Ivanka Trump Breaks Lengthy Silence on Leaked 2005 Video of Her Father

Ivanka Trump has been a loyal and diligent worker in her father’s effort to win the White House.

But the 34-year-old wife and mother had to pause briefly when a 2005 video showed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump making vulgar comments about women. For more than a week, she had no reaction to the video.

Then, Monday, she released a statement in an interview with Fast Company.

“My father’s comments were clearly inappropriate and offensive, and I’m glad that he acknowledged this fact with an immediate apology to my family and the American people,” she said in a statement.

The statement mirrored words of Trump’s wife, Melania, who issued a statement the day after the video surfaced.

“The words my husband used are unacceptable and offensive to me,” Melania Trump’s statement said. “This does not represent the man that I know. He has the heart and mind of a leader.”

“I hope people will accept his apology, as I have, and focus on the important issues facing our nation and the world,” the statement concluded.

In the Fast Company interview, Ivanka Trump said that despite an onslaught of allegations claiming her father groped or was otherwise inappropriate with women, she stands by his denials that the accusers are wrong.

“The greatest comfort I have is the fact that I know my father,” she said.

”Most of the people who write about him don’t. I do. So that gives me an ability to shrug off the things that I read about him that are wrong,” she added.

Ivanka Trump is not only in the spotlight as the leading female in the Trump entourage, but she is also an entrepreneur who must market herself to America.

“She wants to be the brand of glamorous millennials,” Donald Trump critic Jennifer Rubin commented to Fast Company. “But what young woman wants to be reminded every time she puts on a pair of Ivanka shoes of her father boasting about sexual assault?”

However, for all of Ivanka Trump’s business savvy, nothing has broken the bonds of family.

“Ivanka’s brand has always been built on a really carefully balancing act,” says Rajiv Menon, a cultural analyst with the branding consultancy TruthCo. “She’s really demonstrated a sense of drive, a sense of ingenuity, and really established something strong with her apparel brand and larger public presence. But with all of that, she’s never really lost her sense of family loyalty.”

“And as the campaign has continued, she’s maintained that balancing act — but as the campaign has also mutated and turned into what we see now with the tape that was released … that balancing act becomes a lot more precarious. It becomes much more of a liability for her.”

However, the public understands that family comes first.

“Any child or parent is going to defend their parent or their child,” said leadership consultant Gregg Ward. “That’s her right.”

In fact, were she to turn on her father, it might backfire.

“She would lose points if she didn’t stand by her father,” said Larry Chiagouris, a marketing professor at Pace University. (For more from the author of “Ivanka Trump Breaks Lengthy Silence on Leaked 2005 Video of Her Father” please click HERE)

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