In her first televised interview since her father took the White House and since she became Assistant to the President, Ivanka Trump and CBS News’s Gayle King sat down for a chat.
It’s an easy enough question, made that much easier by the fact that Trump surely pays attention to the news; Teen Vogue writer Lauren Duca showed up on Tucker Carlson’s show in December and mentioned Ivanka’s “sinister complicity” in the havoc her father is wreaking on a daily basis. Saturday Night Live dropped a beautifully subtle perfume ad parody that slyly pointed out Ivanka’s complicity shot through a Vaseline-smeared lens in a glittering ballroom reminiscent of Trump Tower’s tacky opulence. What I’m saying is she’s not dumb. Her answer to King’s question is that much more infuriating once you keep that top of mind.
“If being complicit is…wanting to be a force for good and to make a positive impact then I’m complicit,” she says with a completely straight face. “I don’t know that the critics who may say that of me, if they found themselves in this very unique and unprecedented situation that I am now in, would do any differently than I am doing…I don’t know what it means to be complicit, but you know, I hope time will prove that I have done a good job and much more importantly that my father’s administration is the success that I know it will be.”
Since it’s quite easy to lose sight of the meaning of words after you hear them over and over again, let us turn to Merriam-Webster, who defines “complicit” as “helping to commit a crime or do wrong in some way.” Even though Ivanka Trump may act like she doesn’t know what “complicit” means, something tells me she’s a step ahead of the game.
If you can stomach it, the full interview with Trump will air Wednesday on CBS This Morning.
