Columnist rips Ivanka Trump for her fake 'family values'

Ivanka Trump's interview with CBS's "Face the Nation," revealed serious flaws in her claim of being pro-family, according to Washington Post columnist James Downie.

“It is not acceptable that, in America today, 1 in 4 women go back to work two weeks after having a child,” she said.

Yet, the bill that the first daughter seems to prefer is one that would give families nothing more than a loan of up to $5,000 to cover their time off with their new child. To make matters worse, the program would be paid for by the child tax credit. So much for putting children and families first.

Ms. Trump credited over two years of "building coalitions" to get the policy proposed in the U.S. Senate. The White House claimed that the program would give 12 weeks of guaranteed paid family leave.

"In fact, the new parental leave benefits for government employees closely resemble those in the FAMILY Act, proposed by Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-CT) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), which would provide all workers with 12 weeks of paid leave," reported The Times.

It seems Ms. Trump gave up on that 12-week plan and decided to settle for nothing more than a "loan."

“The way I look at it is that the debate had grown stale,” Trump said in the CBS interview. “If we want to deliver relief to working parents who need this, we need to come up with fresh, new solutions. So we’ve been working with Republicans, with Democrats on proposing alternatives.”

Downie called out Ms. Trump's contradictions between what she said she wanted and what she's now trying to claim credit for. Ironically, Trump's own company had horrific family leave policies.

“The fourth person I hired was pregnant when I hired her. So we put a policy in place for her," said Ms. Trump.

Downie cited a Facebook post by Trump's former chief marketing officer Marissa Kraxberger, which said Ivanka Trump's employees were forced to fight "long and hard to get her to finally agree to 8 weeks paid maternity leave.” She went on to explain that not everyone has the means to be able to return to work right away and hire someone else to raise their child.

"And borrowing against a future child tax credit or retirement savings is easy for the wealthy," The Times continued, citing Trump's plan. "But for most Americans that’s a real sacrifice to make to receive a fraction of the benefits countless other countries have implemented with ease."

Though Downie did give her "some minimal credit" for getting some form of family leave policy to move forward.

"Perhaps she can use this victory to encourage other parts of her father’s administration to show some more compassion for families?" he hoped.

While Ms. Trump has been opposed to her father separating children from their parents and putting them in cages, she's been silent as children continue to die in Border Patrol custody.

“Immigration is not part of my portfolio,” Trump used her cop-out in the CBS interview.

Read Downie's full editorial at The Washington Post.