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Ivanka Trump addresses father at RNC: ‘I love you for being real’

Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s elder daughter and senior adviser, used her speech at the Republican National Convention Thursday to try to humanize her father, and recast him as a Washington outsider and unapologetic “warrior” for the “forgotten men and women of this country.”

"Tonight, I stand before you as the proud daughter of the people’s president," Ivanka Trump said in a live speech from the South Lawn of the White House. “Donald Trump did not come to Washington to win praise from the Beltway elites. Donald Trump came to Washington for one reason, and one reason alone: To make America great again.”

“He is so unapologetic about his beliefs that he has caused me and countless Americans to take a hard look at our own convictions, and ask ourselves: What do we stand for?” she added. “What kind of America do we want to leave for our children?”

Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, played key roles in Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and the pair moved their family from New York to Washington, D.C., to take up official posts in the White House.

After they moved in, she told the convention that her son “promptly built grandpa a Lego replica of the White House.” The president, Ivanka said, “still displays it on the mantel in the Oval Office and shows it to world leaders, just so they know he has the greatest grandchildren on earth.” (Oddly, Ivanka Trump once told a similar story about herself building a Lego version Trump Tower for her father, according to the upcoming book, "American Oligarchs." According to the book’s author, the story was “made up.”)

Ivanka Trump speaks to introduce President Donald Trump from the South Lawn of the White House on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020, in Washington. (Evan Vucci/AP)
Ivanka Trump introduces President Trump on the South Lawn of the White House on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention, Aug. 27, 2020, in Washington. (Evan Vucci/AP)

Ivanka Trump was the last of Trump’s four adult children to speak at the four-day convention. Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Tiffany Trump delivered speeches earlier in the week.

Unlike her siblings, Ivanka Trump, for the part, did not attack her father’s general election opponent, Joe Biden, or the news media.

Instead, she relayed personal interactions she’s had with her father "moments that I wish every American could see."

Among them: President Trump’s response to the coronavirus, which has left more than 180,000 Americans dead and nearly 6 million infected in the U.S., according to the latest tracking data from Johns Hopkins University.

“I’ve been with my father and seen the pain in his eyes when he receives updates on the lives that have been stolen by this plague,” Ivanka Trump said. “I have witnessed him make some of the most difficult decisions of his life. I sat with him in the Oval Office as he stopped travel to Europe.”

Ivanka Trump, who has styled herself as a champion for women’s rights inside the White House, said her father has delivered on promises she made on his behalf at the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland.

"Four years ago in Cleveland, I said that President Trump would deliver for working women," Ivanka Trump said. "Last year, over 70 percent of all new jobs were secured by women."

But she soon returned to the “Washington outsider” narrative.

"For the first time in a long time, we have a president who has called out Washington’s hypocrisy, and they hate him for it," she said. "Dad, people attack you for being unconventional, but I love you for being real, and I respect you for being effective."

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