Fox News
Ivanka Trump on "Fox & Friends."
Ivanka Trump said on Monday she was surprised by the negative backlash to President Donald Trump's agenda and even his own family.In an interview on "Fox and Friends," Trump's daughter, who has taken a role as an assistant to her father, talked about the "viciousness" she has seen.
"There is a level of viciousness that I was not expecting," Trump said. "I was not expecting the intensity of this experience. But this isn't supposed to be easy. My father and this administration intends to be transformative. And we want to do big, bold things."
Ivanka Trump said that despite the "intensity" of the media coverage, the Trump administration is really focused on "why the American people elected Donald Trump as their president" and implementing his plans for the country.
Critics immediately pointed out that Trump himself was a ruthless campaigner not afraid to level ad-hominem attacks against the family members of political opponents.
Among other incidents, last year, the then-Republican presidential candidate assailed Democratic National Convention speaker Khizr Khan, questioning whether his wife, Ghazala, was permitted to speak after she stood silently onstage at the DNC beside her husband during his speech. Trump also suggested he would "spill the beans" on Heidi Cruz, Sen. Ted Cruz's wife, and implied that Cruz's father conspired to kill President John F. Kennedy.
Ivanka Trump herself has been criticized for enabling her father's agenda, despite disagreeing with him on issues like climate change and LGBT protections.
She was booed by a German crowd when she described her father as a champion for women, while shows like "Saturday Night Live" have satirized her role in the White House, saying she was "complicit" in the president's agenda.