Introduction

Some have suggested that President Trump has elevated his daughter Ivanka Trump to a position of power inside the White House because of her “loyalty” to him, but based on the people she chose to surround herself with just prior to Trump taking office, her loyalty to her father seems suspect.
Multiple news sources reported that in January, shortly before Donald Trump was inaugurated as President, Ivanka Trump had a “secret dinner party” that was organized by her advisor Dina Powell. The guest list seems to not include a single person who supported her father during the election. Instead the list included people who didn’t merely support her father’s opponent Hillary Clinton during the election, but who actively and publicly insulted, demeaned, criticized and attacked her father both before and after his election.
Given Ivanka’s role in what The Populist has referred to as The Coup against the ideas that Donald Trump promised his supporters he believed and Ivanka’s role setting policy in the administration, it’s disturbing. Ivanka used the occasion not merely to have dinner with but to seek advice from the Trump haters. It also helps explain headlines like “Ivanka Trump influenced my father to launch Syria strikes, reveals brother Eric.”
Why would Ivanka Trump surround herself with a group of people who clearly loathe her father, the ideas he ran on and his supporters? Why seek counsel from those who worked to defeat and humiliate Donald Trump? As the Los Angeles Time reported:
It looks like Ivanka is trying to regain the respect of the Democrats and independents with whom she socialized for much of her adult life. People working with her and her husband have leaked reports about how they are persuading the president not to revoke protection for the LGBT community or to completely defund Planned Parenthood.
During the transition, she helped bring former vice president and environmental activist Al Gore to Trump Tower to brief her father, a skeptic about climate change, and floated the idea of becoming a climate czar within the administration. She is now focused on child care and maternity leave, an issue historically championed by Democrats.
“She is very well-versed in the issues, thoughtful and sincere,” said Sheila Marcelo, the chief executive of Care.com, who attended a dinner party in January at the home of Wendi Deng at which Ivanka Trump solicited ideas from business executives, many of whom had been fundraising for Hillary Clinton during the campaign.