FIRST DEMOCRAT: Ivanka Secretly Met With Planned Parenthood President In January

By: Ben Shapiro

According to The Daily Beast, First Daughter Ivanka Trump secretly met with Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards in January. The story does not make clear whether the meeting took place before or after Trump’s inauguration. Ivanka is President Trump’s most trusted advisor along with her husband, Jared Kushner, and a moving force behind much of the action in his administration.

The Beast reports:

“The purpose of the meeting, from Cecile’s point of view, was to make sure that Ivanka fully understood what Planned Parenthood does, how it is funded, and why it would be a terrible idea for Planned Parenthood to be removed from being able to see Medicaid patients,” said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “The main thing that Cecile Richards was doing was explaining that the money doesn’t actually go to abortions—we get reimbursed the same way a hospital does. We were clearing up misinformation about how this works.”

Richards now says that Ivanka is part of the problem, since she hasn’t openly sounded off on her father’s opposition to funding Planned Parenthood; she stated that “Anyone who works in this White House is responsible for addressing why women are in the crosshairs of basically every single policy we’ve seen in this administration.”

It’s worth noting that just yesterday, Ivanka told Gayle King of CBS This Morning that she sounds off against her father’s policies all the time – behind closed doors. “I would say not to conflate lack of public denouncement with silence,” she explained.

So, is Ivanka still stumping for Planned Parenthood behind closed doors? Trump has made clear that he’s willing to use Planned Parenthood as a cudgel to motivate Republicans. But he’s also spent months talking about all the good non-abortion work Planned Parenthood does, which accounts for a minute fraction of their revenue. Trump may have shifted his position for politics, but Ivanka likely hasn’t. She’s a career leftist on a variety of issues from climate change to abortion to same-sex marriage. Her speech at the Republican National Convention was an ode to government-sponsored child care. As Stephen Miller of Heat Street pointed out:

Ivanka has donated thousands of dollars to prominent Democrat candidates including Harry Reid, Andrew Cuomo, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Kirsten Gillibrand, Gavin Newsom, Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker, Eliot Spitzer, Hillary Clinton’s Senate and 2008 Presidential campaigns, and just recently to new Democrat star Senator Kamala Harris. In the interest of fairness, she did donate to John McCain and Romney/Ryan 2012, but according to sources, contributions to Republicans make up less than 10% of her overall donations. Ivanka was not even able to vote for her father in the GOP primary, as she did not switch her party affiliation by the deadline.

Ivanka is the person closest to Trump’s heart in his administration – an administration filled with people with little political background but who compete to demonstrate their loyalty to the president. Ivanka will not be trumped in this regard. That means she may have her father’s ear, even on issues upon which they disagree. And that’s not a good thing.