Ivanka Trump appeared to disagree with her father Donald in a rare break within the Trump White House family. The First Daughter gave a wide-ranging, 25-minute interview that touched on the ongoing impeachment crisis. She defended her father against the impeachment investigation but called the identity of the whistleblower “not particularly relevant.”
This latter remark contradicts Donald Trump’s own position on the whistleblower.
In the interview, Ms Trump dismissed speculation over the identity of the whistleblower who sparked the impeachment inquiry into her father.
The First Daughter said: “The whistleblower shouldn’t be a substantive part of the conversation. They didn’t have firsthand information.”
Their identity was “not particularly relevant aside from what the motivation behind all of this was”.
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However, the President himself has called for the person to be named.
He has repeatedly urged the media to publicly name the whistleblower who complained about his phone call to the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky earlier this year.
Her comments also open up a rift with her brother, Donald Trump Junior, who claimed to have published the name of the alleged anonymous whistleblower on Wednesday.
Donald Trump Jr broke strict conventions for protecting officials who reveal wrongdoing in government when he tweeted out the name.
Later in the interview, the President’s daughter also compared her father to Abraham Lincoln.
She said: “Abraham Lincoln was famously, even within his own Cabinet, surrounded by people who were former political adversaries.”
Ms Trump also added that her father’s presidency had seen “Americans prospering like never before”.