First Daughter Ivanka Trump is going to get some flak for this paragraph in her new book, Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success:
During extremely high-capacity times, like during the campaign, I went into survival mode: I worked and I was with my family; I didn’t do much else. Honestly, I wasn’t treating myself to a massage or making much time for self-care. I wish I could have awoken early to meditate for twenty minutes and I would have loved to catch up with the friends I hadn’t seen in three months, but there just wasn’t enough time in the day. And sometimes that happens.
.. Hillary Clinton, too, famously complained that she and her husband were “dead broke” when they left the White House, ignoring the millions they subsequently made trading off of their name and proximity to power.
.. While you may seem wealthy to the average American, you spend an inordinate amount of time asking even richer people for donations.
.. Though “check your privilege” may be an insufferable sneer usually aimed at delegitimizing arguments with which the sneerer disagrees, the phrase’s kinder cousin, “Count your blessings,” is always wise advice.
.. Legendary football coach Lou Holtz once advised, “Never tell your problems to anyone. . . . 20 percent don’t care and the other 80 percent are glad you have them.” That’s probably a cynical assessment, but generally good advice — particularly if you’re lucky enough to reach the halls of power.
Ivanka Trump, you have one job. Time to do it.
You might think, as Jennifer Senior observed in the Times, that such exposure might have expanded Trump’s understanding of the needs of, say, women who work because they must, not because it lets them architect “a full, multidimensional life.”
Instead, Trump treats the campaign as part of her journey of self-actualization: “I have grown tremendously as a person and the experience has been life changing.” Still, so demanding were the rigors of the campaign that she “wasn’t treating myself to a massage or making much time for self-care.”
The Global Effort to Flatter Ivanka
the achingly obvious oddity of deciding that Trump, whose experience on the public stage largely consists of marketing her clothing and jewelry lines, and her efforts to get her father, Donald Trump, elected, was qualified to sit between Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, and Chrystia Freeland, the Foreign Minister of Canada.
.. maybe the make-believe about Ivanka coming up with world-changing ideas is harmless, if it means that her father will look kindly on the World Bank—although a report, this week, in the Washington Post about the conditions in a Chinese factory run by the contractor who makes her brand’s clothes (extremely low wages and long hours) does not quite fit into the picture.
.. He’s been a tremendous champion of supporting families and enabling them to thrive in the new reality of a duelling—”
When asked, more specifically, how she advised him, she said, “It’s been an ongoing discussion I’ve had with my father most of my adult life, and we’re very aligned in many, many areas. And that’s why he’s encouraged me to fully lean into this opportunity and come into the White House and be by his side.” The implication was that nepotism was one of her father’s virtues, and proof of his good character.
.. when NBC News asked her about admitting Syrian refugees to the United States, she said that it should be “part of the discussion, but that’s not going to be enough in and of itself.” The resulting headlines suggested that this constituted a break with her father. But how, exactly? Refugees are “part of the discussion” when he rails against them; and “not going to be enough” could just as easily refer to what the President sees as the need for “extreme vetting,” or letting in only Christians. She referred, for a second time, to the areas “in which I’m fully aligned with my father—which are many.” “Many” could mean anything,
.. Foreign countries and companies might appreciate the idea that they can more easily handle Donald Trump if they lavish his daughter with attention; this is a common enough practice when dealing with authoritarian governments.
Workers endured long hours, low pay at Chinese factory used by Ivanka Trump’s clothing-maker
Workers at a factory in China used by the company that makes clothing for Ivanka Trump’s fashion line and other brands worked nearly 60 hours a week to earn wages of little more than $62 a week, according to a factory audit released Monday.
.. contractor, G-III Apparel Group, which has held the exclusive license to make the Ivanka Trump brand’s $158 dresses, $79 blouses
.. Its release also comes as the president’s daughter has sought to cast herself as both a champion of workplace issues and a defender of her father’s “buy American, hire American” agenda. Trump, whose book “Women Who Work” debuts next week, was in Germany on Tuesday for public discussions about global entrepreneurship and empowerment.
.. Chinese factories are by far the dominant suppliers for Ivanka clothes, though G-III also works with manufacturers across Vietnam, Bangladesh and South America. G-III factories overseas have shipped more than 110 tons of Ivanka-brand blouses, skirts, dresses and other garments to the United States since October, shipping data shows.
.. The clothing line licensed by President Trump’s private business is also almost entirely made in foreign factories.
.. The factory’s workers made between 1,879 and 2,088 yuan a month, or roughly $255 to $283, which would be below minimum wage in some parts of China.
.. Fewer than a third of the factory’s workers were offered legally mandated coverage under China’s “social insurance” benefits, including a pension and medical, maternity, unemployment and work-related injury insurance, inspectors found.
.. But it did not commit to increasing worker pay and at times pushed back against recommendations that could improve workplace safety.
.. sales of Trump’s brand have boomed in the months since her father began his pursuit of the White House. Net sales for her clothing collection soared by $17.9 million in the year that ended Jan. 31, G-III data shows.