Ivanka Trump tends to stay in the background, quietly working on initiatives like the child tax credit or supporting her father. When a reporter managed to squeeze in a question about the ongoing Roy Moore controversy, the mother of three didn’t hold back. Yet her response left how Moore’s candidacy should be handled to those with longer political resumes. Instead, Ivanka took a much more personal stance on Moore’s alleged history of preying on teenage girls, snapping, “There’s a special place in hell for people who prey on children.”
Trump added “I’ve yet to see a valid explanation and I have no reason to doubt the victims’ accounts,” echoing Jeff Sessions’s similar comments. However, Ivanka didn’t say anything about whether Moore should keep gunning for Alabama’s open Senate seat. This is a sharp contrast to the official White House statement delivered by Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who suggested Moore should step aside if there were any validity to his accusers’ claims.
Ivanka made room for no such faith in Moore’s character in her statement to the Associated Press. Nor did she offer the same measure of sympathy Sanders did when she paraphrased the president’s opinion that “we cannot allow a mere allegation, in this case one from many years ago, to destroy a person’s life.” It’s not often that Ivanka draws such a sharp line between her views and those of her father, as she has made it clear she feels her job doesn’t involve publicly contradicting the president. Yet Roy Moore’s alleged conduct is apparently enough to make her speak out.
(Via: Associated Press)