Chelsea Clinton has rebuked her former friend Ivanka Trump in a new interview.
‘She’s an adult. She can make the choices for herself. I mean, she’s 36. We are responsible for our choices,’ Clinton, 38, said of President Donald Trump’s daughter in an interview with The Guardian published on Saturday.
Clinton’s face hardened with the Guardian reporter asked whether Clinton had sympathy for Ivanka Trump for being ‘obliged to do her father’s grotesque bidding’, or considered her ‘complicit’.
‘In 2008 I was really proud to support my mum – but I disagreed with her fundamentally on a few things, particularly her then opposition to equal marriage rights for LGBTQ Americans. I never defended that position, because it wasn’t what I believed was the right thing to do,’ said Clinton.
Chelsea Clinton (left) has rebuked her former friend Ivanka Trump (right) in a new interview
Making an exception for 12-year-old Barron, Clinton said of the President’s children: ‘They’re adults who’ve made the decision to work in this administration.’
Clinton and Ivanka Trump were formerly friends, and could be seen cavorting together at swanky Manhattan events such as Glamour’s 2014 Woman of the Year awards at Carnegie Hall.
In 2015, Clinton praised Ivanka Trump in an interview with Vogue.
‘There’s nothing skin-deep about Ivanka,’ she said. ‘She’s always aware of everyone around her and ensuring that everyone is enjoying the moment.
‘It’s an awareness that in some ways reminds me of my dad, and his ability to increase the joy of the room.’
The respect was mutual, with Ivanka Trump in 2015 once tweeting an inspirational quote from Clinton and remarking ‘well said’.
Clinton and Ivanka Trump were formerly friends, and could be seen cavorting together at swanky Manhattan events such as Glamour’s 2014 Woman of the Year awards (above)
‘There’s nothing skin-deep about Ivanka,’ Clinton (right) once said about Ivanka (left)
Also in the interview, which was to promote her children’s book She Persisted Around The World, Clinton had strong words for the President himself, saying that he has degraded ‘what it means to be an American’.
Clinton was discussing why she now responds to attacks on Twitter when she spoke of a changing American culture that she believes was spearheaded by Trump.
‘I think the way that our president, and many people around him, have not only mainstreamed hate, but mainlined it, is so deeply dangerous,’ she said.
Clinton cited reports of rising bullying in schools and said she believed Trump’s behavior was partially to blame.
Chelsea Clinton has hit out at Donald Trump, saying that the president has degraded ‘what it means to be an American’
‘[There are] now thousands of instances in schools across America, where children are citing the president as they’re demeaning a little girl, or they’re chanting “Build a wall” in an attempt to demean and degrade brown children,’ she said.
‘So the reason, now, I no longer ignore it when people say hateful things to me on the street or on social media is, I think we have to shine a light.’
‘I think those of us who have platforms to do that have to say this is wrong and unacceptable, so we don’t normalize it but try to detoxify what has been unleashed.’
‘Because if we don’t, we leave a vacuum. And I think the darkness fills that vacuum.’
The mother-of-two also hit out at Trump’s administration, saying she did not believe he has hired many people who are ‘qualified to do the jobs’.
Clinton cited the a report of rising bullying in schools and said she believed Trump’s behavior was partially to blame
‘Not only do I want an administration that isn’t venal, corrupt, and focused on making life harder for millions of Americans, I also want a competent administration,’ she said.
‘So for me, the larger question is the collision of cruelty and incompetence and corruption that we see across the administration.’
While Clinton hopes the Democrats will be able to repair things from a ‘policy standpoint’, she believes there will be plenty more that needs to be fixed.
‘I think we will still then have work to do on repairing the tone in our country, the exposure of the real racist and sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic and antisemitic feeling which is on the right in our country,’ she said. ‘A rot that has been exposed.’
While Clinton hopes the Democrats will be able to repair things from a ‘policy standpoint’, she believes there will be plenty more that needs to be fixed with the ‘tone’ of the country
And when it comes to doing that work, Clinton doesn’t believe it’s enough to have tolerance.
‘I think one of the big mistakes was, for so long, we focused on tolerance, which I just think is insufficient,’ she said.
‘People tolerated casual misogyny, but casual misogyny is maybe the gateway drug.’
‘We have freedom of speech, which I do think is hugely important – and yet people thought you couldn’t dispute hateful things, because they’re like – well, it’s freedom of speech.’
‘Well, freedom of speech doesn’t mean there is freedom of consequences.’
‘Sure, you should not be in prison because you said something racist. But you also shouldn’t be able to run for president. And yet here we are.’