Ivanka Plans to Be 'Much More Proactive'

Ivanka Trump now has an official government job as well as a White House office—and she may have more influence on President Trump than any other federal employee. In a New York Times profile and interview, the first daughter talks about her agenda as an adviser to the president and how she's learning on the job. Some highlights:

• Ivanka says her new role model is Eleanor Roosevelt. She says she is reaching out to influential women and plans to work to reduce gender inequality with policies including a federal paid leave program and affordable child care. The Times notes that when she talks about women's economic potential, her phrases sound "uncannily like those of Hillary Clinton."
• She says she is new to politics, but she is "really, really trying to learn." "There’s a lot I don’t know about how government works and how things get done, but I feel I know enough now that I can be much more proactive about the type of change and reform that I’d like to see happen," she says.

• Family members and aides say Ivanka is better than anybody else at getting Trump to listen to criticism and change his mind. "I'm his daughter. I’ve known him my entire life. He trusts me," she says. "I don’t have a hidden agenda. I’m not looking to hit him to help myself."
• She says that she has learned to choose her battles when trying to influence her father's policies. "I'll go to the mat on certain issues and I may still lose those," she says. "But maybe along the way I've modified a position just slightly. And that's just great."
• Ivanka says she was in one of the most successful phases of her life when it was suddenly upended by her father's candidacy, and the fierce criticism it brought. "Everything that was ascribed to him suddenly, for my critics, became true of me," she says.
• Sources tell the Times that a tense moment between father and daughter came when he refused to make a "full-throated" apology after his infamous comments about grabbing women surfaced. The sources say Ivanka fled the room visibly upset after Trump refused to budge.
• Marissa Kraxberger, a former exec at the Ivanka Trump label, is one of several associates who tell the Times that Ivanka's interest in gender issues appears to be new. She says that when Ivanka interviewed her in 2013, she was told: "Well, we don’t have maternity leave policy here; I went back to work one week after having my child, so that’s just not something I’m used to."

(More Ivanka Trump stories.)