Ivanka Trump hasn’t even moved into the West Wing, but her unique approach to handling policy is already ruffling feathers on both sides of the aisle.
Believing that she is the solution to a developing chasm between the left and right on so-called “women’s issues,” Ivanka’s first solo meeting was with the CEO of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, ostensibly seeking common ground on one of the country’s most divisive political issues: abortion.
But Ivanka, apparently, soon figured out exactly why no one’s tried to bridge that gap. Cecile Richards took the meeting, thinking she could convince the at least nominally pro-choice Ivanka that the Republican plan to defund Planned Parenthood would have a dramatic effect on women’s health.
Ivanka said she was in the meeting as part of a “listening” tour, she’s undertaken since moving to Washington, DC, and wasn’t necessarily looking to be convinced, so much as willing to hear Planned Parenthood’s side of the story—but she clearly didn’t know what she was in for, or how powerful special interest groups in Washington play the game.
The “cordial meeting,” according to POLITICO has turned into an abject disaster for Ivanka. Republicans were obviously upset to learn that the daughter of the President was conspiring in secret with a top political enemy.
Planned Parenthood immediately stabbed Ivanka in the back when they failed to get their way from the White House, after, apparently, thinking a single meeting with the President’s daughter was enough to get Republicans to stand down on threats to deprive the abortion provider of Federal funding, including Medicaid reimbursements.
Almost immediately after their sit-down, Cecile Richards “publicly rebuked” the First Daughter, claiming in a speech in New York that Ivanka was uniquely responsbile for the Trump Administration’s hard line on Planned Parenthood.
“Anyone who works in this White House is responsible for addressing why women are in the cross hairs of basically every single policy we’ve seen in this administration,” she told the audience of a women’s conference Wednesday.
Planned Parenthood’s spokesperson claimed to media that Ivanka was trying to “have it both ways: ‘You don’t get to say, I’m all for economic empowerment, and ignore that 30 percent of wage gains are directly attributable to access to birth control. You don’t get to say women should have great child care when maternity benefits are on the chopping block.'”
Ivanka wouldn’t comment on the matter, but POLITICO‘s sources say that privately, she’s confused at how she could be to blame for something that’s in the Republican Party platform. Planned Parenthood would not comment as to why they were attacking Ivanka when asked by Heat Street.
Unfortunately for Ivanka, whether she can be ultimately responsible for domestic women’s health policies or not, this is a sour start to her diplomatic career. The great moderate mediator may have to learn her limits before trying again.
