Donald Trump has claimed that as president he wanted to nominate his daughter Ivanka as America’s ambassador to the United Nations, but he chose to work on job creation and hired “millions of people”.
The 2024 Republican presidential nominee made the strange comments during a “fireside discussion” Friday night in Washington at the annual meeting of Moms for Liberty, a national nonprofit that has led efforts to get mentions of LGBTQ identity and structural racism out of classrooms. .
In a long, zigzagging and occasionally incoherent conversation, Trump bounced between topics such as his parents’ marriage to Scotland, the reality TV show The Apprentice, Elon Musk (“the super genius guy”), his debates against Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, and his upcoming race against rival Kamala Harris with whom he described as a “Marxist” and a “flawed person”.
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At one point, the 78-year-old reflected on the career of his daughter Ivanka, who served as a senior adviser in Trump’s first administration but is largely off the campaign trail this time around. She “made so much money” from her fashion brand, she claimed, but then gave it up to join politics, she says.
Trump recalled: “I said you would make a great ambassador to the United Nations, secretary of the United Nations — no one would compete with him. She may be my daughter but no one could have competed with her, her rat-rat-rat you know she has.
“He said, Dad, I don’t want to do that, I just want to help people get jobs. He was going around—no flashy work—but he was going to see Wal-Mart, Exxon, all these big companies hiring people, and he had hired millions of people during his stay. “
Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice, who sat on stage with Trump, did not question his extraordinary suggestions that Ivanka would have the experience to serve at the United Nations or that she would be responsible for hiring millions of people.
The court repeatedly emphasized the anti-trans agenda. Trump argued that transgender women should not be allowed to play women’s sports and stated that access to gender-affirming health care should be restricted. He repeated false right-wing talk that women’s Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif is trans; Khelif was actually assigned female at birth.
Trump made another wildly misleading claim: “But being transgender is incredible. Think about it. A kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with surgery. The school decides what happens to your kid, and you know a lot of these kids [sic] 15 years later say what the hell happened? Who did this to me? They say who did this to me? It’s incredible.”
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He added that school boards have become “like dictatorships” hostile to parents’ wishes, echoing conservative frustrations bubbling up in public meetings during the coronavirus pandemic. “I’m all for parental rights. I don’t even understand the concept of non-existence.”
Trump added: “Parents really love children… You have to give rights back to parents.”
Often unprompted, Trump also circled back to his favorite topic: immigration. He said of immigrants crossing the southern border illegally, “It’s crazy. Our country is poisoned. And your schools and your kids are suffering greatly because they’re going into classrooms and getting diseases and they don’t even speak English.”
The Republican nominee offered a lengthy and discursive defense of his recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery, which he has been criticized for turning into a campaign photo opportunity. Trump claimed he was there at the invitation of the families of 13 American service members killed in Afghanistan and they asked to take pictures with him. A listener yelled, “Thank you for honoring our veterans, Mr. President!”
Trump repeatedly and bitterly criticized Biden and Harris over the withdrawal from Afghanistan. “In my opinion, Biden killed these people,” he said, while railing against an “awakening” in the military.
The conversation also gave Trump a rare platform to reflect on his life and career. He told the audience that his mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was from Scotland. “Do you know that some of the greatest, smartest, most brilliant leaders come from Scotland? Or at least their parents came from Scotland. Scotland was very successful in this country.
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He came to the United States, he continued, and met his father, Fred. “They fell in love. They got married and they were married for six and a half decades. A long time. I said, ‘Pop, I can’t beat you.’ Trump is now in his third marriage.
The former president had entered the hotel ballroom, as he does at signing events, to a standing ovation and chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” as Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA blared from the speakers.
Trump was trying to drum up support and enthusiasm among much of his base. Most of Moms for Liberty’s more than 130,000 members are conservatives who agree with her that parents should have more say in public education and that racial equity programs and transgender accommodations should not be part of schools.
Yet Trump also risks alienating some moderate voters, many of whom view Moms for Liberty as extreme. In recent months, a series of embarrassing scandals and a disappointing local election have called Moms for Liberty’s influence into question.
The group has also expressed support for Project 2025, a radical Republican presidential campaign from which Trump has repeatedly tried to distance himself. Moms for Liberty serves on Project 2025’s advisory board, and the author of the document’s education chapter taught a “strategy session” at the group’s meeting.
Republican activist Paula Steiner of Vienna, Virginia, said in an interview that Trump is the one “standing in the way” of new attacks on parents’ rights. “Tim Walz and Kamala Harris are doing everything they can to make America the most liberal country we’ve seen,” he added. “They go outside of England [and] other European countries.“
