. If you want to find Ivanka's stuff , I saw a whole rack in a discount dress for less mall store in AZ last week! Just saying !
21
Still waiting, Maureen. Waiting for your column entitled simply, "I'm sorry".
You played a role in giving us this inhuman family and a fascist president by denigrating his opponent at every opportunity.
You could be a trendsetter. Say you are sorry for aiding and abetting and hope others in the press will follow, loud and clear.
90
I stopped reading Ms. Dowd’s columns a long time ago.
Try it. You’ll be better off for it.
12
Ivanka is Donald's daughter, just like Donald is Fred's son, just like Fred was Frederick's son.
Frederick ran whorehouses.
The family has gone downhill since then.
I hope it has hit rock bottom.
Dan Kravitz
44
Maureen Dowd,
You don't really expect her to defy the Don, the head of the crime family—when she's part of it, front and center.
Yes, she kept publicly saying, "When I disagree with my father I let him know it." That's window dressing babble.
Long ago she decided to buy-in to the crime family and "architect" her life accordingly. She even chose a suitable marital partner.
It's a one-way street, Ivanka.
27
Yep, that's it. And the horrors are just beginning.
10
I'd always been able to work up some modicum of compassion (or at least pity) for Melania and his children, given what we've seen and heard from Trump himself. Even as they vamped and lied their heads off, I imagined them having some sort of conscience.
But that ended this week, when we became the only nation in the world to confiscate infants and children. They are an unambiguously corrupt and heartless bunch, every one. They will learn the power of shunning soon enough.
33
..., big surprise?
You can take the girl out of the Trump Organization, but you cannot take the Trump Organization out of the girl.
The gravitational pull is HUGE ...
13
If one day she decides that she really DOES want a pony, all is lost.
9
This is the Dowd I come here for:
"It makes sense. Donald and Ivanka are consumed with protecting their own brands. America’s? Not so much." Spot on, Maureen.
14
Spot on- great article!
6
"The twisted Trump family dynamic was on lurid display this past week, hitting a Marie Antoinette high point as the echoes of sobbing children snatched from parents fleeing violence collided with images of a whining, pampered child-president bragging about his crowd size and his bank account, all while he callously used helpless kids as hostages to get his wall."
Remember when we thought Mitt Romney was the apogee of conservative dystopia -LOL
He's like Pericles compared to these defective slabs of spiritual waste matter.
17
Whew. Heady stuff. This--they can't go on much longer.
10
And yet here we are, 18 months in.
4
The time for telling the truth about the Trumps was during the campaign, instead of enabling them and bashing the Clintons. Too late to the horrible reality of the Trump administration. No vodka for you.
74
My thoughts exactly. You spent the campaign viciously attacking Hillary, implying a near equivalency of venality between her and Trump, giving support and credibility to all those who said they don't like Trump but they could never support Hillary. You personally played a role in bringing us this unmitigated disaster. How about a column with a sincere apology?
35
The only true solution to our immigration problem is to vet new arrivals well and get them on an express line to legal status because the American born work force is contracting and we need these workers and eventually taxpayers. Families with children in particular should be made welcome. And yet in our bizarro world, Ivanka and her father are fanning the flames of ignorance and racism that prevent this from happening. They most certainly deserve the same fate as the infamous Marie.
13
About that jacket that Melania wore, "the I don't care" jacket - I read that she did not wear it while visiting a children's detention center but en route. But you don't mention that. Charles M. Blow has another hate Trump and Melania article out "The King and Queen of Mean", I guess that is the trend of the NYTs. The unauthorized migrants have crossed illegally into the US and illegal immigration is and is going to be a big, big problem. Because it is unsustainable. Look at the situation in Europe, there seems to be no mechanism for any country to state that they can't or don't want any more migrants. I think Trumps plan was to send a signal to the millions waiting in the aisles, if the were welcomed in more would follow, Europe has learned that lesson.
4
Melania did not wear that jacket in the detention center, you are correct. But why not? Because it was crass? Does it make it less so because she did not wear it inside the center?
I think not. Especially considering how she and her parents have found themselves lucky enough to be here.
7
A bunch of typical upper-class swells. All pose, very little going on inside.
9
How can a devout Jewish mother NOT condemn the actions of her father... unfortunately she is stuck in his world, a world of hatred and pain. I wish she would admonish him to finally make amends to her religion and the American people...
16
Everyone piled on Samantha Bee for summing up your entire column before you wrote it, in two words, which absolutely captured the essence of Ivanka's character.
28
Silly Ivanka, you cannot make it like Daddy has; the Trump “Teflon Don” gene is - and for your lifetime will be - on the Y chromosome. Women cannot bully their way out of sticky messes, imply that men reporting news got it wrong and cannot slur adversary male or female names. You actually have to earn your desired image by serving the cause, every single day. Ivanka to champion women’s causes, you’ll have to first understand the challenges.
13
Ms. Dowd, I never hoped Ivanka would have any influence on her father. Why would I? What did she bring to the table that makes you think she would or could?
6
No remorse for buying into the corrupt cult of Brand T.
Synergies of rackets prevail.
9
If any children should have been separated from their parents it should have been the entire Trump menagerie. That would have been the humane thing to do.
We never knew greed could consume people like it does the Trumps. It seems they have and will do anything to get more and more and the more they get the lesser they've become. They're useless parasites.
My head will never get around the reasons why 40% or so cheer them on while their pockets and brains are being picked .
It's too late to save the Trump kids, but we can save our own kids by impeaching and jailing the lot of them.
21
I cringed when Mr. Trump patted his daughter, with both hands, on her bottom, as half of America watched him take the stage for his convention speech.
Creepy.
No boundaries.
21
“All mink and no manners”
25
Nice piece of writing, Ms. Dowd, but are you too late? Where were you when your brilliance might have withered this vampire family in its dark lair? Many of us knew there would be blood dripping from this administration, but we had not your voice or your audience. I believe you squandered your precious moment in history. And now, neither Ivanka’s riches nor Melania’s woven messages can protect their souls from the tears of the children. As for Trump’s soul, just look into his dead eyes . . . he has none.
46
Ivanka was brought up on the Upper East Side, with the WASP upper class and some arrivistes like her father. The children of al of these people grew up learning about opportunism, how to stab your best friend in the back, if necessary, to gain a place in New York's private school system, where advancement at all costs was the norm and Choate beat out any Manhattan competitor. Win, win, win, said the president. Why should his daughter Ivanka be any different?
30
Ms. Dowd occasionally tells us something we strongly suspected was true and which she confirms - Ivanka is as nasty and ego-centric as her father. She is different in one aspect - she is a phony while he shows his true self every minute of his life. I once thought she was the smart one, compared to her brothers, but now I know they are all clones of their father.
24
Many of us marveled that some "once thought she was the smart one;" Ivanka has been the fake-blond Wednesday of this ghoulish Addams family, from the start. Check out her before and after photos; the plastification of Daddy's little girlfriend began when she was a pre-teen.
6
Sorry, but your paragraph containing “a much better apartment” and is “smarter” and “richer” was incomplete. "More Huge fingers" must be included especially when discussing his offspring.
As to that crew, like kids from the ghetto was there really a way out? Unlike the kids from the other side of town, their cage is gilded.
With all that gold leaf floating around it would be intensely difficult to see beyond. Their school buddies and such would come from similar backgrounds. Ivanka's choice of a husband is quite telling. His dad is a wealthy real estate tygoon with a criminal record.
Where would these moghuls be today without "Zirp"?
7
Where did she acquire that weird wispy voice.
17
A family of imposters.
9
The Trumps can never get a break. That is a fair break. If they are not criticizing President Trump over his policies (which seem to be working quite well) it is Melania Trump over stiletto heels, jackets, accent, you name it they will find fault. Now they are once again mocking Ivanka Trump for being a successful businesswoman. I thought the feminists would be happy that she is an independent woman. Isn't that what they are always preaching to woman as to what they should be.
I guess only liberal women can find happiness and success. Someone like Michelle Obama would suit their taste. Only liberals need apply.
4
Quoting Susan Anderson's comment below:
"[Ivanka] runs sweatshops in China, and pretends to be above it all. When whistleblowers point this out, China arrests them.
China understands nepotism and is taking full advantage.
Trumpians should not be OK with this, which embodies all that they supposedly attack: elitism, foreign workers and profits, Making China and Ivanka Great Together."
17
Michelle walked her talk. She encouraged healthier diet and exercise for children and the planted a garden and exercised with children all over the country. Her message was consistent with her actions.
8
Oh leave her alone, she's the daughter of the president, she doesn't create policy.
Next-
6
Can't have it both ways. She is also an official presidential advisor with credentials and a West Wing office. She is absolutely accountable
17
She’s an advisor (aka nepotism) to the president with an office in the WH, probably collecting a tax payer funded paycheck...along with Secret Service protection...etc. Her activities there seem to be confined to lining her own pockets with Chinese patents etc. Poor thing...she needs to be accountable to the people. I’m sick of people justifying the Trump cartel’s self serving abhorrent behavior in the WH because somehow ‘everybody is picking on them’ is more important than what they are actually doing, can’t take the heat, go back to NY.
16
We know that Ivanka has been drinking the disgusting Trump kool-aid all her life; she was weaned, force-fed on it. It would be all too cruel to wish her to get trapped in the cage of alcoholism, but the image of her as a vodka tippler makes one wonder if there is at least one way she has managed to be different from dear old dad, that self-proclaimed teetotaler already so sadistic and cruel it's hard to know how much worse he'd be as a mean drunk.
Step out a little more, feckless daughter: you've got a frozen face and a frozen heart; move to rum and try a frozen daiquiri.
Your father has no shame, but he obviously is subject to embarrassment--he likes doing bad stuff, but just doesn't want to be seen doing it. That's one of the reasons he lies so much. And you know it, don't you?
12
JUst think of how much more helpful Chelsea Clinton would have been , had her mother won.
41
'all consuming maw' - perfect
12
No matter how you point out the flaws of this family, it doesn't seem to scratch the surface. "Mean" is the least of it. Trump is a traitor, doing the bidding of America's worst enemy, and doing it well. And as wretched as treason is, it may not be the grossest thing about him.
His relationship with his daughter, as described and revealed in photos, is unhealthy; probably for her and definitely for the millions of us who must watch and pretend we don't see anything unusual. We do that because it's just one more unhealthy Trump thing. Shock and disgust are just words now, with no emotional impact left.
A piece like this is informative, yet still serves to normalize the perverted. When will the full stinking story of Trump be told?
27
The only thing Ivanka would love about the Kennedy's is the respect they received and their good looks.
6
Samantha Bee was right.
15
Quite a good article but just a small quibble: "After her panic when he left her mother for Marla Maples — Ivanka worried she wouldn’t be able to keep the Trump name". Isn't Ivanka Trump's mother Ivana Trump--not Marla Maples?
2
I'm a bit surprised. Was there ever any doubt that Ivanka Trump is a shallow self-serving chip off her heartless con daddy? Were there people who really thought she was something else? Her essence seems so transparent that it is hard to believe anyone thought there was something there there.
If terrorized babies and young children can be used as political pawns, then there is no limit to how disgustingly low those playing that game will stoop.
Want this to end? Then convince at least five other people to go to the poles with you in November and vote for every Democrat opposing every Republican.
31
Perhaps, just perhaps, if the author hadn’t bashed Hillary so hard, and with such zeal, that we wouldn’t be here.
34
My shortcut on Ivanka:
She runs sweatshops in China, and pretends to be above it all. When whistleblowers point this out, China arrests them.
China understands nepotism and is taking full advantage.
Trumpians should not be OK with this, which embodies all that they supposedly attack: elitism, foreign workers and profits, Making China and Ivanka Great Together.
29
The First Accomplice never fooled me. Not for a second.
11
Trump heroin is publicity, and Ivanka is just as horrifically addicted as her father and brothers.
What will happy when their drug dealers fade? When Fox News doesn't constantly feed their egos?
They're well on their way from First Family to First Laughingstocks. When they become a media afterthought will be the real test of their synthetic, heavily tariffed mettle.
Watching them lunge for a limelight that no longer exists will be repulsive to watch.
7
"As a former top Trump administration official recently told me, 'Donald Trump is the meanest man I’ve ever met.'"
Nearly half of our population prefers a rash, mean, and nasty person over someone who is calm, measured, and rational. Our culture has romanticized brutal thugs like the fictional Tony Soprano and Walter White to the point where we wanted one of them working for us. Hence the 2016 election results.
17
62 million is not half of our American 300 million population.
3
Some day - in the not so distant future - we will look back on these as the salad days, the halcyon time when we had the luxury of writing and reading about Ivanka and Melania et al. Enjoy it while it lasts folks.
8
This entire Trump family lacks, grace, class, intelligence, honesty and decency. That they reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a "Shonda"
9
If you're Trump blood, you're suffering from a family version of Stockholm Syndrome. If not, you've got a chance. I think Melania's jacket was her blatant protest against being used as a prop in "Cagegate", against her husband's lies and Giuliani's statements concerning Stormy Daniels and in general about being held captive. Imagine what she has to tell her son to raise him. No woman can live with Trump and she's no different.
6
We’ve reached the point where the line in the sand has been drawn and what side are you on? There’s no going back. Are you or Ivanka on the right side? The humane side. The moral side. The side that says you DO care.
Ivanka can never cross over to the right side now. Neither can Lord Spanky Cheetolini’s other spawn (maybe Barron) or ANY of the other Trumpians, especially Pence, his wife, Sanders, Sessions, etc. We’re eons away from deplorable. They have to OWN their vote now.
8
That a girl, Maureen. I've never seen anyone so hit the nail on the head when it comes to Ivanka, the Terrible.
12
i hear they are letting the mold reappear in the old Jefferson Davis east coast lodgings. trumps should get ready for a long damp ex-presidency.
5
Let's see. Donald Trump wants his base to believe that he is:
a. empathetic and generous
b. kind and compassionate
c. the meanest man we'll ever meet
This is the SAT question that is included to ensure that everyone will get at least one answer right.
Ivanka's role during the campaign was to pull in a few votes from those outside the base who slept through the pre-election prep classes.
13
Obnoxiousness is Trump's only consistency.
9
Melania's wearing of The Jacket was a deplorable stunt.
A first lady who would stoop so low is herself also deplorable.
16
It is inherently sexist to attribute finer qualities to Ivanka Trump for no other reason than her anatomy. Why would the daughter of a man as grotesque in values as Donald Trump be a moderating influence on his obscene practices and methods? Critical thought applied would lead someone to expect a complimentary viciousness and especially as Ivanka had worked so closely with her father and the august men he has done business with.
11
Astounds me that anyone ever thought Ivanka was ever going to be a “good” influence in her father. From the beginning it’s been obvious that she’s a self-promoting, fraudulent grifter
Just like him. It’s all about her and ensuring when he kicks off, she gets a big chunk of whatever is left of his money. The Trumps are trashy people who have money but not an iota of decency, compassion, or humanity.
29
I'm with you, Amanda. I don't know who ever bought into this narrative of her as a moderating force.
12
Good description of the Trump Mafia, albeit a father commenting on the benefits of his daughter having a boob job is more than creepy. It’s likely to become a bit messy for Jarvanka, Junior and Eric as we learn more information about the faux charity (really, you couldn’t convene a board meeting - ever?), Russian wheeling and dealing, and Ivanka’s receipt of 13 Chinese trademarks in exchange for DJT saving jobs in China. Wonder who DJT will choose to take the fall to save himself?
15
We have allowed a minority of Americans to take over our country and place an ignorant, incompetent Crime Boss, Donald Trump to occupy the White House. Looking to Ivanka, or Melania as having moderating influence over Trump's inhumane and disgraceful behavior has always been an illusion. They are active members of the Trump crime family that now sees the US government as an extension of the Trump empire.
The only force capable of ending the disrespect for the American people, for the Constitution, for everything this nation has fought and died for is to get out the vote on a massive scale to overpower the corrupt electoral process that allowed the Republican minority to humiliate our country by placing Trump and his greedy cohorts in the White House.
19
Thanks jefflz. I was just going to post a comment about the Trump crime family, but you beat me to it. My late father would be horrified by these people. Not the country he served in the Marine Corps.
7
Like you, the people who criticize and wring their hands over the separated illegal children, long on criticism, short on solutions.
Want to really help, become a foster parent to some of these families or foster parent to unaccompanied illegal minors. Amaizing how the protestors are so good at caring signs and ringing their hands and so reluctant to become part of the solution.
2
The Trumps are soulless. So soulless that they cannot even see that their ‘damage control’ is pathetically transparent and often making it worse because they do not understand human kindness. It is for losers. After Trump's meeting with the GOP we’re supposed to think he was ‘getting it’ because he mentioned that Ivanka told him the ‘images’ of the children were problematic. That’s right - THE IMAGES! Not the reality. All these barbarians cared about was that the ‘fake news’ got some pictures out there.
Sadly though, after reading Jeremy Peters’ piece and watching the polls, the Trumps have a large and dug-in fan base. So dug in - one retired teacher apparently has no friends left.
I have never seen anything like this before. If you want to say - yeah he is a cretin, but I like the policies he’s signing - I can somewhat accept that. But the minute I hear or read a defense of him as a human being - just stop! His meanness is at sociopathic levels. He is an emotional terrorist.
17
I naively had high hopes that Ivanka would be the Trump that mitigated the horrible other Trump, exhibiting class and generosity, common sense and kindness. She seemed like a paragon of virtue, an orthodox Jew running a company, a mother, a wife, an impressive human being. Not so much anymore. She's basically done nothing, stood for nothing, had no power, no charisma, no talent, no voice. No help to working mothers, to children, to women. No position of influence, no nothing. Maybe it's not all her fault, she's just the daughter of the president, not the wife. Oh, but...
10
She could be worse than him. She's smoother on the surface. She has an understanding of discipline. Her tweets focused on her "agenda," she tries to rise above the fray he creates. She wants what he has, the presidency, for herself. She could be the real rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem,
wearing his coat to hide her dark face. She needs to be taken out now!
16
Last fall, a big creepy beautiful spider built a web in a corner of my patio. I named it Ivanka and let it live there into the winter.
21
"Beauty is only skin-deep." The true measure of a person is their actions or, with Ivanka, inaction.
5
Emptiness with a beautiful veneer becomes very painful in old age.
10
Most of us are sick of anything having to do with Trump -- this article included. But our nation is still in crisis. How can we look away? My suggestion -- Swing Left. This grassroots organizations is focused on REAL results -- the elections in November. Join your local group, have a lot of fun, and take back the House of Representatives. Any more attention paid to Trump is a waste of time. Attention paid to your nearest swing district is an act of patriotism in these dangerous times. You know what to do, Americans.
13
The Trumps are takers not makers and have instituted the first Whitehouse without a single person who is there to serve the American people. I cannot name one person there without their own personal agenda that conflicts with the needs of a majority of Americans
We Americans need a civics lesson stat.
Show your outrage at the polls
Make sure everyone you know registers and votes. November must be a resounding rebuke.
27
Didn't know much about her before, but when she tweeted her Ivanka-branded goods from the podium of the Republican convention I understood her immediately. It's all about wealth and power. They care nothing for others. Her whole family schtick in the administration is nothing but a marketing campaign for her brand.
I almost despise her more than her father, because she should know better.
20
My take on the “Daddy, what are we doing about this?” wasn’t that she was concerned about the families at all but that she was concerned about the continuing press hurting the family name and therefore, their business.
Being a woman and a mother doesn’t automatically make her virtuous. Look instead at her actions.
15
The media and "elite" notion that Trump wouldn't be so bad because Ivanka would smooth the rough edges has always been a reveal that Trump wasn't up to the job. There was no evidence of her magical abilities to confer intelligence and dignity on either Trump the candidate or Trump the President. Ivanka the imaginary good fairy has been a bizarre distraction from the fact that Trump, his family and his supporters are not worthy of the honor they stole.
11
I have worked in public education most of my life. After reading Ms. Dowd's piece I questioned whether I have led a sheltered life, and I have met thousands and thousands of students and parents in the NYC metro area from all socioeconomic strains, whether the Trump clan is truly a descendant of Homo sapiens.
4
Finally, the unmasking of Ivanka. Bookend for The Emperor's New Clothes.
7
It’s really hard to watch. A family with so much wealth before during and after this is over, who hold a public office and do so little for the public good and more only for those like them. A party who used to stand for something and now all the worst ideals but at the masses’ expense. A woman, who has the power to do much more but watches he father make vile remarks, shield basic reproductive information from women who have to right to know, and watch babies being put in cages all while counting her families’ returns. The lack of compassion is simply astounding.
These are are the worst of times and a segment of the population have embraced it, which is the scariest part of this saga.
15
The fish bowl gets larger, ever more invasive, gaudier. Trumps children remind me of that axiom: be careful what you wish for, it may come true. Ivanka is no better or worse than Kim Kardashian, or Britney or Bieber or any other rich celebrity. Back in the sixties which seems like quaint chaos now, we had a word that summed it up. Plastic
8
Although a sad and pathetic lot, thier troubles are really America's. Trump is still supported byt 90% of the Republicans, rural Americas rapidly losing their workers,markets, and healthcare and loads of Catholics, never mind their churches are filled with people from Latin America these days.
And how many people do you know that have commented about their "401K' being up so everything is just fine? We've taken a 50 year migration away from the public schools, the public square and the public good. Ivanka and company are just riding the same wave that their party members and Americans of all stripes are on.
6
And after her silence on the separations, it's leaked, (wonder who that was?), that she donated $50,000 to help an immigrant group in Texas.
Her and Jared made $82 million last year, so that's Trump change and probably equivalent to her hair and make up tab for the month.
Spare me the faux compassion Ivanka. If she truly cared how about using her voice and donating $3.9 million of her ill-gotten gains from the DC hotel?
That would be a start to try and wash away the stench her father's policies are wafting over her brand.
9
It is no surprise that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, particularly when the tree is a black hole of self-absorption.
10
I'd be very curious to hear from readers what they make of Ivanka's and Chelsea Clinton's long-standing friendship (which is now apparently kaput) given Ivanka's spoiled, vacuous rich-kid persona.
6
I agree. Chelsea sure isn't spoiled. But then again, her "starter apartment" cost $10 million (paid with her daddy's & mommy's money that comes from $250K speeches to universities, who pay them with their students' tuition money) where Ivanka's (who's earned her own money starter apartment) start only $4 million. So yes, of course, Ivanka, who works and built up a business, is spoiled, where Chelsea is, hmmm...?
2
Never mind, not worth the time to share what I was thinking.
2
I had higher hopes for Ivanka early on, particularly in hopes that she would curb her father’s racist hate bating. But those hopes have been dashed long ago.
She is all about Trumpism. The preservation of wealth, power and vanity regardless of the cost. Perhaps she always was this way.
9
No matter what side you're on, Trump's handling of the immigration issue makes clear the stain it has put on our country's image.
This was the ONLY way to handle the bipartisan foolishness of immigration?
Really?
Also makes clear how much we will benefit from a credible third party, term limits, removal of all money from lobbying and hard coded low cap dollar campaign donations.
It's time.
14
In November voters have the chance to reject those who are now worshiping the shallow greed of the Trumps. I sincerely hope this is not who we are.
12
You nailed it, Maureen. Just finished the Fox book, 'Born Trump'...actually, I couldn't put it down, all the while feeling that I should be reading something more high-minded, instead of a guilty pleasure. This morning, I understand my fascination with this American tragedy of a family. Corruption, lies, selling selling selling.
Always I have seen Ivanka as a tragic figure; when her smile is turned off, she looks scared, alone, and lost. The photo of Ivanka, smiling and expounding, sitting between Angela Merkel and Christine Lagarde at some high-level international forum, with the two authentically accomplished women turned towards her with looks of 'Who are you?' says it all.
23
Thx. You said it all.
5
"Introducing him at the 2016 Republican convention, Ivanka assured the crowd that he had “empathy and generosity,” as well as “kindness and compassion.”
Even then, before all the horrors that would follow, it seemed like fan fiction. As a former top Trump administration official recently told me, “Donald Trump is the meanest man I’ve ever met.”
This Trump in a nutshell, "the meanest man I ever met" but his cult doesn't care. I care as should every decent american.
A president's character may be more important than anything else.
15
Hollow people like the Trumps are nevertheless capable of simply diabolical decisons and activities...and we are seeing those playing out on a daily basis. Is there any uprise against these forces? Not really....! Are the Trump properties and golf clubs now declaring bankruptcy? No - some are even thriving since the Trump clan made it into the White House. I am afraid that there will be no revolution against these “folks” and what they are standing for - and there will be no exodos in this tragedy: the damage the Trump clan did to this country will stay for a long time.
6
What adult woman calls her father "daddy". Most people have not been fooled by the false caring of children by Ivanka or any of the Trump's. It's genetic. So is all of the lying, cheating, greed and faux caring. Or maybe it is the lack of nurturing they all received growing up. You know, the "nurture over nature" argument.
They all need to be removed from government before we have no government left. A RICO charge might do it or perhaps money laundering charges, lying to the FBI or Congress.
Please Mueller give us something to hang onto.
6
Just had to reply. What adult woman calls her father “daddy”? I do and so do a great many women with southern roots.
5
They say the essence of a woman is revealed in the man she marries, in this case, a Daddy wannabe. For most of us, it will be a small measure of solace that this vain, phony, evil woman will suffer for many decades as a social outcast, long after her father is gone.
6
Ivanka has not been elected to be anything. Leave her alone.
2
No, she put herself smack in our faces. From sitting in Daddy's chair during international meetings to numerous world events, almost every day, holding some sort of public appointment makes her game for necessary scrutiny and deserved criticism.
18
'Senior Advisor to the president' that alone opens her up to public scrutiny. Paid position or unpaid position.
1
Boroka:
“Leave Ivanka alone. She wasn’t elected.”
Precisely. What is she doing in the White House? Tell HER to leave US alone.
18
Neuroscientist James Fallon has done extensive research using PET scans to see whether there is any correlation between Alzheimer sufferers and psychopaths. He was surprised to find that his own scan indicated a lack of activity in the temporal and frontal lobes of his brain – typical of psychopaths. People with such brains often lack the ability to empathize with others.
Instead, the brains of such people – psychopaths – are wired for boldness and disinhibition. They lack the ability to control their emotional responses to negative stimuli. Fallon has done genetic testing revealing that certain genes stimulate aggression and a desire to manipulate others. Not all people who possess such genes turn into psychopathic killers but they often exhibit anti-social behavior such as obnoxious aggression in response to minor slights or insults.
Fallon is aware of the physiological differences in his brain. He writes that he had a stable and loving childhood that enabled him to grow up without becoming overtly psychopathic. Others have not been so fortunate. Many have experienced traumatic childhoods that shaped their personalities. Their brain development in adolescence promoted more aggressive, reactive behavior.
Our president appears to be one of them. He often reacts as an adolescent when he attacks someone for a negative comment. His narcissism also reflects this tendency as does his obsession to always be on top and to push others aside. Could it be that Ivanka is one of them?
5
Thanks for telling it like it is.
5
She inherited his genes, The apple doesn't fall too far away from the tree. Please don't expect anything different from this family.
9
We get it. The rallying cry and sentiment for the Republican Party, this White House and the Trump Royal Family is "I really don't care, do u?"
All Ivanka did was try to save face, not children. You don't thank the fire-setter for putting out the fire he personally lit. And that fire still is not out. Where are the kids?
"...a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will..." (United Nations Human Rights Convention on the Rights of the Child.)
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CRC.aspx)
6
The proliferation of 'screen time' -- those producing it and those watching it -- from the election of Obama to the election of Trump, resulted in producing an environment of winners and losers, strong men and sycophants bent on bending the world to their needs and vision. In this mix, media entrapment of mindless men and women wearing too much make-up and dressed to show leg, not substance reflected the world in which Ivanka has been a player. Thoughtfulness, intellectual heft (at least being reflective and aware!), and empathy do not as a rule, drive global marketing, the Trump/Kushner game. Ivanka's vacuous smile, her carefully cultivated impassive face hide the increasing unease and disconnect this administration and its players must be beginning to sense as the art of governance trumps the art of the marketing deal. Now, the light of day has shown on the racism, stupidity and careless meanness of Trump himself. Ivanka was along for the ride. The power is in our court now -- the voting public. Certain voting groups along with gerrymandering were conned by the variations of TV reality shows and clearly, The Dynasty didn't work in real life. Fortunately, its America and we still can, 'throw the bums out.' And, we don't have to give a second thought to the social fall from grace of these folks.
18
At a dinner party recently we agreed not to speak of trump. It was so pleasant. He and his family are using up all the oxygen on this planet.
8
Flashing a hot dog vendor when she was in 8th grade isn't "cool" or "interesting" -- it's sad. She was a child. And it speaks volumes about what she learned about women's bodies and their worth from her father.
13
I bought a fake Ivanka Trump handbag from a street vendor in New York while visiting. If Ivanka is so fake as you mentioned, is the fake handbag from a fake designer actually a real designer handbag?
1
Who said that Ivanka was going to be a mitigating factor? The numbingly self serious and self adoring billionaire's daughter on the Celebrity Apprentice, sizing up squirming contestants for their skills at promoting another vulgar "brand"?
The adoring Republican starlet wearing custom fit versions of her mass produced, uninspired, clothes (which she hawked to the gills) as she smiled like a game show model turning over a vowel, and cheered her father during a campaign full of race baiting, women hating, and a plain old violence?
Who thought Ivanka was going to be on the side of the good?
Not me. Not anyone I know.
Pundits wrote a story about how she was something she never appeared to be.
And now they write that she is not what "we" thought.
17
Puh-leaze... she will be rehabilitated like Martha Stewart or Michael Milken in no time with the right donations and the right parties. There are no consequences.
3
Thank you for stating the obvious?
The trumps are aligned with white nationalists, end of story.
11
The Trump family is all about branding. We're only a year and a half into this nightmare and, despite all their efforts to the contrary notwithstanding, they've revealed themselves to be complete phonies. Can we imagine what the Trump brand will look like after four years? Only the wacky backlash bumpkins will remain enamored of the Trump brand (and none of them can afford to buy anything carrying the Trump name).
8
Genuine Ivanka or Branded Ivanka: "I Really Don't Care. Do U?"
7
Over-their-head grifters. Nothing more. And their disillusioned base — that technology and progress has left in the dust — are blindly loyal to a crew that cares nothing about their problems. Classic cult behavior.
20
Trump, Ivanka and the whole clan are way out of their depths.
Because they are essentially a product of privileged, vainglorious bubble whose only contact with the likes of many Trumpsters and the working poor is to exploit them.
The essential problem is that millions of Americans like the "show", and don't seem to care about the reality, as long as the economy is strong.
7
Maureen is obviously part of the "in crowd", the circle in which Ivanka et.al. travel.
She loves being an insider, but eschews her elbow length relationship with America's ruling class. She loves to look down, and wants to be looked up to.
Maureen's hatred for Hillary contributed to the election of DJT. Period. No mea culpa's - which she has not offered - will change that.
Yes, Ivanka is a deeply damaged daughter - with a licentious father and a mother being betrayed by him on the front pages.
All of this is exactly why she should never been allowed to hold a formal position in the Trump White House.
As his needy, "never to satisfy as a daughter" Adviser, she cannot play either role effectively.
Ivanka is, was and will always be Donald's daughter first, and as only a distant second - the daughter of the country.
She cannot be relied upon or trusted to put the needs of the U.S. first, and she has not earned her tax payer funded salary. She needs to go. She should never have been.
2
Spot on kiddo. What doesn't he wreck? Whole nations, families, wives, kids, humanity, small businesses, large businesses, lawsuits, etc. Poetic justice would be Donald living to age 99... in a cell adjacent to Bernie Madoff!
5
Isn't it about time that Amazon and all major retailers stop carrying Ivanka products.
And caring corporations must stop booking Trump Hotel events.
And golfers should find better venues for their memberships and events.
Stop feeding the pigs.
11
Women crossing the border, babies in tow, risking everything to save their children have backbone, Ivanka does not. Daddy has always been one phone call away, to fix anything. If Ivanka could be poor, brown and desperate for a year, she could develop a soul. Not happening.
2
Ivanka Trump?
Who cares?
Every column that diverts our attention from the lying of this president is a wasted article.
To Ms. Dowd and the NYT: please simply display facts and hammer them home. Demonstrate clearly to America true things such as:
1. There is no crisis at the border
2. Immigrants commit less crime than American citizens
3. There is labor shortage made worse by Trump
4. Germany has been generously accepting immigrants and their crime rate is DOWN - at a decades long low.
We don't have time for profiles of irrelevant bit players in this horror show. Please devote your energies to telling the truth - over and over again. Ivanka who?
7
Thank you Maureen Dowd for reminding me that Ivanka is complicit.
10
Geez, I’m as revolted by the whole Trump thing as anybody, but other than being cathartic for the writer, I don’t think this article serves a useful purpose. It’s not clever or informative; it’s just a tirade, a rant, and much of the nastiness made me uncomfortable, it being directed at her looks and personality. It’s kind of school girlish. The Times should rise above.
2
Does she really call him "Daddy"? She's in her late 30s! That's a cry for help right there.
4
" And the real her is cooler, slightly more interesting, funnier. She curses like a sailor. She partied a lot when she was younger. She flashed a hot dog vendor when she was in eighth grade. She chain-smoked. Which is so opposite of the image she put out there."
She sounds like the stereotypical trust-fund kid. If only I had known she partied a lot and cursed and smoked, I could have forgiven her corruption, lies, hypocrisy, and complicity.
8
Soulless people can't rise to any occasion.
7
Perhaps this time, the Wh. House clan have gone too far? Not ALL Republicans are willing to use defenseless children for cannon fodder/blackmail for a wall...or? Ghoulish, indeed, and (to me) un-American!
1
Why, Ms. Dowd, a complete column wasted on an unexampled cipher? Because her last name rhymes with "dump?"
The young Mainline daughter is an image unto herself. Who ever thought she would have any influence over her father, a man who is on record as having admired her, umm, erotic qualities. Like father, like daughter? Ivanka Trump is a mannequin, something on view from the street but inside the store, the empty doll's eyes have more life than her own. Who knows what's behind them? It's doubtful Jared Kushner knows.
This daughter of privilege and wealth (Russia's?) has lived a life of green lights heedless of the many reds awaiting her passage on either side of her narrow, one-land highway. She is uniquely her father's child whose behavior screams "if you want to be like me, by my" [fill in the blank].
The Obama daughters, had they flashed their patrimony, would have been impaled by the Right. But we hear nothing, Ms. Dowd, as the First Family continues the disintegration of America's image, much like acid destroys whatever it contacts.
America refused governance under Barack Obama, much preferring garish, glittery spectacle. It has what it very much wanted and Ivanka must be eternally grateful. Her share of the Trump brand in Washington alone was a cool $2-million in the first year of her father's ignoble presidency.
The media pounced on Amy Carter's pouts.
It gave Reagan's children a pass, much like it did W's twin girls.
This First Daughter is unseemly in any wise.
4
The Trump raison d'être is about the brand and Donald Trump cared a big deal about it way back when… even faking it as his own publicist, John Miller, to protect the brand. But when the Trump brand started stagnating in an increasingly volatile real estate market, Trump committed a cardinal marketing mistake – brand dilution! And, the “Trump” name got slapped on everything from deodorant, steaks and ties to linen, furniture and yes, that infamous online university!
As the old adage goes, the apple does not fall far from the tree. So yes, “Donald and Ivanka are consumed with protecting their own brands.” If this presidency ends in a disaster and the Trump name gets sullied as a result, Ivanka could rebrand as the new “Ms. Jared Kushner?” However, if the “Kushner” brand gets tarnished before the Trump brand does, she could opt for a one-name brand à la some music celebrities do – so look out Beyoncé and Madonna, here comes “Ivanka!” But no worries, the only singing “Ivanka!” would then be doing, one assumes, is before a federal grand jury.
9
Thanks for your insights and troubling exposee. Again, I ask how did this happen? We have had character-flawed presidents and first family members, but never such shallow, overtly self-serving ignoramuses. Instead of growing into the job, Ivanka is growing richer on the job. The national nightmare continues....
3
Welcome back, Mo.
4
She and Melania act as if they don't smile heartily for fear of getting wrinkles. Hence the permanently uniform, unfeeling, posed expressions in both of them.
Ivanka, emotionless in Jerusalem, Melania emotionless throughout the Stormy Daniels and numerous other sordid affairs. Grab the money. That's how this archetypal plastic 'family' was raised, bought and controlled. And they're now running the country, into the ground.
9
I've been having a "discussion" with my family and we are split down the middle, two for and two against Trump's policies regarding the the aliens and their children. I don't know when we started making children the scapegoats, but the trauma on their faces is heartrending. Trying to escape from gangs isn't deplorable or awful, it shows you care for your children and want to keep them safe. What in heavens name is wrong with that. It that was happening to my children, you bet I'd get the heck out of Dodge!
Ivanka, away from her father and this poisonous atmosphere probably has a chance at being a good, moral person. Her Father has no chance at all. I wouldn't let him take my trash out!
2
I am no Ivanka fan, but the Fox book is nothing but unsourced gossip and innuendo, something you might have shared since it is the basis for much of your column.
Why is so much ink being spilled trying to ascertain whom Melania was "trollling" by wearing a jacket saying "I really don't care. Do U?" on her trip to visit children separated from their parents and held in internment camps? Melania wasn't trolling anyone. She was displaying the true meaning behind her husband's presidency and her complicity with it. She might visit these children, but we mustn't deduce from that anything other than the usual Trumpian message: aside from themselves, the Trumps don't care about anyone or anything. This is the real meaning of "Make America Great Again."
9
Ivanka and Jared and clearly the bag men for the operation collecting political motivated international investments that would not exist without the presidency. Straight up cashing in.
3
When speaking of Ivanka Trump, please preface her name with the word Stepford.
4
Introducing him at the 2016 Republican convention, Ivanka assured the crowd that he had “empathy and generosity,” as well as “kindness and compassion.”
Well, that just about sums it up. She was lying. They all lie. They're liars. Get it?
Wonder how it feels to be the daughter of the most hated man in America.
18
I am certain the Maidstone Club is waiting for Ivanka to apply for membership.
2
I always felt she was fake and every around her was there to prop up a fake image. Her breathless way of speaking is annoying.
But I have come to believe that she is actually real - really awful. A true daughter to her awful father.
6
Ivanka, Melania..eh, simply they really are just so common, nothing special about them, they are simply narcissists desperate for love and having to drink their own koolaid to find that love. Melanie was and is nothing more than a call girl. Essentially, Trump picked her from a catalogue and in exchange she received citizenship and a lifestyle for her and her family. She has never contributed to society, American or otherwise nor will she. Her sole goal is her own welfare and that of her immediate family. To care what she wears, says or does is a waste of brain cells as it is all orchestrated. Ivanka is essentially the same, her model days were bought and paid for. How she looks today after surgeries sculpted her is nothing compared to how she previously appeared. Real life barbies. To go against Trump means losing their lifestyle so anyone that ever believed otherwise about their influence or motives is foolish. Anyone that knows them from NYC knows that without loyalty to their father they lose everything. And they know it is just one giant house of cards ready to topple at any given moment. Trump desperate for anyone to love him, his mother and father didn't, so he lies, cheats, steals and buys his wives and children and his followers as well. He uses both women as car show models to deflect from checking under the hood. Question is why do people still think a "pretty veneer" means anything. Ignore them, and they will wilt away.
18
Emily Jane Fox and friends. With the Vanity Fair crowd at Ludlow House. Ridiculing Ivanka as a no longer elite. Ha. That's rich.
Irony notwithstanding. Trashing Trumps is fun for the vain coastal cocktail contingent.
But. Beware. In the end deplorable Fox & Friends viewers will outfox the punditry again. With votes.
3
Loathsome family. Can't wait 'til they're all back at that gilded dump on Fifth Avenue, running their shabby little business empire . . . if they haven't all been arrested.
13
The most striking sentence in this essay is this:
As a former top Trump administration official recently told me, “Donald Trump is the meanest man I’ve ever met.”
And that ex-official has probably been hanging out with Republicans all of his professional life. This makes me sick.
5
What we see on display with the Trumps is the effect of trauma induced by intergenerational child abuse. Trump was bullied by his brute of a father and the lacked protection from a mother who was afraid of her husband. Trump identified with his father and emulates him to this day. It was telling that the first family photo in the Oval Office was of his father, whose acceptance and approval he craved, not his wife or children.
Donald Jr. clearly tries to do everything he can to please his father, and - of course - it is mission impossible, just like daddy's own attempt was. Ivanka, well what can you say about a child whose father is obsessed with her breast? Eric is a nebbish. Barron appears uncomfortable near his father, wooden, afraid to do the wrong thing. Tiffany - and I expect she knows this - was fortunate that her mother took her far away after the divorce. She was never pretty enough for daddy's taste, which makes her a "looser", but the truth is she is the winner.
5
Ivanka Trump doesn't really care. Why do you care about her?
1
Maureen, it's not that Trump is the "meanest man" out there, it's that he's the most pathetic man. He's pathetic because, to prove how big his ... hands are, he has to constantly prove to the world that he's a "winner" and not a "loser."
What's really scary, though, is that there are 63 MILLION American voters out there who are so blind and/or ignorant and/or tribalistic that they have been convinced by this fear-mongering demagogue that he is a winner and the only one who can save them from all of the evil and threats and danger they see in a world they see as evil, threatening and dangerous.
The tragic irony is that it is Trump who is likely to make this world more evil, threatening and dangerous.
5
"Maureen's columns made me switch my vote from HC to DT" said no one ever. So why every week do people feel the need to blame her for HC's loss. We all need to move on from HC. And while these new columns blasting DT will likely have little sway on the next election perhaps we can appreciate Maureen has come around.
3
"I don't really care. (And why) do you?"
This article is just a list of nasty gossips, all around the "I hate everything and anything about Trump".
1
"An authentic jerk trumps an inauthentic brand ambassador."
Nicely put.
4
Ivanka only exists in the first place because her daddy is mega-rich.
If Trump didn't have mega-bucks, he'd have been an incel and would have had no children.
4
It becomes clearer with every horrifying, embarrassing day. No, make that every hour. For our wannabe King Donny and his family, there really wasn't an expectation of winning in 2016. They all expected the increased publicity would burnish the Trump brand for use in future projects.
Now, the Trump family is all about "make hay while the sun is shinning." Or, "Make the best of a bad situation." When the election disrupted their plans for a bigger and brighter Trump logo, they all agreed the White House gig could make them a lot of money right away. No planning required. Hire the most incompetent, disgusting, and kleptocratic "people" as cabinet appointees; hire the most sycophantic extremists as "advisors." Hey! It worked for Hitler in the 1930s. Make speeches, loaded with lies, to the fearful and desperate masses; then, let those advisors and communications folks carry the water of disinformation, cruelty, and power-mongering to accumlate power.
Ivanka, like her brothers, Donny Jr and Eric, knows a money-grubbing opportunity, just like the dad. Ivanka needed her patents in China; her brothers are promoting Trump resorts around China. Little wonder Trump Sr. is cozying up to Xi. It isn't about transactional diplomacy. It is all about the family biz.
And, let's remember Trump's comments to the NK Dear Leader about his beautiful beaches and the possibility of putting hotels on those beaches. Now there is a beachhead for peace ;-)
Trump family=Opportunistic narcissists.
9
Ivanka should learn what Trump's three wives already know. When you climb into bed with an unethical, unfeeling, unfaithful monster, decent people will question your motives for the rest of your life.
6
That just about nails daddy Trump, a vicious meaness born of bottomless self aggrandizing need. One ends up pitying Ivanka, as daddy's love is a gaslight. She's but another piece of property for him to show off, one of the old man's props, would-be New York silicone plastic. She could end up being the Trump admistration's Anastasia Romonov, ending up on the outs of society and politics.
4
I can't remember now at what point in the terrible descent into the Inferno since the election, but there is a photograph of our president with his pubescent daughter, in what appears to be a school uniform, plaid skirt pulled halfway up her thigh, sitting on daddy's lap.
It is stomach-turning. And scary. Really the sort of image I would rather not have seen.
These are sick people.
5
Ivanka, like the whole sorry mess of these narcissistic Trumps, lives to be seen, not see.
Let's see if Tiffany has the insight, and strength, to leave them behind.
6
Does New York City itself create repellant people like the Trump clan, or do damaged people just congregate there, to be among other profoundly defective human beings?
3
I don't know if you are quite fair to Ivanka, maybe not as fair as you might be. I think you are not fair to Melania.
Donald Trump I reject entirely & almost pray for his downfall, if I could pray.
1
Early in his campaign, I saw THE picture of Ivanka draped on the chair arm sleazily next to the resident and knew she was Daddy's little girl. Learning of dear old dad's total monetary control over the family, I knew she was incapable of any influence. Early in the pResdidency, I told this to my friend when she thought Ivanka could be a softening influence.
After the Charlie Rose scandal emerged, my husband discussed it with me, and he mentioned that the resident was good-looking when younger. I disagreed and said that "he" always looked like a jerk to me with his Elvis-like hair and disregard for anyone else. The family's grifter skin permeates each of their beings, which never impressed me just because of wealth and arrogance.
I cannot really understand why many voters could not see through their empty shells and emptier souls. Why do only I remember the basic tenets of Roman Catholicism?!!!. At a pre-adolescent age, I connected the dots between Jesus' humility and His love for all humanity.
My comfortably established relatives support this regime and unfortunately fit the category of refusing to lose any of their so-called existing entitlement. They think that I am the one who has been brainwashed. I remember my Franciscan nuns and diocesan priests preached that God made each of us into His own likeness. They cannot see that this regime's "family" considers THEM no better than the denizens in the poorer parts of Baltimore.
5
Pity her children. If they have a modicum of awareness, they will recognize that they come from sewage stock, between the trumps and the kushners. That's a hard realization to get past. And it's not an easy one to insulate people from.
12
Ivanka was a phony before her father became president. She pretended to be a good orthodox Jewish woman in order to marry a man she thought had as much money as Daddy - and he probably does. I imagine her sitting in the mikvah and answering the probing questions of the rabbi, all the while working on her China business sums in her head.
But, Maureen, Ivanka is as much a child of you as she is of Ivana and The Donald. After all, you helped mightily to put that abomination into office. Covfefe.
12
Money can buy style (or at least some stylists) but it can’t buy taste, it can’t buy class and it’s can buy a conscience. The Trumps exist on a continuum lower than low. Beyond bottom feeders. Once this travesty is over, I hope the American people will choose to prosecute these shameless losers.
16
A father who encourages his daughter to install implants. What else needs to be said?
11
Ivanka and Melania are proof that rich people really don't like poor people. Period.
19
"She flashed a hot dog vendor.." You mean exposed herself? Its hard to know if this was intended for the 'optics' or for the 'brand.'
6
We have to keep remembering that Maureen Dowd equivocated Trump and Hilliary as terrible. She had a problem with the Clintons. As she watches the horror of his Presidency unfold I wonder if she has trouble getting to sleep. Her use of a quote from a Trump administration official “I have never met a meaner man” pretty much sums up babies and toddlers ripped away from their mothers, doesn’t it?
8
Plastic Ivanka is the perfect offspring to the man who deems himself Master of Marketing, where everything he says and does and lies about is in service to his own inflation. Ivanka-the-product appears to be a vacuous shell of hype and hyper reality. Her daddy's answer to her existential crisis was plastic breasts. She really took that lesson to heart. Donald Trump once told Vanity Fair that he wanted at least five children so that at least one was likely to turn out like himself. Well guess what, folks?
How do you suffer a meltdown of worry one moment about getting to keep your last name in the Mommy-Daddy split and then go commercial by trademarking your name in the next, and all by the age of 16. When I look at Ivanka I think of Barbie, as in the plastic doll. When I think of Ivanka's importance to the Trump administration, oh, wait...I don't.
Ivanka has to be either a Macy's Thanksgiving Parade balloon of self-marketing and promotion, filled with hyper-hot air, or she doesn't exist. Now who does that remind us of?
11
Ivanka?
why should anyone care?
8
Samantha Bee got into loads of trouble for using the "C word" to describe the Princess Royal (aka Ivanka). She should have used "Pretentious Surgically-Enhanced Twit" and no one would have minded.
13
Ms.Dowd, given the times of trouble,abuses,to the line of attacking children, it is not as you wrote, “hostages”, very short ; to call facts by its real names, them all Inhumanely treated “are the children in cages”
An act Designed to Comply the wishes of the Spiritual Sucker, which is completely different from
Of your narrative, on your admired Daughter Ivanka, they are part of the darkest moments
Of what it was about to be a great country,now for a fact committed acts of Lesa Humanity
So Grave are this horrendous facts ;taking place here and now that any decent family by the millions though the world, Simply abhors it.The never ending cult to personality of any Narcissist Selfishness is only starting, So what is it going to be from your Sharp Katana
Pen,?
2
I sincerly hope that the entire tRump family regiem is an aboration and that we as a country and culture evolve past this time.
4
The Trump raison d'être is about the brand and Donald Trump cared a big deal about it way back when… even faking it as his own publicist, John Miller, to protect the brand. But when the Trump brand started stagnating in an increasingly volatile real estate market, Trump committed a cardinal marketing mistake – brand dilution! And, the “Trump” name got slapped on everything from deodorant, steaks and ties to linen, furniture and yes, that infamous online university!
As the old adage goes, the apple does not fall far from the tree. So yes, “Donald and Ivanka are consumed with protecting their own brands.” If this presidency ends in a disaster and the Trump name gets sullied as a result, Ivanka could rebrand as the new “Ms. Jared Kushner?” However, if the “Kushner” brand gets tarnished before the Trump brand does, she could opt for a one-name brand à la some music celebrities do – so look out Beyoncé and Madonna, here comes “Ivanka!” But no worries, the only singing “Ivanka!” would then be doing, one assumes, is before a federal grand jury.
P.S. Resubmitted after waiting six hours!
12
To think that we have reached the point where, somehow, we expect a daughter to somehow keep a horrible excuse for a man from being a very terrible president.
6
What is the final word on 666 ? Has Jared engineered the mother of all corrupt bail-outs ?
6
President heartless.
DC, town without pity.
His party soulless.
11
Still waiting for that column from Ms. Dowd where she tells us what her siblings now think of their hero after 500 days of his "rule".
Either way, it would be an interesting piece.
5
I'm sorry, but the way Trump talks about his daughter Ivanka even now, plus the tone of and facts stated in this op-ed piece, their mutual history......Trump fits the classic definition of the controlling, grooming, you-know-what.
5
Thanks for this column, and these comments. Invanka's Marie Antoinette schtick makes me gag. I like what Trevor Noah called Jarvanka when they attended at the ceremony to move the U. S. embassy while Gaza burned: peace-treaty Barbie and Collusion Ken.
11
Well, well. You got through an entire column without drawing Hillary, Bill and Obama into it.
7
Why not talk to Ivanka before writing about her?
2
There is world of difference between Melania Trump and “Daddy’s Little Ghoul.”
When she went to the border this week to advocate for the reunification of those children—after her husband had declined even to pay lip service to the subject—Melania Trump demonstrated more real backbone than her stepdaughter has ever even dreamed of. And Melania no doubt made that trip over her husband’s vehement objections. How could Donald Trump have possibly sanctioned an appearance that reflected so poorly on him?
So that jacket wan’t a message to the press. Melania counts on the press to magnify her fashion “statements”—those [kitty] bow blouses, white pantsuits, that enormous white hat. That jacket was a public rebuke to her husband and his insensitivity—making it clear beyond cavil she really did not care about his all-important image, that someone in the White House needed to stand for the children.
By contrast, Ivanka Trump is just a chip off the old block. Like him (and unlike her stepmom), she has yet to demonstrate she actually stands for something, instead simply “architecting” an image for public consumption. Hers may be gauzy and doe-eyed while his is of a chest-pounding strongman, but both are as lacking in genuine substance as those ghost pumpkins gracing Ivanka’s Thanksgiving table.
5
What I wouldn't give to know who that former top Trump administration official is who said Trump is the meanest man they've ever met! Initials are maybe RT?
5
"The Trump family, of course, was seeing the problem as optics, not as a barbaric flouting of American values."
Or, in the case of Ivanka, a barbie-ic flouting....
10
Ivanka's fecklessness continues to astound me.
14
"Donald and Ivanka are consumed with protecting their own brands."
Ivanka, like her mom, Marla, and Melania, is consumed with protecting her bank account and any inheritance from her father. Why risk it to save a bunch of foreign brown-skinned kids? Why risk it for principles or idealism or anything else?
4
Easy to write this for the NYT. But apparently, Republican voters are not as disenchanted with Pres. Trump as you are.
Maybe you can add your Republican brother's voice in here and he can tell us why that is. After all, not only would this be in the interest of bridging differences, but would help to clarify what you seem to be blind to.
7
I don't think it's all that complicated. They have decided to see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
The alternative is to admit their own racism and face their fears. So ... not going to happen.
4
Read "Trump Supporters Dig In," today's paper. We know all about it.
3
Blind too? What, that ignorance, fear and bigotry are easily played and that the Donalds really good at it. He does this even with his kids, twisted and warped by a racist dominating father who drove his brother into self destruction the Donald has damaged his children the same way he is damaging the country. There is nothing that Trump touches that remains healthy, he is as his employees can tell you “the meanest man I know”. I don’t need Dowds brother to rationalize and act as apologist for this evil little man or his supporters unquestioning loyalty, I know a personality cult when I see one.
4
And you, Maureen, are complicit in this mess.
7
Trump paterfamilias and elder female offspring should have watched Princess Diana cuddle orphaned babies and hold the hands of men with AIDS, should have looked into her eyes to learn of real love and caring.
What we are enduring now is a pathetic hollow shell of inhumanity.
21
maybe someone should take her kids away from her so she can see how it feels...
10
"The Trump family...was seeing the problem as optics, not as a barbaric flouting of American values."
Trumps are all about marketing--every problem is how good/bad they and their brand will look. It's not about how good/bad they really are; and it cannot not be them at all. That's how they define failure.
But the country's problem--at least one--is this "American Values" thing.
Obviously many Americans also wallow in Trump's sty--The Trumpies. Your "American Values" are not theirs. Just as McCarthy's American Values were not yours. Rather his unAmericans are no doubt your Americans.
And remember Palin's "real Americans."
The problem is not simply casting the opposition as unpatriotic--with the implicit imperative--Love it--right or wrong--or leave it.
The problem is assuming your "American values" are deep and abiding in American culture and will inevitably prevail over the temporary aberration of Trumpies--just wait and see.
Who would have thought the country and culture of the Bachs, Beethoven, Orff, Schiller, Mann, Kafka, Brecht and Einstein would descend into Nazis?
There may not be a second coming of Churchill and FDR to save America and the world. Britain and America saved the world from Nazis. Who will save the world from America?
8
Eighth grade, Mo, really?
A new low, and that's saying something.
2
Maureen and her current target have this much in common, "...making it about herself in times of national crisis." How else to explain the constant Clinton-bashing Maureen obsessively spewed just 2 short years ago? Her short-sighted, middle-school-girl nastiness, without contemplation of the alternatives, is part of the reason we are faced with this sewage today. She shouldn't still be profiting from the heap of garbage she abetted.
6
Why waste valuable time and space talking about such an inconsequential, uninteresting and irrelevant phony?
Her hilariously affected manner is beyond cringe worthy and could actually produce some decent unintentional comedy moments except for the fact that it's impossible to forget how loathsome the whole family is.
7
Admit it Maureen-- the Trump family is much more fun to ridicule than the Clintons ever were. The possibilities are endless from the First Lady's funny accent and fashion faux pas to Ivanka and Jared's delusions of grandeur. The Trumps will supply Maureen Dowd with endless material for columns for years to come.
2
Ivanka, Jared, Melania, Eric, Don Jr - they simply have nothing of substance to contribute. Like their patron daddy or husband, they reek of mediocrity made worse by the exterior polish that is gaudy and obvious. Watching Melania In the school room with immigrants last week was surreal. She looks like a mannequin. Ivanka quotes Goethe in her latest book on womanhood and empowerment. As one reviewer penned “Ivanna throw up”
12
This is a column beneath the great NYT. I am sad about our country; horrified that this is what passes for journalism. Pentagon papers --not even close
6
The Trumps are the Mozarts of depravity.
14
For the first time, we, the people, do not control the vertical...we do not control the horizontal..So, we have to wait them out.
The good news is the leader of this band of incompetent fools will be dead in 15 years....tops. It's the burgers and fries that will kill him. Not the lies. Ivanka will go back to her gilded cage in Manhattan with Jared and the rest will slowly fade to black.
5
To say that the golf club king is an "authentic jerk" insults the notion of authenticity, which we should need to honor. He's a literal jerk; in that sense a "true" jerk. And Ivanka is a literal brand ambassador.
It’s all very scary. There’s a clinical literature on growing up with a narcissistic parent. It would be interesting to apply that to Ivanka in Wonderland.
Remember: Donny would have dated Ivanka, if she weren’t his daughter. (Recall the photo of her sitting sexy on his knee when she was well into her teens.) She lives with his suppressed sexual attraction to her (probably not REpressed) which becomes a pathetic dimension of unspeakably controlling him.
Apparantly, polls show that 90% of Republicans support “the meanest man I ever met.” But hey, that’s only 45% of the voting public.
Let us count the ways to “Participate in Politics”:
http://tinyurl.com/y7prkpud
9
Maureen, you nailed it. Now what?
5
So it was Emily Jane Fox -- not Fox News -- with all those "Fox" pronunciamentos against poor little rich girl, Ivanka Trump Kushner! Skimming your book report column, thought you were referencing Fox News, and I knew Fox News would never tear down Trump's oldest and favest child. So, reader, I read Ms. Dowd's piece. Ivanka isnt a doomed Edith Wharton character, she's just a plasticized Trump emoji who will pass into history with her Daddy sooner or later. Give the woman a little break, Mo. I'm not on Ivanka's side, but whoa! you're really skewering her and chopping her up like Satriale's Pork Store made sausage in "The Sopranos"!
2
Yes, “Trump is the meanest [public person] I’ve ever met” (George Wallace is a distant second) and if “maw” means the predatory jaw grasping of a wolfhound, that certainly is accurate. Of course we knew that when he descended down the elevator of the hades, known as Trump Tower, and announced his candidacy with Melania in tow and said that Mexico “wasn’t sending their best”, but instead sending “rapists.”
But that was overlooked by Ms. Dowd at the time and instead she cast aspersions on Secretary Clinton as comparably wolfish. You’re way too late of criticizing Ivanka as being complicit, Ms. Dowd and your insight is hardly relevant when Trump’s approval rating is 90% among Republicans.
19
Poor Ivanka has really had her life turned upside down. Her high end brands are now in the dumper. She can't go back to her old Upper East Side life, after her father has trashed and shredded everyone in Manhattan and passed a tax bill that actually targeted blue states and big cities. She sat quietly while the Millers, Bannons, Sessions and other ultra nationalist righties took over the W.H. and began implementing cruel and inhumane policies toward immigrants, the poor, women and children.
But take solace, Ivanka. After your father leaves office, you and Jared and the kids can decamp to one of the red states that love your dad, Israel (the gateway to the End of Days), no environmental rules, limited medical care for women and few social programs. (Although, no surprise, they also have among the worst rated school in the nation.) I suggest somewhere like Oklahoma or Mississippi. And you can sell your jewelry at the local Dollar Store. Though Jared might have trouble finding an Orthodox temple.
20
Like the rest of Trump Klan, Ivanka is concerned how she is perceived and not what she really achieves. It's style over substance and looking like you care when you could not care a lick. Like her father and brothers they are empty vacuous people who have nothing good to offer the America. They should be shunned for the rest of their lives for what they are perpetrating on the world.
14
Ms. Complicit.
5
Who is buying her STUFF?
6
"The president told House Republicans the other day that his daughter had asked him, “Daddy, what are we doing about this?” noting that she was concerned about the heartbreaking images."
Give me a break! This family has never been held accountable for anything in their lifetime. Anyone who voted for this reprehensible and morally bankrupt goon in the White House was snookered big time. She cares so much about the heartbreaking images? Why didn't she go down to Texas with her Step-Mommy Dearest?
21
Maureen Dowd chooses to trivialize a teachable moment in American history by writing about Ivanka Trump who is the epitome of triviality
7
Ivanka was Miss Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan all rolled into one fake banner wearer.
Daddy's little girl...uh,huh…
Make that a double vodka please...
8
So, it says if you cannot say something good then don't say anything at all.
Makes for a long, boring, acceptance of vapid tyranny in the White House.
2
Wow, and Bravo! This column is biting, wicked, laser-sharp and badly needed to highlight the pathetic needy, greedy narcissism of this entire sick family, including its Plastic Princess.
You see Maureen: it is possible to criticize Trump without doing a “yeah but . . .” to bring in the Clintons or Obama.
5
"Donald Trump is the meanest man I've ever met."
I could have told him that long before he went to work in the White House. It's been blatantly obvious for many years. His name-calling, his demands for the death penalty for the Central Park 5 AFTER they were exonerated, his lies about President Obama, his attacks on people's appearances, his fake university, airline, steaks, vodka, his destruction of the USFL, his mis-treatment of women. All this was blatantly obvious even before he came down the escalator.
And since then it's been much, much worse. There ARE meaner people in the world...at least so far. Rodrigo Duterte, Assad, Erdogan, Putin and Kim Jong Un all leap to mind. He may not even be the meanest one in the White House (Steve Miller probably has that locked up).
But he's without doubt the meanest man ever to hold the title of President of the USA. Even Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, and Richard Nixon would be hard-pressed to compete with this guy (Jackson, maybe. The Trail of Tears is about as mean as you can get).
As for Ivanka Trump, she's never gotten it from Day 1. When she got huffy about the women accusing her father, she didn't realize that SHE is a Federal Employee and a Senior Presidential Adviser and therefore, such questions are appropriate. She, like her 2 brothers and step-mother, have relinquished the usual privilege of privacy the President's family is accorded.
Whatever she gets, she deserves!
12
Is it “the fake first family” or “the first fake family?” Ah, reality brought to you via reality tv.
2
Ivanka and Jared should leave the WH for their own sake ASAP.
4
Well, Maureen, hopefully you sleep well knowing that, in some minute way, your constant trashing of Hillary Clinton may have helped the “pampered, whining child president” and his entire rotten cabal get their vampiric fangs into our nation’s throat. You invested many columns in the trope of Hillary’s inauthenticity, her finagling of the truth, her “entitlement”. Every president of my lifetime has been guilty of those things, and only two, Carter and Obama, have seemed to be reasonbly genuine. Now we have an epic albatross dragging us ever deeper into the muck and you have woken up. It strikes me as too little, too late.
32
Our First Family lacks empathy and integrity, they're in it for enrichment and prestige. Ivanka's pretentious vocal affectation just like nails on a chalkboard, it's the complement to her father's boorish outbursts. I've worn out the mute button on this odious bunch of grifters — the sooner they're taken down for treason and violations of the Emoluments Clause, the better. Let them eat cake...in prison.
10
Her Dowdness appears to have redirected her snark away from Obama and the Clintons and toward Trump and his beautiful but loopy daughter. About time!
5
More and more it is clear that the biggest horror is whatever happened to the supporters of these selfish goons.
7
Anyone else think that Ivanka "loaned" Melania THAT jacket ???
Seriously.
6
Why you waste ink on this horrid person shows you just love celebrity. Which is why you can't write on anything more meaningful, like what is happening at the border.
You are guilty of helping her father live in the White House.
24
I think you mean how jealous Mo Dowd is of celebrity - she was all over the Clintons, too.
Melania’s jacket to a teenaged chain-smoking Ivanka to a Bannon reference with a sprinkling of unattributed observations from those who move among the1 percent. Kind of feels like Dowd was throwing ‘outrage spaghetti’ at the wall and proudly stepped back to see the whole mess stuck. I typically enjoy her perspective, but this mess was snark run amuck!
2
This article is incoherent. After wiping the spittle off my face, I tried to figure out what is it about. Is it about Ivanka ot Melania? Is it about policy issues (helping women and children) or the callous elitism of the rich? Don’t know. Trump is disaster but this attempt to trash the women (if that is the purpose) is a flop. It has the taint of inside jokes about trivial subjects that some people like but are a waste of snarky words.
2
They will destroy our country
17
Haven't read Dowd in well over a year after her nasty HRC bashing. Can't stand the fact she contributed to the evil travesty that is fascist America now. But I read this piece and thought "who with a functioning frontal lobe couldn't see this grifty family for what it was decades ago?"
Dowd acts like she's telling us something we don't know about Kremlin Barbie. Wake up Dowd and write about more important things, like reuniting over 2000 kids infants and toddlers with their family. Republicans are now and have been for decades the party of racism, sexism, xenophobia and cruelty, we must vote them out in droves in November before orangillini and his plastic grifty family ruin America more than they already have.
Resist and persist!!!
16
Even worse, the jerk has not actually ended the pitiless policy -- more pain to come...
7
The president's children in advisory positions in the White House? Wow. Among many other negatives Trump inflicted on America, he made us a banana republic, also. With Giuliano, Bolton, Kudlow joining Trump's related incompetents and adding Stephen Miller, is it any wonder that the WH staff is in such turmoil?
I haven't even mentioned a 'cabinet from hell'.
10
Ivanka Trump the person does not interest me. She was doomed to be rich and privileged. But Trump flouted nepotism laws and installed his daughter and her spouse in his White House. (Remember the storm Bill Clinton created with his twofer expression?) And while in office, the Kushners made some 100 million dollars last year.
Trump decided this, like many other, laws did not apply to him. He was - he is - a winner who did us the favor of being our leader. He was there to clean the swamp, and rules be damned. Winners get away without rules. And there's no one out there to stop him.
Ms. Dowd cites two people close to Trump. One says Trump is the meanest man alive. The other - the president as a time-sucking vampire feeding off those near him to satisfy his vanity.
The fact is, he feeds off all of us. Never were we so obsessed with a president. Never had we one intrude into our daily lives and psyche in such ways.
Trump Trauma (TT) as a diagnosable disorder in DSM VI is not out of the question.
9
“This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back, we're going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump, and that's what we believed in, that's why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he's going to take our country back and that's what we gotta do," -David Duke Aug 12, 2017
3
Whenever I read that folks hoped that Ivanka would have a soothing influence on her father or would help to define more sensible politics I can only shake my head. What kind of government is this, when your hope lies with a President ‘s daughter - who has no qualifications for fulfilling any task in public service? Not for the first time I am asking myself: “America, where are all these checks & balances I heard people talk about after Nov 8 2016?” The wisdom of the founding fathers apparently did not cover the current situation of a madman in the WH and a Congress that chooses to neglect its duties. Neither did they include any family members in their ideas, I think.
Although I have no reason to believe that there is any chance for it, I still think the US desperately needs a thorough reform of its political system that puts away gerrymandering , the outdated electorate system, SuperPACs, overly complicated voter registration and a few more things. Daughters of Presidents, with no other interest than their own brand, amongst those.
32
Is that her hair color or his. Either way they are a bad illusion of this country anymore. Wish they would just disappear.
8
I don't know where Maureen Dowd grew up, but in my neighborhood, nobody was fooled by the trappings of the local boss--his houses, his clubs, his cars, his suits, his shirts, his cufflinks, his foundations; and nobody was fooled by the trappings of his daughter--her apartments, her gowns, her chokers, her bracelets, her hairdos, her businesses, her charities.
We knew what he was: a hoodlum.
We knew what she was: a hoodlum's child.
40
Ms Dowd, you need to apologize for all the months you trashed Hillary Clinton. You need to apologize for helping to pave the path for this sadistic monster, Donald Trump, and his family to take power.
Your criticisms of the Trumps ring hollow when you cannot be bothered to take responsibility for helping put him in the White House.
Apologize to your readers.
27
Daddy's little ghoul champions the Trump brand,which fuels the Trump lifestyle that relies on self promotion, bankruptcies, legal threats , Russian laundered money, back channels, twitter, fake charities, conspicuous consumption, and poor taste.
10
“Donald Trump is the meanest man I’ve ever met.”
Oh but Maureen, what about Hillary's emails?
19
If the complicit princess was not moved by the sight of little girls under the age of 10 being herded through the streets of New York City at 2am after being whisked away some 2000 miles at her father's orders, she is exactly spoiled, privileged heartless loser many of us knew she always was.
22
Sorry, you lost me when you mentioned something she did as an eight-year-old child. That’s a low blow too far.
1
Ivanka is a real life Stepford Wife. Attractive on the outside and robotically frigid on the inside. Like the character, Ivanka is a total phony. Like Daddy, all she cares about is her brand.
25
So sick of this rapacious family. Can they p!ease go home and stop bothering America and the world.
12
Still waiting, Maureen, for your apology for helping elect Trump. Or do you think your years of bashing Hillary had no effect on the election?
18
But Dowd, what about her emails?
30
Any Whitehouse Presidential Advisor who refers to the POTUS as "daddy", should be fired. No exceptions.
15
She is a fraud, a brander and brand name like her Dad.
She stated that her father was kind and empathetic at the Republican National Convention when she knows fully well that he is the opposite. Worse yet she exploits
his Office for her own personal gain and pretends to represent the interests of women and children in an administration that demonizes and dehumanizes immigrant children for political gain. It is truly pathetic!
10
Wow. You've said it all.
2
When are we going to wake up to the true scope of the danger posed by Donald Trump, his brood and his ilk? Much as I respect Frank Bruni, he is wrong when he says we
need to tone down our opposition. We need instead to ratchet it up. Didn’t the Third Reich teach us anything? Not only can it happen here- it IS happening here.
You are either a collaborator or you are an enabler. This is no longer about civility. We
Will get back there, hopefully, after we rid the world of the cancer which is the Trump presidency.
16
Complicit.
4
“There is a distinct genetic quality to Ivanka’s preternatural ability to self-promote,”
What?
What is ‘preternatural’ about genetics?
And what are Emily Jane Fox’s credentials in this arena?
And might environment and observation of the behaviors of others (I wonder who?) have played a role in her abilities, ‘preternatural’ or otherwise?
A writer’s careless statement - an opinion, really, well-crafted to satisfy the hunger of a specific audience - repeated by a columnist who relishes the take-down by way of poison pen ( I think of all those who bemoaned her attacks on Hillary and ‘Barry’):
Both belong in ‘Vanity Fair’ and neither belongs in the New York Times.
And I am in The Left.
6
The message of Melania’s coat - “I Really Don’t Care. Do U?” - was just as likely directed at the Me-Too movement. The entire retinue of Trump Women have chosen lives of outlandish luxury in exchange for submission to the nation’s most obnoxious sexist lout.
All the many wives and mistresses of Trump’s gaudy world are what Truman Capote referred to as “professional beauties” whose entire existences are dedicated to one goal: maintaining a particular visual beauty and demure submissiveness that will meet with Trump’s sexual approval. In exchange they shop on his credit card at the most exclusive haute couture shops and dine only at 5-star restaurants. They have their priorities.
They “really don’t care” about working class mothers and their children - a class they have cunningly manipulated to avoid for their own fate. Women’s liberation is upstaged by class warfare.
In the penthouse world of Melania and Ivanka, money talks, and the feminists can go take a walk.
12
Dear Maureen:
You have a very precious gift-the ability to write with fact supported intelligence and reason. Please use your gift and your podium to educate our suffering and downtrodden population. We are begging you before all is lost.
4
Ivanka and her siblings are just grifter spawn, living off of Daddy's money and fake celebrity.
6
Ivanka constantly watches her father's words and movements...much like an abuse child, fearful of him becoming upset.
Melania wore the jacket to ice the fat boy she' s forced to live with for bullying immigrant children. She's one immigrant who can tell him to stuff it!
This melodrama playing out before us is one dysfunctional family … Mr Mueller, how much longer must we watch?
5
Ivanka won’t be invited to the in-parties.
Cry me a river.
She and Jared and Junior should all go to prison with their criminal father.
15
A Dowd column without a mention of Hillary, Bill or Barack. Wow!
Just lots of meanness towards the Trumps (giant yawn), a brand she was at one time kind of "gee whiz" soft on.
You own it, baby.
12
Still no mea culpa for endorsing this vile and evil man. He was always a racist. He made fun of a handicapped man. He demeans women. His wife and her jacket shows only that she shares all his evil instincts. He admires evil brutal men. What does it say about people who voted for him. Who endorsed him. Ivanka praises dissembling in her books. She is a liar like her father. She fought for her own tax cuts. Children - she doesn't care - like Melania. Everybody saw it.
21
I hate these people.
Each is an abomination.
How soon can we change the subject?
16
Donald Trump has brought America to its knees. He claims credit for the Obama recovery, and will destroy it in a trade war only to feel strong. He tramples on our Constitution, wants to destroy a free press, hates a free democracy, and wants to destroy our international relationships that have prevented war and brought prosperity.
The fate of his blond, bimbo daughter is of interest only to Maureen Dowd. She hated Hillary for similar personal reasons, and owns this debacle.
Maureen, go away. Vogue. Glamour. Teach young women.
But stay away from issues relating to our nation.
17
Ah yes, all those 'Obama economic policies' that got us to zero unemployment.......name one.
First of all, there is no such thing as zero employment. Obama's stewardship of the American economy brought us back from the disaster the Bush-Cheney created. It is a irrefutable fact and all of the lying that most Trump supporters do on the subject cannot change that. Trump inherited a very good economy from his predecessor, not the "mess" he always falsely claims. But then again, the man lies just about every time he opens that twisting, snarling mouth of his. What a shame that most of his supporters are doing the same. You just won't give the erudite, intelligent, ethical, compassionate, coolly elegant black man who was our 44th POTUS credit for the good that he did. That's to your shame, sir.
There once was a brand named Ivanka
To clothes as trucks are to Tonka
Though not as innocent
With scandal imminent
Stakeholders resorted to vodka
4
Melania and Ivanka are Trump’s Barbie dolls. Big on clothes and curves, and nothing else.
10
Silicone curves
2
Your bizarre anti Clinton both-sider-ism has contributed as much as anything to where we find ourselves.
27
Thank you. I only read Dowd to see who she is tearing down next, and how she does it. She and Bill Kristol deserve each other ....
You seem to think that Maureen's writing is far more important and influential than is it. She writes opinions, not policy.
"What will happen to her if Michael Cohen flips?"
Personally, I hope she goes to jail.
28
She’s the spawn of him & Ivanka - nuff said.
1
Ivanka's notion that the Trumps could ever be the Kennedys, is akin to suggesting Pee Wee Herman could be George Clooney.
28
Eternal storms of a clueless administration.
2
Bravo!
7
Emoluments man and his crime family are all about nothing but using the presidency as a cash cow. In a lawsuit against someone who dredged up her past the tone-deaf jacketed Melania claimed bad press would not permit her to cash in on her one-time-only shot as Mrs President. Anyone remember that? Anyone remember Fox News and the right wing slime merchants ridiculing EVERYTHING Michelle Obama ever wore, and even how she dressed her children? Now they are silent on Melania's apparel dust-up and screaming at liberals to leave her alone. Their hypocrisy is still stunning after all these years. There is not an ounce of humanity or compassion for anyone other than themselves in the crime family currently sacking the nation, handing it over to China and Russia for a few Trump Tower real estate while the GOP sits on its hands or destroys the future of US society with its nuclear time-bomb tax heist. Yet the duped, the gullible, the hypocritical family values crowd with its evil evangelical base sees none of it. Gays are on the run! Guns are God's will! Build the Wall! They cheer as their own world crumbles around them. Oligarchs from Moscow to Kansas are rejoicing in the death of America, and so are conservative fools.
9
Thanks so much for reminding us of Melania's plan to cash in on us. Also remember Ivanka has eyes on the Oval. Told Jared she gets to be president first. Dynasty.
1
Oh, Mo - it's Emily Jane Fox, not Fox News, with all those "Fox" pronunciamentos against poor little rich girl, Ivanka Trump Kushner! Skimming your book report column just now, thought you were referencing Fox News, and I knew Fox News would never tear down Trump's oldest and favest child. So, reader, I read Ms. Dowd's piece. Ivanka isnt a doomed Edith Wharton character, she's just a Trump emoji who will pass into history with her Daddy sooner or later. Give the woman a little break, Mo. I'm not on Ivanka's side, but whoa! you're really skewering her with your cutting verbalista craft like Satriale's Pork Store made sausage in "The Sopranos".
1
Ladies and Gentlemen, let me offer a scary thought.
The Trump "brand" is garbage. Ivanka is a 21st Century Eva Braun, but creepier and more insideous.
Donald Junior is a dolt, with a squandered marriage and only scoundrels for cohorts.
Eric, well...monkey see, monkey do.
Tiffany has the only out.
Melania is doing her best eastern European Anna Nicole Smith, riding this out until the inevidable.
So what does Trump have left but to stand on the burning apex and yell, "Top of the world, ma! Top of the world!"
22
Wow, Mo, you are so insightful. What startling insights you've uncovered! You actually gave this family a pass not that long ago. Which proves just how too immersed you are into your society's circles. Anyone with a brain and common decency knew INSTANTLY what terrible people these are. It's really not all that complicated, except if you're traveling in the rarefied air of New York and DC, where everyone is self-important and status-hungry.
4
Applause....this is the first Dowd editorial I've enjoyed since Obama was elected and Hilary was not!
2
Feeling pity for Ivanka is like feeling bad for Eva Braun. You know, cause her boyfriend was always away at the Eastern Front
26
At the end of the day you can`t. fake character. So Ivanka is just another spoiled rotten little rich girl. Big Surprise. The question I suppose is why has it taken the media so long to state the obvious truth. The sooner this whole sickening Trumpocracy is sent packing into the trash can of history where they truly belong; the BETTER!
7
Fake news doesn't do justice to Ms. Dowd's girly fantasy about the Trump ladies. Maureen is able to look at shoes, vodka, jackets, and 20-year old breast implants and make up a whopper that includes references to immigration reform. The best part is that Daddy is blamed for everything (including helping them make their own money and brand).
1
Maureen...how bad is Hillary Clinton looking right now?
37
I do not see any importance of Ivanka née Trump that deserves attention of NYT. Well, so what if her forename rhymes with vodka?
She is a daughter of a Balkan adventuress who became Trump's first wife. Then, for her marriage, she converted conventionally to her husband's religion -- an old practice that confirms the subjugation of women by men.
5
I’m genuinely sorry, but given Maureen Dowd’s undeniable role in bringing us the Trump administration, when it comes to her opinion, I really don’t care. Do U?
20
Thank you, Maureen.
1
I really don't care about Ivanka or anything in this article. Do you?
4
Nice gossip column Ms. Dowd.
If only our feckless country deserved such a complicit princess.
C'mon Mueller!
Hit them all with Rico charges and be done with this.
They admit they don't care! Do we?
Get! Out! and VOTE!
29
Once again, Maureen, spare us. You played a role in making sure these vile, vicious kleptomaniacs came into power; nothing but "Forgive me" at this point is worth reading from you.
13
Where is F.Scott Fitzgerald when we need him?
Or Charles Dickens?
I see a Masterpiece Theater series in the future.
We know who the cads are. Now we just have to locate the heroes.
35
Yes, but there don't seem to be any in the Republican party, which is filled with enablers and sycophants lacking spine and honor.
2
A fantastic column, vitiated a little by the fact that her takedowns of Hillary Clinton made it seem like there was little difference between HRC and DJT when they were running for president; there was always a huge difference and through her own character flaws and Maureen's dissection of them, the lesser of the two candidates won.
52
Sorry JD, Hillary was responsible for her own takedown.
1
"...noting that she was concerned about the heartbreaking images..."
this sums up the Trumps, especially Ivanka, in one phrase. Obsessed with the images with no care for the real children in those images. This was no slip of the tongue by Trump. He repeated it several times during his backpedalling moments.
50
The NY Daily News beat Maureen Dowd to the punch with the following headline when Ivanka Trump was in Jerusalem when the American Embassy officially opened in May:
DADDY'S LITTLE GHOUL.
106
Indeed. Maureen Dowd mentions this about mid-way through the piece.
6
Is there any chance that Tiffany is capable of having a moral compass ?
22
she has a finely tuned immoral compass
1
Slim to none.
1
I think she's ashamed of her father.
Wow, Ms Dowd! You really unclothed the "second lady" and told us what she really is.....but most of us were pretty much seeing through the lil' dahlin' from the get-go.
What a pity these people are known to the world as "Americans" in high places......for shame!
82
Dowd is laser right...but I pray, wearily, for the day
no one will have to write anything again about these lowbrow, soulless
interlopers.
164
Ivanka is so creepy. I can barely look at her. Where did these Trumps come from? How in the world did they gain so much power? It’s like living in an alternate reality— as in Reality Show. The only way we can escape Trump’s hold on us is this November- Election Day.
125
Ms. Dowd reminds me of the song where "one fist is iron and the other fist is steel" and I'm glad, since the Trump's hit below the belt and we need a solid counter-puncher.
4
New word for the day: "quixotic."
Thanks!
5
It was my favorite word of the day too!
Ugh. I can't even bring myself to comment on father or daughter anymore. These people like money so much, can't we just pay them to go away?
42
I have yet to see one example where Ivanka tempered the actions of her father. She is useless and she will never be welcome in New York again.
23
“Daddy, what are we doing about this?” Ivanka asked as she watched frightened toddlers in their detention centers as they vainly sought their parents or guardians.
Ivanka, it's not "we" but he, your father, who will do absolutely nothing about caged children who are nothing more than his political prisoners. Republican Senators and Congressmen tip-toed around this embarrassing question, not wanting to offend "daddy" or arouse his wrath.
The president doesn't have to defend his own brand. His rabid base is doing that for him, which is why Republican officials have been cowed into silence.
Like your mother-in-law, you really don't care about your father's injustice towards children, but millions of decent Americans do. You'll find that out in November.
77
"The Trump family, of course, was seeing the problem as optics, not as a barbaric flouting of American values."
Unfortunately, I think they (Trump and friends) have succeeded in this regard. Many of us know people who are absolutely convinced that Trump is a caring man, who only had the best interests of the children in mind when he ripped them out of their parent's arms. They buy his contention that the reversal of his original executive order stemmed years of bad immigration policy; and that immigration agents are actually removing children from horrific situations and providing them with the tender loving care they so desperately need.
These people live in a world I cannot fathom. Up is down, down is up, and the Don is a great man. They are often religious zealots, love their guns, and believe climate change is a hoax. They think opinion, especially their own, is more reliable than science. Don't bother them with the facts when they can get the real scoop from Fox. How does one reason with the unreasonable?
I'm not sure what is more infuriating and contemptible, this type of willful ignorance, or those who appease the administration to gain a temporary economic advantage, knowing they are dealing with corrupt, incompetent, liars.
48
I have stopped worrying about Trump. What scares me much, much more are the millions of Trump supporters who cannot see what an immoral fraud that Trump is. THAT is scary. And the likely real downfall of USA.
75
Next stop: The Real Housewives of Mar-a-Lago.
And that's will be just the start of many encores. I have this morbid fear that even when the Trump presidency is dead and buried, likely under much less than honorable circumstances, we'll still be treated to a daily dose of Trump for eternity.
19
About time this Ivanka charade comes to a close. She has always disgusted me and I've never bought into the fraud. Too many in the press have rush to highlight her perceived benevolence and usually ignore her blinding absence during the many moments where they expected her to save the day. She's a lie. Wake up.
117
I do not know about other women but i stopped calling my dad
"daddy" when I was maybe 13 . Then he turned into "dad", "pops" or now just plain Jesse. I thought I had issues,....
18
The sins of the father...
Maybe we should forgive Ivanka for not having a heart or soul. She's just a brand after all. Just like Daddy.
Really only one response...stop buying that brand.
97
Ivanka is an adult and responsible for her heartless behavior--but, traits from a parent, like osmosis, is a process of gradual or unconscious assimilation of ideas, knowledge. Sometimes just lucky to have parents with character.......
14
Trump destroys everything he touches. His kids didn't really stand a chance considering who their parents are. Had Ivanka stayed in NY and away from Washington DC her brand likely would have been fine. Sadly, like any good codependent child she followed daddy to the capital and now she's seen as complicit in every outrage her father commits.
Years from now when historians are granted access to the behind the scenes reality of trumpland we may discover that we owe Melania, Ivanka, and Jared apologies as the world discovers horrors that they prevented. That's the thing about dysfunctional families, someone always has to clean up the mess.
Trump is the only one who we should be blaming for tarnishing the reputation of the US. He's a minority president who has destroyed every business he's ever touched and now he's taken that mentality to the capital. Only his base can stand him and he knows it.
41
I find it fascinating that of all the perceived boogeymen that want to see the US fail- the Russians, ISIS, etc. it seems it is ourselves that are going to rip this country apart. Maybe this civil war that is brewing won’t be as bloody as the last one but the damage is prevalent in just about every aspect of our lives it seems. I can’t stand the Trump family but they will be gone soon enough however, this war is far from over.
18
Image trumps reality. For a time only.
8
I see nothing wrong with Ivanka her father raised her well.
4
Blind men can't see.
1
The entire family is trash. Incidentally—-if they could have you deported based on your name—they would. Catch a clue.
1
Her father raised her...now THAT’S funny. Reality really has zero bearing in this world does it?
1
As a defense of Ms. Dowd: Ivank Trump is 36 years old, she would not have been separated from her parents, if they were entering the USA illegally. I wonder if Ivanka Trump would tak in her father when he cannot take care anymore of himself when he is over-aged, and has lost all his money warding off court cases.
4
It appears that Ivanka is backing away from the limelight as it is turning into a criminal investigation spotlight.
She is so disengaged that Melania got recruited to take the lead to distract the press. Does anyone seriously believe that she reached into her designer closet and picked out a $39 shmata, threw it on then left without doing her hair? A made for the media distraction.
Since that ploy didn't work our leader has decided to defer any further discussion of immigration until after the election.
Don't expect to hear from Ivanka about anything anytime soon.
45
What a ridiculous hodgepodge of complaints about Ivanka Trump boiling down to she did not speak out about immigration policy. If she did, the response would be, “who is Ivanka to speak out about immigration policy?” The complaints become thinner by the day and as noted in this paper, Trump’s supporters grow stronger. If this is the best Democrats have, Republicans will be around for a while.
32
Ivanka isn't just the First Daughter; she's a senior advisor to the President of the United States with a self-described portfolio for women, children and families. Her failure to do anything since gaining that position is dwarfed by her callousness, indifference, and tone-deafness in the recent immigration horror. Brush it off if you like, but most of us are sickened by it all.
923
If the Moderrn Republican Party is around for much longer, America won’t be.
94
Who she is, is a Senior Advisor to the President. She gave up the 'just a President's daughter' excuse when she took that position. Yes, this is exactly what she should be doing - taking a stand on policies; especially those she claims she's so passionate about.
Her silence speaks volumes.
10
It's with considerable trepidation that this reader succumbs to the temptation to tamper with the words of person as formidable as Jawaharlal Nehru, who said:
"There is nothing more horrifying than stupidity in action."
But this is an unprecedented case. At the time of Mr. Nehru's death, Donald Trump was only 17 years old, and the world had not yet gotten even an inkling of the havoc that his uncontrolled -- and apparently uncontrollable -- egoism would eventually wreak.
So the revised quotation for the 21st century, with one additional word, might be this:
"There is nothing more horrifying than malevolent stupidity in action."
Someday, let it be the epitaph of not only Trumpism, but its despicable namesake himself. Ivanka, Jared et al., too.
24
C'mon America. We've got a golden opportunity to prove that neither money, high power or connivance can stop us from indicting, convicting and imprisoning an entire family of psychopaths. Let's do this.
And afterwards, we can study them like lab rats to figure out what made them that way and to make sure none of these pseudo-humans ever gets power over anyone, ever again.
67
I agree they are psychopaths, just awful people. But it is unlikely Trump will be impeached but possible, a Senate conviction is impossible. Even if the Democrats take the Senate nothing at all could get the 10 or so Republicans needed to convict.
Our best hope is the NY AG working with Muller and putting Trump's enablers in a jail where Trump can not pardon them.
3
Ivanka's father is untrustworthy, unreliable and interested in how well she reflects on him. She cannot risk upsetting him over petty matters such as humane treatment of immigrants, No one should expect her to take such huge risks with her disloyal father to show mercy for others.
So far only Melania has had the courage to visit the immigrant concentration camps thereby risk upsetting her intemperate husband. It is hard to imagine Donald is pleased by her compassion.
6
Courage? That coward shoved her on that plane.
2
Compasssion?? She wished them Good luck and celebrated how long they’d stay in their cages. Melania is like most “working girls”—she will say or do whatever you ask IF YOU’RE PAYING.
3
Except that she showed no real compassion, it was a press jaunt, but strangely there are no photos showing her even meeting with captive children…
1
Melania could have moved into the Texas shelter with Barron and refused to leave until all the children in it were reunited with their mothers.
Ivanka and her kids could have moved into one of the other shelters.
Instead, they punted.
18
Ivanka and Melania could have acted with courage as you suggest: perhaps moving into detention centers until
families were reunited only if they had a strong father and a loyal husband. Ivanka has a father who only sees himself. Melania can be jettisoned at any moment. Unfair to expect these women to have integrity.
1
"...it wasn’t clear whom she was trolling — most likely, as her husband tweeted, the press..."
Hmm. Applying Occam's Razor, it seems more likely that Melania's jacket was primarily meant to reassure the hard-core base. Although Melania had to make a humanitarian-seeming gesture toward the displaced children, she showed them, in very certain terms, that the Royal Couple shared their disdain for the refugees. She took the jacket off on the plane, but its intended audience got the message, sweetly seasoned for them by liberal outrage.
42
My application of Occam’s Razor
is simply that Melania can’t read english.
1
I wonder how she found the jacket in the first place. I guess even the wealthy Internet shop. I don't think she was used but I can't imagine that her husband's hand isn't somewhere in the decision. It's too similar to his trotting out the bereaved parents of murdered children as if to say that somehow we must choose sides and the issue is a simple one with the equation immigrants from the south = dead American children. He doesn't like judges because they must parse out the paticular. Bigotry against whole swaths of the brown and the poor who had the bad luck to be born in [insert epithet] countries is just so much simpler. Awful, awful man. I will never understand his popularity. Or how it would feel to hear tape of one's father allowing a radio shock jock to.call his daughter a piece of [insert epithet]. Is there such a thing as mass psychosis?
Front page of The NY Times tells us: Trump’s “ approval rating is at 90 percent among Republicans, his supporters say they defend him because they feel criticism of him is constantly overblown.” Yes, Invanka comes across with as few values for people as her father. Sadly, it appears most Republicans are with her. Criticism is constantly overblown with a president who denies global warming and pulls out of an international attempt to begin addressing our warming planet; a man who could care less whether children had access to health care or for that matter most of his voters (there is no better and cheaper health care proposal by this liar); a man who belittles our former allied friends and talks about those armed with nukes as nice guys; a man who sad (lied, again) he would not benefit from any tax cut, but clearly has; a man who antagonizes the Palestinians with little desire to assist, a man who has left thousand of children displaced and some may never be reunited with their parents, etc. This man 90% of Republicans defend because we are being unfair in our criticism. Really? We have a huge problem and Ivanka’s unwillingness to speak out against her father’s words and actions is symbolic and symptomatic of a non functional, no ethic, no truth party.
63
Donald Trump is like Typhoid Mary. Anyone he touches or interacts with or has a business deal with is hurt, but he suffers no loss or pain. Ivanka Trump is a chip off the block. My concern is that as the president, Trump has touched the US. We all should be very scared.
13
The saddest part of the Trump's tragedy is that the 90% of Republicans who approve of them have convinced the world that American values are nothing but a sham.
67
After Ivanka introduced her father at the Republican National Convention in July 2016, Donald gave her a very quick but subtle lacivious glance as he kissed her and patted her left hip. I was mortified and became sick to my stomach. I can only imagine what she had to endure growing up with this mysoginistic philanderer as a father. I can only assume the pressure to please her daddy and feed his ego was all consuming. Maybe she's worked this through in therapy but at this point, I do not care. What I now see is a disengenious freeloader who , like her father, monetizes her every breath. I'm repulsed by the entire Trump clan and I'm counting the days to when this WH infestation will be disinfected and scrubbed clean.
37
We must, somehow, turn off the Reality TV quality of this presidency with pundits all - print, tv, radio, social media - wanting to comment on each thing. I'm sick to death of hearing about them. I had already heard about the breast implants at age 15. I can hear no more.
We know them now. Completely. Too much so. We know who they all are. Please! Let's get past that and move to shutting them down.
The Grifter Family are truly loved by 40%-45% (I hope no higher) of Americans. They are despised by 60% at least. We must outvote them in November. They are evil. How can we bring each person to the polls to register and vote Democratic so that we can save our democracy. If we lose in November, our country will be lost.
We know who Trump is. We know who Ivanka is. Melania keeps the veil of mystery while being the worst FLOTUS in American history. They are working together to steal our democracy away from us and ensconce the first US dictator. We must not let it happen.
279
Everything Trump touches; anyone who comes into Trump's sphere and who wants his 'approval' (or doesn't want a bad tweet directed at them) is damaged. People who had great reputations are now damaged goods.
And I believe that is true for all of us who call this country home. He's damaging all of us, he's making us all sick. I've never seen anything like it. He's destroying our country with his slurs and hatred and racial animus towards anyone but 'white Americans' - and even us white Americans who are not rich get slammed by him.
He's making this country insane. No longer the beacon of the world for freedom and independence, we are just one, big, sick country. And all because of him and his Republican enablers, who are among the sickest of us all.
We are being led by someone who is mentally ill; he is UNFIT and we may all be going down with the ship. Amazing that it's the Commander-In-Chief who is taking us down. Only....somehow.....he'll escape the drowning ship in a lifeboat for one - he won't even put his family in a lifeboat. Because it's all about him. All the time. And I, for one, am sick to death of him.
1247
90% of the Republicans approve of Mr. Trump. But this does reignite the old debate between nature and nurture. Is this really genetic or is there down deep just an awful sadness? Imagine having a father like him. Or, come to think of it, a husband or friend. Unfortunately, we don't have to imagine having him as president.
14
Trump is the kind of person no sane person allows into their life.
So Melania spoke up and finally Ivanka did as well. But note that their "brave" tweets carefully towed Daddy's line.
Congress has to take care of this by working together.
Daddy had nothing to do with it.
Ivanka is a phony and so is Melania. (The message on her jacket was not hidden. And if she had wanted to troll the press, she should have picked a different occasion than the one where she is supposed to be the caring face of the Trump WH.) We wrongly assumed that because they are women they are truly compassionate.
A couple of real Marie Antoinettes.
47
Of all the opportunistic endeavors Maureen sited, to me the one that resonates the loudest is: "The Trump family, of course, was seeing the problem as optics, not as a barbaric flouting of American values." America's soul is a cheap thrill for these White House grifters.
23
For some reason I keep comparing the Trumps to the Marcos clan. If Americans stage a similar bloodless "People Power Revolution" and throw the bums out, maybe they can spend their exile not in Hawaii, but in prison.
126
I've always assumed that these people who live in the economic stratosphere are unknowable. That whatever image they present, or whatever is said about them, is calculated and false, offered to the public to serve someone's purposes. It seems weird to me that just because Ivanka doesn't, unlike her father, have a long public history as a racist crackpot, people expect her to be well-intentioned, or to use her influence for good instead of for herself.
Increasingly, I think that, barring consistent & self-sacrificing behavior that proves otherwise (which one does sometimes encounter!), the filthy rich can be assumed to be addicted to their wealth & privilege, and therefore driven by greed.
5
America's brand? How about America falling into fascism? Each day another policy that is reprehensible wreaking havoc on the most oppressed, the weakest amongst us. With violence. It is extremely ominous. We need a huge November 6th with a PROGRESSIVE wave, failing which I am scared to consider...
175
Ivanka seems to have two roles. She’s a senior adviser when it suits her. She’s attended important events representing our country with her only qualification is she’s the President’s Daughter. Ivanka is “Daddy’s Daughter”when people question her about her Daddy’s cheating on Melania or some other immoral or possibly illegal action. I guess Ivanka learned to avoid taking any responsibly from Daddy.
Ivanka’s silence over Daddy’s incredibly cruel treatment of refugees for some deranged view of people south of the border.. It’s totally unacceptable for Ivanka to be Daddy’s daughter when he’s creating lifelong trauma for immigrant kids and their parents. I wonder if Ivanka let’s her kids watch the horror that her Daddy is inflicting on immigrants. Even now she’s could step in and try to unravel the beyond the pale disaster of 2000 kids whose whereabouts are in many cases unknown.
16
In 2006, when Trump said of Ivanka “if she weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her” it was unsettlingly creepy, but hardly surprising, as he had been drawing attention to her physical attributes since referring to her as “hot” when she was 16. However, to my knowledge Ivanka has never been recorded saying she wished her father would “knock it off” or in fact change anything else about his behavior. She will never “bite the hand which feeds her revenue stream” and she and her dim, grifter spouse will be complicit with this ugly presidency until the bitter end.
Never knew much about Ivanka Trump before Trump began his campaign, but as she continues, like Daddy, to use her position for personal gain, I keep thinking that a few decades back, if he hadn’t been her father, she would indeed have been dating him.
27
Ivanka, Donald Jr, and Eric dont have a Dad. They have a father. There is never any reference to Dad, only ' my father' or ' our father'. That's not like any family I know.
9
There's no indication that Ivanka's brand is taking a hit among those 90 percent of the GOP who support her father. This column might all be wishful thinking coming from an elite socialite bubble that ultimately never supported Trump nor his daughter anyway.
“Donald Trump is the meanest man I’ve ever met,” according to a former top Trump administration official. Really? Could be, but most of his cabinet, not to mention his family, attorneys and close advisers, could give Trump a good run for his money.
20
Ivanka is an example of nepotism at its worst. Notwithstanding her lack of qualifications Trump appoints her as a senior White House advisor.She rarely gives advice. And when she does it is never taken.Nepotism will never be the same after Ivanka.
18
None of the Trumps know what America is or stands for! They are not intelligent enough. Never mind their college degrees. One can buy them if one has enough money.
Their only value systems are 'Me as Trump'. They only know what it is to be a Trump and how to use this as a brand to get more for the 'Me' ! Mostly money and more and more publicity for the brand and more and more money from the brand.
But their trumped up egos are as hollow as their hearts and brains.
9
I have an idea for a new Trump reality show segment.
At least one of the Trump family members or close political allies should take a long “walk in a Central Park” place like Mexico. Even better if they bring their young children for the hike bringing only the basic necessities.
Then I would like to hear about how they feel about immigrant women and children fleeing violence and extreme poverty.
5
There are many excellent comments, here. What fascinates me is how many people, who claim, loudly and constantly, to be followers of the humble Nazarene Carpenter, want to be just like the Trumps.
The mind boggles at the dissonance.
29
Yes; Ms. Dowd, but in the end it all keeps circling back to this, doesn't it? How could Donald J. Trump lawfully be inflicted upon the USA, and the wider world for that matter? Nothing that transpires now can really be considered out-of-character. So, what is being done to prevent this from happening again? And there I fear the answer is "nothing much".
11
"... she congratulated him on Twitter for white knighting it and urged Congress to 'find a lasting solution.'"
The lasting solution can be found in Article I, Section 7.3 of the U.S. Constitution, especially starting with the word disqualification: "Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States."
Denial of re-nomination by the Republican party would leave the party exposed to a splintering Trump/third party contest in 2020. A general election defeat for Trump, although more beneficially purgative, would leave the country exposed to future runs by him. Disqualification would be "lasting".
5
On at least one thing here I have an opinion.
I think the Melania coat thing breaks the record for the silliest issue I have ever heard of. The old record belonged to Ivanka, but it was so lightweight that it long ago floated away, gone with the wind.
And it there was any intent in it, the only explanation that makes any sense is that it was aimed at those who think her wardrobe choices not only matter at all but matter immensely.
I actually feel sympathy for Melania. None for Ivanka and the rest of the blood Trumps. But Melania, she only married Trump for his money I would guess, and if she had had the idea that he might run for president some day she would surely have backed out of it. Now she's caught, and caught real good. Would anyone think that Trump had any kind of talk with her (or Barron) that a candidate (supposedly) traditionally has with the spouse about how this is going to be a long tiring campaign, and if we win it will mean unavoidable responsibilities and constant media examination and comment, and are we in this together. Trump having that kind of talk? LOL!
2
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Kind of fits the Trumps.
34
While likely not in my chronological and genetic cards, I would love to see what the financially indulged and emotionally threadbare Trump brats become five years into a post Chimp world.
The Schadenfreude Express has long ago left the station on this one, and I SOOOOO hope to be around to see it jump the tracks.
4
Count on Maureen Dowd to focus on what really doesn't matter: how current events are messing with carefully constructed facades of the rich and famous. Meanwhile, in the real world, actual human beings, not even excepting our very youngest, are being sacrificed as unwitting pawns in a power game one corrupt to the core individual must, no matter the cost to others and to the world which is our only true heritage and responsibility, somehow 'win'.
5
After reading your column today, I can not help but feel very sorry for this woman Ivanka. Trying to please a parent like Mr. Trump must be a neverending nightmare, probably for all the women in his life. But Ivanka might not really be aware of how damaging this is for the rest of her life.
4
; and yet, freely,
both move amongst us
uninterrupted by boo's,
catcalls, and jeers.
5
Ivanka is like Pence. The less they say the better it is for their presidential dreams.
10
I'm still trying to figure out how so many people (Ms Dowd included), refused to see how craven and despicable this bunch are two years ago. Frankly, the more I see of the rich, Ivy league, New York crew, the more I realize that they should all be put on a garbage barge and dumped at sea.
There are no revelations here. They are no different from the robber barons who caused the Johnstown Flood. No different from the steel barons who watched men die in the mills, then collected the life insurance policy the company took out. No different from the vulture capitalists who destroyed people's lives and communities for a few bucks. No different from the greed is good Wall Streeters who tanked the economy and then cashed the governments checks.
Maybe Trumps policies are effective on immigration. Soon no one will want to come here. I'm quickly reaching the point where I don't want to be here either.
14
Ivanka has spent a lifetime trying to win Daddy's approval and never faced the realization it doesn't exist. His approval is bestowed only on those who serve his purpose at that moment if it's also given with homage.
She too was ripped from her father at age 8 by divorce and it clearly has damaged her ability to forge her own personality. For that alone, you'd think she'd have empathy for those immigrant children and fight hard to resolve the issue. But then she'd be cast out by Daddy and then where would she be? Oh wait, a wealthy wife and mother with her own life canvas. I guess they aren't similar experiences after all.
She is just another enabler of his evil.
13
Can't help it, I still feel sorry for young Barron.
14
It would seem the acorn has not fallen far from the rotting, poisonous tree. She created and hawks a fake image of herself, just like she hawks her various Trump-branded wares she tries to pawn off on the public. Evidently, she wanted to be like her father whom she so admires, apparently she is reaching that goal.
8
Her father does have empathy, compassion, kindness and generosity, but only for the worlds worst dictators. Did Ivanka attend any of her fathers hate filled speeches? The former aide is right. He is a mean, mean man whose blood thirsty crowds love that he is waging an uncivil war on the majority of voters who oppose him. Hating the 55% and blowing their minds is job one for her father every day, regardless of the cost to the environment, our relationships with our allies, and to civility.
13
The “latest” on Ivanka and Melania make no difference whatsoever in the state of our country creeping in the direction of authoritarian governance undermining American values.
The only way to deal with this is to vote for democrats in November and deal a beating to Trump in 2020 that will put him as a footnote in our presidential history.
12
Ms. Dowd says that Ivanka Trump is "doomed never to return to her privileged perch as a Manhattan society darling."
She can't return to that perch because she had never had that perch.
The Trumps -- all of them -- are viewed as societal pariahs, Page 6 tabloid fodder, self-obsessed purveyors of the vulgar and the tawdry.
All of the unpleasantness visited upon America since the election , has simply confirmed in the minds of Manhattan society that Manhattan society has been correct in their opinions of the Trumps all along.
20
The apple does not fall far from the tree.
3
Overkill. And inaccurate. For example, Trump did not impose the separation policy, and nearly everyone, except Ms. Dowd, knows that by now.
1
His administration was very clear (Sessions especially) that the policy was intended to deter border crossings: cross with children and we will take them. It's easy to Google this.
3
Iris, news flash, Donald Trump is the president. He imposed the separation policy.
2
In fact, everyone but you apparently knows he and Sessions did impose the separation policy. Another Trump lie revealed when he signed the executive order to reverse his own policy, but of course that was a lie too.
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
Is H.L Mencken laughing now?
7
Ivanka is an adult and fully responsible for her actions, just like the pirates and sycophants in Trump's administration and his happily complicit fellow Republicans in congress.
Still, some understanding is due. Trump debases everyone and everything he comes into contact with, from business colleagues and political allies, to democracy, to the concept of truth, to those in his personal life wives and children included.
In just a few years Trump has, for all intents and purposes, destroyed the Republican party as supporter of American democracy and the rule of law. The more you want Trump, the more you will be damaged.
Growing up with such a malignant parent has to leave scars. But Ivanka is 36 and has made her choice how to live her life as an adult.
“What you’re seeing now is the unmasking. She can’t control the narrative anymore because she’s so inauthentic. It has really come back to bite her.”
Good
13
"Ivanka backed up the president’s fake narrative that it was Congress’s fault."
I don't get why so many older, white, female pundits do not recognize this is what Melania was doing also.
Instead people like Kathleen Parker and Karen Tumulty, and to a lesser extent Dowd, insist that Melania found her voice on this issue with the multiple carefully crafted statements put out in her name and spoken by her that echoed her husband's claim that it is the Democrats's fault (reach across the aisle) and that there is nothing, really, her husband can do unless Congress acts (nation of laws, even though no law called for this treatment.)
9
Optics. Optics. Optics. This family shares one irreparably broken soul. They literally do not exist in their own minds unless they are being viewed by the public, who, unfortunately, eats up every word they utter or tweet or wear. I wish we could starve them of this “oxygen” and let them wither away into nothingness. Alas, we’ve created them and we’re stuck with them.
8
Like father, like daughter. As if the Trumps's especially appalling brand of self-enriching narcissism should ever surprise anyone. Empathy is nowhere to be found in their gene pool.
The Fourth of July is on the horizon, so at high noon on that special day, let's reaffirm how we reached this singularly awful point in American history and have each of the 62,984,828 people who voted for Donald J. Trump in 2016 raise their hands. And keep them raised for the next 2 1/2 years.
We need to be reminded of exactly who got us here.
13
She plays big in China though. Enormously popular and admired by young Chinese women, who all want to emulate her lifestyle, looks and most importantly, money.
7
I hope the entire Trump crime family caught the video of Kirstjen Nielsen getting confronted at the Mexican restaurant this week. It was almost comedic as she kept looking down at her menu acting like she was "trying to decide" while patrons literally yelled "SHAME!" at her. Stephen Miller was run out of another spot. And yesterday Sarah Sanders was asked to leave the Red Hen Restaurant. Get ready, Trumps. If you're lucky enough to dodge prison, the rest of your lives will be spent "trying to decide" if it was worth it or not. It wasn't.
19
Nepotism in the White House was against the law until two years ago.
There is something jarring about a woman who is 36 years old, is serving as a senior adviser at the White House, has a few hundred million dollars in the bank and her own business, being so cautious about talking to "Daddy" about an issue. Most people are grown up by that time, especially ones with children. But that is true for all the Trump "children", also called "kids".
Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. were investigated by major economic crimes division in New York around 2010-12 for misrepresenting some condos to what was a close to a criminal degree. Odd campaign donations were involved. In the past year, more odd coincidences such as Asian trademarks for her products (which are made in Asian factories and not in America) happened. Her involvement in the Russian mess is probably closer than is realized. It is doubtful that Jared and her brothers were so closely involved in these meetings without Ivanka knowing all about it and being involved on some level.
Bizarre family who are really not worth talking about unless it's for a family suite at some prison, or some island where they can all be exiled. As long as it has a closet big enough for all her shoes, and is where no one will cry for her, Argentina. Oops, wrong dictator ladies.
12
Is it possible that the Trump family members, starting with its patriarch , are simply not that smart?
10
More than possible. Anyone who feels the need to send this out to the world:
"Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or insecure, it's not your fault."
- DJT
….. is pathetic, desperate, childish, and dumb.
2
This personality bashing is getting tiresome, and more. As the Times itself just reported, slamming Trump and family, Trump and Company, Trump and his administrations is turning out to be counterproductive. It might sell papers, and online subscriptions, and boost SNL's ratings, but to what end? Meanwhile, more-moderate Democrat voices aren't heard-- witness their absence from the "breaking news" site these past weeks and months. Samantha Bee is there, and Peter Fonda. Meanwhile, the party badly needs authoritative, balanced, centered voices, and Dowd's society column takes up too many lines of type and too much time for this blue-bleeding Democrat.
3
They say beauty is skin keep but ugly is to the bone. I think this sums it up very well. What does one call a person who converts to Judaism (or any religion) so that she can grow her own wealth through her husband?
From what I see, Ivanka has more patriotism for China than America, between having her daughter tutored in Chinese and the number of trademark's she has pursued with China. The hypocrisy of this administration cannot be more transparent, claiming to support American workers while pursuing personal financial deals all over the globe.
This is gold digging on a global scale.
14
There can no longer be any doubt about Ivanka's or Melania's true character. Both are mercenary, souless women who are incapable of serving any higher purpose other than to live a life of debauched privilege. Both are conniving and both are completely complicit in trump's debasement of our country and the presidency.
15
1. Politics for some people is principally a way to exercise their cruelty, a form of trolling.
2. It is interesting and morbidly ironic that the worst thing these people can imagine is somebody, particularly a brown person, getting something for nothing and yet they vote for people who have successfully dedicated their lives to doing just that. The Trumps and their entourage are leading examples.
3. Vile, disgusting behavior operates on the ratchet principle; you can't go back, only forward toward atrocity. Supporters of Trump are well on their way down this track.
It took years of deliberate effort by vested interests to create these know-nothings who are easily led by the nose, incapable of distinguishing lies from truth, or an honest person from a crook. Easily duped, blinded by their own prejudice, they can be depended on to act against their own interests again and again. Throw into the mix misogyny, the dumbing down of the population by inadequate education, suspicion of learning, rejection of science and history, not to mention the help of a hostile foreign power and you have the environment in which these people choose Donald Trump and the GOP. Expose them for that they are, oppose them and defeat them.
17
Speaking of siblings, is your brother still so excited about his 401K’s growth ? That’s really what matters to everyone right ?
11
If you define governing responsibility as doing everything in your power to enrich your clan, the trumps are governing most responsibly.
I wonder what kind of piece they own of the child caging industry, or if they bet long on the stocks, or even shorted them. Both positions could have been winners.
Would some hungry reporter please go after it.?
Too many billions on the table for the trumps not to feel they deserve a piece.
12
This was the week when the facade cracked - a week when Trump was revealed as both monstrous and clueless, a week when Melania showed why she is firmly Mrs. Donald Trump and not the kept damsel in a tall tower waiting to be rescued, and a week when Ivanka showed herself powerless to alter the trajectory of the asteroid that will finally render them all politically extinct.
It was still a terrible week for immigrant children, with many long ones to come.
16
Does anyone remember when Trump and Clinton were asked to say one good thing about the other during the presidential debates?
I recall drawing a total blank myself, wondering what Hillary could possibly come up with, as this man seemed to be without ANY redeeming qualities, not even a basic sense of humor.
Poor Hillary, clutching at straws, faked it and began to wax eloquent about Trump's "incredibly able and devoted" children.
Eerily devoted-- yes.
Able-- only in terms of being clever at amassing wealth by any means, ethical or not.
This soulless man raised venal and hollow children. He paraded them in front of the world and heaped undeserved praise upon them. He took Ivanka out of her cocoon of wealth and thrust her and her husband on the international stage, where they demonstrated their lack of intelligence, competence and authenticity for all to see.
Now it's entirely possible that they may be brought up on criminal charges.
It almost makes me feel sorry for them, but I really don't care, do you?
25
Ivanka is the poster child for nepotism laws.
No "Senior Adviser" to the President should be his darling daughter (as far as he does "darling").
The conflict of interest is overwhelming. Where, under other circumstances, Ivanka may have spoken out sooner and louder, she was constrained by a sad loyalty to a father that will never really be satisfied with her. That only increases her need to please him at a time when she should be admonishing him.
Never again should any family member be allowed to hold an office in the administration. I thought we had learned that lesson, but it seems there is always an exception for the Trumps. How's that workin' out?
63
What people fail to realize is that for the Trumps ethics and morality are situational; ever-changing to justify their actions in the here and now. There is no past and they shape their own future without regard to said past.
52
Rich people need good advisors, particularly in politics. Self interest is usually an easy game for them, particularly in politics. They did so well with Russian advice getting elected, maybe they should find a retired KGB agent who could advise them on immigration policy.
25
She's not a real person, not any aspect of her.
92
Ivanka is a symptom, not the disease. Donald is the pathogen, the virus, the malignant mutation, the infection, the trauma. Both yield misery. Some we recover from. Others do lasting harm. At this point, the prognosis is grim.
116
As a virologist, I take umbrage with your calling Donald Trump a virus. That’s an insult to viruses.
4
Given today's article telling us that trump supporters dig their heels in more deeply in the face of criticism of the trumps, the question is, do these supporters KNOW the people they are supporting at all?
It's tragic that more information was already available on the character of the trumps prior to the election than perhaps any other president or first family (though Melania is still a cipher), and yet the picture still has to be drawn for them, to uncertain effect.
As Mark Twain said, "You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."
Our reality show president and his family have been successful only in seriously distorting our perception of the world by polluting and fanaticizing our imagination (eg. with regard to immigrants) as well as shaping how we imagine them to be. Thanks to their efforts, we now live in a world in which, for many, facts have no meaning.
It's high time that the Dorian Grey family portrait of the trumps be brought down from the attic.
134
The most recent polls show Trump's approval rating among Republicans is now 90%.
Among Democrats? 10%.
Enough said.
19
The quick reference to minting money and confluence of interest should be illustrated with salient detail - Ivanka and her husband made more than $80 million last year while supposedly employed by the government. That's a lot of minting.
149
Getting older is sometimes depressing as each passing year seems to go by faster, but it does come with a couple of perks: one, knowing who you are and being comfortable in your own skin. Two, truly recognizing that character and a good soul are not a function of wealth, status, education or where you come from. Character reveals itself over time and you can’t buy it or hide it, it just become self evident and everyone around you just senses it deep down to their bones.
163
After month upon month of Russia this, Russia that and Russia the other thing, there's one irrefutable piece of evidence so blatant that whatever Robert Mueller might tell us about the subject would be redundant: Donald Trump behaves like an oligarch. Why? Because he is one.
Where do you think Ivanka gets her value system? For instance, she was daddy's emissary for the initial stages of planning for what was hoped to be an opulent Trump Tower Moscow near the Kremlin.
That's not to be confused with another family project -- the ornate Trump International Hotel, just a stone's throw from the White House -- whose grand opening was less than two weeks before the 2016 presidential election.
There's a lot of good reading out there on this seemingly endless story, but the Isikoff/Corn and Harding books are especially insightful about the oligarch connections. Which are cozy, to say the least.
In short, We the People somehow managed to elect someone who behaves more like a Russian aristocrat than an American president. And we're paying dearly for it.
By the way, when are we going to see those tax returns?
279
Never? Even if they are subpoenaed.
3
For once, a hard-hitting and deserved critique of the evil empire in the WH, without so much as a mention of Barry or Hillary for "balance".
Congratulations, MoDo.
249
I'm surprised that some enterprising playwright hasn't written a parody called "The Sound Of Money" starring the adorable Von Trump Family Grifters. They don't sing a note, however. The chorus, made up of Von Trump associates, does the singing, with Robert Mueller as conductor.
82
Caveat emptor, Maureen.
34
When Ivanka and Jared decided to move to Washington, I thought they were making a mistake. They are now tangled in Trump's web of lies, and may be at risk for helping him lie. They cast their lot with Donald, when they could have continued their New York life with some distance from him. When we learn the full scope of Donald's misdeeds, before and during his presidency, whom will he drag down with him? Will Donald be tempted to sacrifice Jared, Don Jr, even Ivanka, to save himself? Will he give in to that temptation? I hope he won't but he surely seems the kind of person who might.
64
Perhaps he is not as thoroughly rotten as our president, but Jared comes from the same mold as the Donalds. His father went to federal prison for multiple acts of corruption, and he has made some very shady, look- like-money-laundering, real estate deals on his own. We should reserve our pity for his and Ivanka's victims.
“Empathy and generosity, kindness and compassion.” These must be phrases that Ivanka Trump came across while she was googling inspirational quotes for her recently published, and widely panned, book. Her father has displayed none of these attributes as president. If he shows them to his family and no one else, why should we care? (But I’m guessing he never does.)
The most people hoped for was that Ivanka would be a brake on her out-of-control father. If anything, he’s gets worse as time passes and he focuses like a laser on his base. Michelle Wolf nailed Ms. Trump. “Useless.”
204
What bothers me is that none of the Trumps seem to have a clue about what governing is. They see the Presidency as something you play at - for them, it's a role that exists only for 'optics' - not for any underlying responsibility. And we all are paying a price for this. The sooner the Trumps leave the White House and public life, the better off we all will be.
439
Unfortunately our founders had no way to envision a virus as virulent as the Trumps and their supporters anywhere near the top of the heap as they are today. As such the nation is divided and hobbled in an effective way to remove this infection. Impeachment won’t work because it requires that Congress actually have the courage to stand up and do something for the nation versus themselves, and sadly we don’t have a parliamentary system whereby we can kick the whole sorry mess to the curb. So we’re stuck with this virus which shows no likelihood of getting better over time, just worse.
8
Not knowing what governing is apprars to be a common Republican trait.
3
And with the trump brand so damaged that the family income drops to a pittance
1
People involved in government and politics generally have a commitment to public service. Good politicians will have a history of public service and accomplishments that will define their character and beliefs; and serve as guideposts for voters.
Voters failing in their due diligence and responsibility either fail to vote or vote based on uninformed opinions and/or personality.
The political promises of the Trump family never squared with their behaviors or intentions based on past performance.
108
Due diligence helped voters to decide not to vote for the candidate who tossed half the country into a "basket of deplorables". And then there was that candidate's defense of her husband's disrespect, even violence, toward women; and her condemnation of her husband's victims; and her obfuscation of what went on at Benghazi; and the loosey goosey finances of the Clinton Foundation and . . . but you get the picture. Yes, indeed, there were "guideposts for voters"in the candidate's "history of public service".
Ivanka altered her face and body to please her father. Her actions and statements, or lack thereof, are to please her father. She flirts with him, and he eats it up. And from the looks of things she has even started using his, uh, hair stylist. But it's all part of the plan.
There are five Trump kids, and at least three of them are vain, greedy, dishonest, and self-serving. They have an elderly father. And there will be a large estate. Ivanka is smiling and biding her time.
162
“Look, I respect his children. His children are incredibly able and devoted, and I think that says a lot about Donald. I don’t agree with nearly anything else he says or does, but I do respect that. And I think that is something that as a mother and a grandmother is very important to me.”
- Hillary Clinton, 2nd Presidential Debate
Flawed Candidate?
9
About that "large" estate - by the time all its debts to Russian mobsters and foreign banks have been settled, it could have a minus sign in front of it.
48
I think she said that because she couldn't think of anything good to say about him.
It wasn't true, anyway . The 3 junior Trumps we know are not very nice people.
5
In 2018, America is just one big reality show. The question is, what will we be after the show is canceled?
225
Derry, Maine.
The most important word in your article is "panic."She felt panic when her father deserted her immigrant mother and his family. She would do anything to reform her family. The terror she most have felt from the half- abandonment should have scarred her psyche. The balm she chose was imitation and then lucre. That cleansing washed away any empathy she may have had for the children torn away from their parents. It was when the photo-ops became the antithesis to her brand that she suffered the little children. It is a shame how the loss of a parent effects different child in a myriad of fashions. One thing for sure- the scar forever shows.
61
Yet some who suffer as children grow up to be exceptionally empathic and compassionate adults.
61
This was a very well written piece. It all the more makes me so sad that you could have voted for him.
Hope you can one day tell me.
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The alternate choice was unfortunately an even worse candidate
As with many insincere dilettantes, Ivanka is a humanitarian in the abstract, but not in the particular. Everything is about appearances and her brand, so the image is a mile wide and a millimeter deep. Inauthentic indeed. She puts a gloss on it that her father can't manage. He is much more in your face. However the me-me-me world view is exactly the same.
When Trump's reign is finally over (and that can't come soon enough), she will fade into oblivion and perhaps even ignominy.
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The Trumps merely present a more gauche, gaudy and grandiose epitome of the long-time American ethic. People, especially politicians, can bleat all they want that "this isn't who we are." Guess again...
Since way before the Reagan Restoration, way before Pax Americana neo-imperialism, way before Collidge's admonition that "the business of America is business," even way before the put-up Spanish-American War, America has always been first and foremost a mercantile and mercenary society dressed up as caring democratic republic dedicated to truth and fairness.
Truth be told, the Founding Fathers were mostly merchants and agrarian landowners - yes, they undertook a wise risktaking for freedom and opportunity for the populace, but it can't be denied they wanted freedom and opportunity for their buck, freedom from British taxation and tariffs. At a pervasive deep level, we are the United States of Business Hacks and Grifters.
On another note, it's no small irony that Kirstjen Nielsen and Stephen Miller were heckled at Mexican restaurants. Sure, eat the food, but don't drink the humanity...
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Yes, and this history you summarize makes the builders of the Great Society, and other idealists who have worked for social justice, all the more important.
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Rocky. AMEN! We ,the U.S.A. , are no different from any other "empire" in the annals of history. We have abused,exploited,enslaved and slaughtered other humans just like all the others that came before. It seems ironic that the things we most celebrate as proof of our ideals, the Civil War, civil rights, etc.are ,basically, corrections to the problems we caused in the first place.
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Charles Beard's 'An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States' (1913) is a good place to expand upon your contention. Was it money or was it ideals? We routinely maintain it was the latter these days, despite that ugly 3/5ths part, which undoubtedly is evidence of the former.
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Great column Maureen! Bottom line: The way Trump looks at Ivanka bothers me immensely, in an SVU episode kind of way. One can only hope Jared isn't indicted and eventually goes to jail cause the one person that will not get a pardon is Jared...
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And if Jared is indicted and convicted, she will choose Daddy over Husband, as Republicans everywhere seem to be choosing Party over morality. How did we come to this?
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Why would one hope that Jared doesn't go to jail? He deserves it as much as his own father did. And why would he even deserve a pardon? Don't quite understand your logic.
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Is anyone surprised? The three older Trump children all seem to have this need to be just perfect for "Daddy." They, sadly, do not, never had, and never will have lives separate from him and his overwhelming influence. Tiffany is still in college, and is, so far, staying away and having fun. Barron is too young. Will they turn out the same way?
We have had just a couple years of the Trump #MEOnly experience, and most of us are heartily sick of it and worried for the future of our country. His children never had an escape.
I would never say that these Trump scions will never have lives of their own, but I can see how their complete empathy-less emotions make them just like good old Dad. Personal monetary enrichment at the expense of others is just the way they have learned to live.
Products constructed in foreign countries that are not as good as what is made here sell for double and triple the price because it has the Trump name on it. Hotels are listed as 5-star because they have the Trump name on them.
Have Daddy or Ivanka brought home their manufacturing? Nope. For them, it's a joke; only others have to do that.
This family does not have healthy relationships. I doubt they know how. They will continue to play their games as long as there are suckers who will bite.
This time, they got the entire Republican Party to bite. Must be nice for the Trump dynasty.
Not so nice for the USA.
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It seems to me that the trump kleptocracy aims to take America backwards—well past the 1950s and into the Gilded Age. That was a time when tycoons ruled the Earth, and everyone else knew their place. If they didn’t know their place, the tycoons had no qualms about showing them, sometimes with government-supported violence.
trump chafes against laws, regulations, and decorum. He appears to have used the law, in its basest and unkindest incarnation, as a weapon against those who fail to show him the cowering, cringing obeisance we now know he craves. He seems to be eagerly using his White House perch as a platform to enrich himself, thanks to vague and seemingly unenforceable proscriptions on emoluments.
He has vanquished civility and rational discourse.
And how often did the princes and princesses of the Gilded Age stop to give pause to what their parents and grandparents were doing to the fabric of the nation? I can wager that it was not very often at all.
And so we come to ms. trump and her brothers, intellectual and moral lightweights all, comfortably ensconced in that same kleptocracy. If their status and wealth are threatened, they bristle. Otherwise, they could not care less.
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In reply to Alex:
Excellent post.
The first thing that comes to mind when one thinks "America " is the national obsession :
the Almighty Dollar.
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When he named his youngest son Barron Trump may have been thinking about the Robber Barrons of the Gilded Age.
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She reminds me of Daisy Buchanan, beautiful, charming and shallow. She avoids taking a stand, preferring instead to retreat behind her money. Can you imagine just once, her eschewing the lower east side to visit a rust belt bar to converse with those who truly believe in her father's message? No! Neither can I.
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I guess the old adage remains, that "the apple does not fall far from the tree." Who knows how Ivanka would have matured, however, if born into a "normal" nuclear family where unconditional love is the bottom line rather than greed and narcissism. So, I have to ask myself if this woman ever really had a chance to be a giver instead of a taker. All she ever knew was that it is the superficial that counts in life, to aspire to, to lust over. The primary lesson as taught by her father and so many other corruptly affluent individuals was to use people, to walk upon them, each a mere rung on a ladder so the zenith of wealth and power can be reached.
It really may be telling how this political paradigm will end for both Ivanka and her husband, and consequently their young children. Oh, the money will still be there...Daddy will take care of that in his own suspect ways. But respect and dignity? That's another matter. Perhaps though, she is young enough and maybe less arrogant and egotistical than Mr. Trump to learn that you can't get out of this life in peace without a conscience, and yes, a bit of guilt, too.
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Conservatism, based on fear, is fueled by denial. The folks who slather this salve do indeed still "buy the blonde savior routine." They desperately want to believe they weren't tragically wrong about the trumps. The majority of Americans, however, labor fitfully in reality and will erase the blonde and orange dirt from our great flag. It's the moral crusade of our lifetimes.
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Thank you for this tell-it-like-it-is exposure of trump's daughter. I had hopes in the beginning that she would step in, calming him down. When I saw what she was all about I found myself, surprisingly, holding out hope Melania would be the savior wild card. Her coat killed that in me. I know. A coat. How ridiculous to let that mean much, but there is no denying the monstrous and chilling image it conveyed. Remember the young woman biking, alone, when trump's motorcade drove by and she gave him the finger. That wonderful photo made it into this paper. Images matter.
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King LEAR. Seriously.
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Where's Cordelia?
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Wouldn't it be fun if Canada, Mexico, the EU and China imposed a 500% tariff on the latest Ivanka Trump merchandise? This may be the only way the Trump clan will realize that actions have consequences. I'm sure the heartland will pitch in to make up for the injustice. I would love to see Nebraska awash with $168 Mara Cocktail Bags.
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This is already happening, is it not? One would assume that would be the first thing targeted. If not, what are they waiting for? Money's the only thing to which this family answers. Their own money, that is. The taxpayer's money can go to pay for silly walls and the like. If the man likes debt, I'm sure he loves playing around with other people's debt.
Get on it, former allies.
PS - we're really sorry. It's not everybody, we promise.
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Apparently Trump believes his base will forgive his backing off seizing children if his beloved daughter implores him to.
This is not weakness or an admission of gross incompetence- nor a rebuke of the reptilian Steven Miller. It is a dad who’s a soft touch to his girl.
Can Ivanka nudge daddy to get folks healthcare, financial protections, environmental safety & a sound infrastructure?
No other reappraisal of policy dogma has happened by any other means.
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Within a broader context, Ms. Dowd identifies a tragically dangerous American presidency. Ivanka is the smallest of the warts on the nose.
A perfect storm of circumstances has allowed, what is effectively, a 21st century coup within the most important nation of the world.
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The dysfunctional relationship between Ivanka and her father could not be more remote from the relationship we witnessed between Malia and Sasha and their father over eight years in the White House. Their love was palpable at every moment and an inspiration for true and pure family values.
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Thank you. I have listening to your commentary, and it's a pleasure to read your writing.
We have a President who tweets like an angry drunk. I have no doubt his family is a walking, co-dependent nightmare of emotional hostages. In fact The World at large would benefit from regular Al-Anon attendance.
But to your point especially about a phony 'brand' that fancies itself a champion of women and children: Ivanka Trump and her husband directly extorted Planned Parenthood by attempting to use any/all government financial aid as a bargaining chip to control the institution's position on safe and legal abortion. (Never mind the fact that PP does not use any government funding specifically for abortion services.)
That's not the kind of 'Women's Rights Advocate' I want on my team.
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This article reminds me of Erin Gloria Ryan's words in "Ivanka Is Where Feminism Goes to Die," an insightful take on this moment in American culture:
"Modern pop feminism means that the inconveniences of rich and privileged women are discussed at the expense of the life-or-death situations faced by poor women."
"Ivanka is the sound of one hand clapping."
And as we all know, the sound of one hand clapping is a zen koan now worn threadbare and meaningless by endless repetition in the media.
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"If she wasn't my daughter, I'd probably date her," Once he said that, we should have known that nothing good would be forthcoming.
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Luchino:
“If she wasn’t my daughter, I would date her.” One must wonder why Trump stops there. He shamelessly transgresses every other tenet and standard of morality by his cruelty to children, racism, dishonesty, hypocrisy, corruption, etc. (And once Mueller completes his investigation, much more will be added to this list.)
One would have to go back to Roman emperors like Caligula to find leaders of similar venality. But they weren’t elected.
Yes, and we all know what he meant by "date."
There is the sickening possibility that he did "date" her.
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Another fine essay, Maureen, an absorbing vignette of the entitled child. Trumpkins actually like elitists, but they like *their* elitists.
What readers need to know is that it is Trump himself who brings on all this commotion, and, worse, he thrives in it. As my father admonished me when I was a child, the bully actually *wants* you to punch him out. I had a little trouble processing that, but when we look at all of the *many* transgressions of the Trump family, they know how to handle it. They have their trumpkins to defend them, including evangelicals.
The Trump saga is like an unfunny "Seinfeld" episode. All the characters screw up, but you aren't left laughing. Ivanka touts her brand in a very serious geopolitical time. Trump insults our great neighbor nation to the North. Melania wears controversial clothing exactly at the wrong time.
This nation put this recalcitrant family in the White House, It's entertainment that Fox News can ship to its glassy-eyed market. The Trumps will be making a killing from the entertainment value of their presidency for a long time.
A Trump presidency reality TV show might be good. It'll let his mesmerized followers down slowly after his demise. And it would allow Fox News to broadcast unabashedly what it has always wanted to broadcast: invented news stories.
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Quite possibly, Melania forfeited her tiny amount of good will from those who read her as a bit subversive towards her hideous husband by wearing that stupid jacket.
As far as daughter dearest goes, she could benefit from psychological counseling perhaps. The author Emily Jane Fox reports Daddy Trump was furious with Ivanks the only time she disagreed with him previously. I can’t recall the subject, some minor dispute, but Trump, as we know is undone by any criticism. Question for Ivanka, does your father show any genuine love or interest in your children?
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Thanks for the humor, and wit. We are living in a nightmare, and there is no guarantee that our side will triumph. Kids in cages, and Pompeo and Bolton outdoing Dick Cheney? Canceling clean water rules and fighting for coal and oil? Countless lies? No problem. Trump is at historic approval highs for the Republican Party.
As for the Ice Maiden daughter, what else could she have become with a father like Donald?
Let's go ahead and have a nonviolent civil war with the slobbering nitwits who support him and his family. Truman once said, "Trust the people". Either we win this one, with Democratic majorities and a livable future, or the whole world goes down, in a violent and overheated future. Let's see if we're up for it.
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I despise the Trumps and their grifting ways.
In just a little over 500 days Trump has turned us into a corrupt banana republic.
But, Ivanka takes the cake for her grifting ways. Just a few days ago it was reported that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner made at least $82 million in outside income last year while serving in the White House:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jared-kushner-and-ivanka-trump-m...
So Ivanka, and her "Daddy," make a big deal about how they are serving for the good of the country, that Ivanka is working for "free" and that President Trump is donating his salary.
What unethical crooks they both are, as they feed their greed at America's expense.
It's obviously genetic.
1263
Grifters, pure and simple.
2
Enough Americans buy the hype and fake concern. Just open the pages of any of the Jewish publications and you will see. Headlines like Ivanka will run for president, Ivanka this and that.
The Kushners and many others have done irreparable damage to the Jewish community and Israel over the years. They've played to Jewish fears in order to ascend to power, cozying up to corrupt politicians like Bibi Netanyahu and funding orthodox parties in Israel for years. Here we are now, with Israel behaving in ways that are unthinkable, given the reasons for its birth.
Jewish opposition to Donald Trump and all he represents must be expressed through a more vocal and unified opposition to all of what Jared Kushner does and represents in his White House role as adviser, and as the most powerful Jew in America today.
The Kushners need to be exposed just as assiduously as Trump and his henchmen need to be exposed, daily, hourly, by the minute.
---
James Baldwin Was Right: Being A Jew In The Age of Trump, Jared Kushner, Neoliberal & Republican Jews
https://www.rimaregas.com/2017/08/14/james-baldwin-was-right-being-a-jew...
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A fine piece of writing!!
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Thank you so much, Larry!
Coming from you, it means the world to me!
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I know. In addition to Kushner, there are so many embarrassing landsmen in the Trump administration, starting with Stephen Miller and Micheal Cohen. These guys—by comparison—almost make Madoff look like a mensch.
Thankfully we can't take "credit" for perhaps Washington's most despicable politician: Mitch McConnell.
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