Ivanka on Trump's accusers: I believe my father

Ivanka Trump, she's a senior advisor to the president, her father. She has traveled around the world on official business representing the United States of America, most recently in South Korea this weekend celebrating the Olympics and American athletes and even meeting with South Korean President Moon. Ivanka Trump calls herself a woman's right advocate. She promotes equal pay for workers. She's voiced support for various women accusing various men of foul deeds. So keeping all that in mind, I want you to listen to her response when asked by a White House correspondent about the myriad women alleging sexual harassment and assault against them by her father. Do you believe your father's accusers? I think it's a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter if she believes the accusers of her father when he's affirmatively stated that there is no truth to it. Let's bring back my panel. Well, can I ask her that question or could Peter Alexander ask her that question as a senior advisor to the president, if not as a daughter? Right. I see how it's uncomfortable as a daughter to be asked about the allegations made against your father that range from sexual misconduct to sexual assault. But I can't fathom how someone who does not take a paycheck but flies around the country in the world on a taxpayer-funded airplane. She represents the United States at the Olympics in South Korea. She's supposed to be a champion of women's rights in this West Wing. And she enjoys all of this, but she thinks she should be spared from tough questions from a reporter that would ask any other White House official those questions, because Sarah Sanders has certainly faced them at the briefing. So I don't fathom how someone who holds the title of senior advisor and special assistant to the president, a role that many other people would love to fill, can say that she should not be asked about those allegations made against her father. I'm going to have it both ways. We should point out, Angela, she did ultimately answer the question. Take a listen. I believe my father. I know my father. So I think I have that right as a daughter to believe my father. So she believes that all the women are lying. So I think what's interesting about this is also like the response on social media, which is no other daughter would face these types of questions. You've already raised that. Well, both of you've already raised the point that she serves in a role that is taxpayer-funded. I think the other thing that's very interesting is we can't continue to normalize this situation or this president. No other president has been recorded saying things like, I just kiss him. I can't help it. I'm not going to go there. We remember. I'm going to grab him. Yes. Please don't react to it. We get it. But the reality of it is you can't treat this as a normal presidency for the reasons that Bill said at the top of the show. This is different. And so it requires a different response. You're on record saying these things. So perhaps you forgot that your dad says he has this compulsive reaction on the recording to do these things to women. So I'm not sure what she believes or why, but there's definitely evidence that supports something very different. In 2008, Bill, Chelsea Clinton was asked by somebody at an Indiana town hall a similar question. Take a listen. Wow. You're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question in the, I don't know, maybe 70 college campuses that I've now been to. And I do not think that's any of your business. The specific question was whether or not her mother undermined her own feminist credentials during the Lewinsky scandal. I should point out, I don't think that's inappropriate either. That question. Yeah, no, nor do I. But I think what's also amazing, we're talking about what's normal and not normal. It's not normal to have your daughter and your son-in-law as senior White House staff members. It is normal to use family members for ceremonial occasions, send them abroad sometimes, and then they have a sort of quasi-government status for, you know, the three days that they're representing you at the Olympics or something. But it's a big problem. There's a reason we have anti-nepotism laws. I'm still a little unclear why somehow those didn't apply. Maybe they don't apply to White House staff, and they were passed after Bobby Kennedy was his brother's attorney general, and everyone realized, well, that is not really a tolerable situation. But it's a big problem. The Trump businesses chug along, Ivanka's two brothers run it, she has a stake in them, I believe. Jared Kushner has huge business interests and debts, and he's dealing with people who, as a government official, that he also has business, has had, and may still be having Yeah, there's a lot of conflicts. I just think the degree to which that's sort of all been sloughed over, partly honestly, because a lot of people in the media think, maybe correctly, that the two of them are kind of an influence for sanity in the White House, compared to some of the people who've been there, Mike Flynn, Sev Gorka, you know, and others. And they kind of have gotten a little bit, actually, of a, I think, a little bit of a pass. Pass, yeah. Kalen, I want to ask you about Ivanka's husband, Jared Kushner. What is his status right now? Well, we were told that John Kelly, the chief of staff, was eliminating all interim security clearances, that if you haven't gotten the security clearance by last Friday, I think it was, that was it. It's Monday today. Has anybody even seen Jared Kushner at the White House today? Not so far that I've spoken to, but he's kind of left twisting in the wind here. He wasn't actually at the governor's meeting earlier today. There was a chair for him, but it was left empty. But you're right, he's kind of at an impasse right now, because this went into effect on Friday, that if you were operating on an interim security clearance as of June 1 or earlier, which he is, that you would no longer have access to that highly classified information, which he did. He was actually one of the top White House officials who requested the most access to classified information over the last 13 months or so that they've been in office. And a lot of people who have been in the intelligence agencies before say they don't see how it's possible for him to move forward with this foreign policy portfolio that he has without a security clearance. I mean, seriously, when you think about it, Angela, dealing with Mexico and who knows what law enforcement situation is going on behind the scenes in Mexico, dealing with the Israel and the Palestinians, how can you do that job without a high-level security clearance? You shouldn't. And Bill, you were just mentioning this about just the anti-nepotism laws. Congress has ethics rules in place for nepotism. Congress has rules in place for people handling classified information. When I needed to see classified briefing documents, I had to go into a SCIF as the Committee on Homeland Security. That's a secure facility. I love Jake. I have to translate Washington. I have to translate Washingtonese for our viewers. And I had to have a security clearance. And you have to file an application. So I don't understand why they get to go around these things. But I'm glad that the interim, I don't even, I didn't even have one of those while I waited for my clearance. There does seem to be a showdown going on here between Kelly and Kushner. Yeah. And I do think you hinted at this earlier. The fact that Rose has not called over, I guess, placed the call 14 years ago. saying, oh, we have a problem here with, we're not going to be able to complete Kushner's security clearance. Because the FBI is in charge of doing the investigation for security clearance. Yeah, normally the FBI would call over and say, hey, we just need another month to look at some of the back, you know, financial transactions. The fact that Rosenstein calls does suggest to me, and this is speculation, that it's because of the Mueller investigation and material that's been turned up there that they don't feel they can clear Kushner. So I think that's an interesting, that means he's not going to get a clearance until that investigation concludes. So what does he do then? That's a great question. Would he leave? I mean, it has been reported that Kelly has told associates he wouldn't mind if Ivanka and Jared went back to New York. Oh, he certainly wouldn't. The tension is very high between those three, because even though they originally pushed for Kelly to become the chief of staff and take over for Reince, they thought that this restraint that he was going to impose on the West Wing wouldn't necessarily apply to them in the manner that it has. And they certainly have soured on John Kelly. So I'm sure he would not blink twice if Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner left the White House. That's not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for Kushner.