Senior White House adviser and first daughter Ivanka Trump "desperately wants to lower expectations" of what she can achieve within her father's administration, according to a report in Politico this week.
When Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner were appointed high-profile roles in Donald Trump's team at the beginning of this year, progressive commentators hoped they would have a moderating influence on the wild-card president.
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Both former Democrat donors, the couple are socially liberal and Ivanka has frequently positioned herself as a women's rights advocate.
But, in a presidential tenure where decisions are fired out in a fast and erratic scatter spray, it seems the 35-year-old entrepreneur has less influence than many would hope.
Politico reports that Ivanka was "blindsided" by her father's declaration last week that he wanted to ban transgender people from serving in the military.
The first she learned about the move, sources say, is when she checked her phone and read the series of tweets her dad posted on the issue.
She was surprised, unnamed White House officials report, since her father has previously been supportive of gay rights.
His plan, which sparked an immediate backlash, comes less than a month after Ivanka herself tweeted during Pride Month: "I am proud to support my LGBTQ friends and the LGBTQ Americans who have made immense contributions to our society and economy."
As Ivanka increasingly fields off dismay over her father's decisions, she is seeking to downplay her reach within a large, unwieldy and fast-changing administration.
"As Ivanka Trump runs up against some of limits of her power in the White House, she appears to be narrowing her objectives—and disappointing those progressives who had pinned their hopes on the president’s family members exerting more of a moderating influence on his presidency," reports Politico.
While some critics say there is no point in Ivanka holding a White House role if she is not able to exert power, others claim it's unfair to expect her to sway her father's direction on environmental concerns, childcare issues and reproductive rights in such a short amount of time.
"She’s in there doing what she can," says R. Couri Hay, a publicist and a long-time friend of the Trump family. "It’s unrealistic, unfair and cruel to expect her to change climate policy and pre-K [kindergarten] and women’s issues in six months."
Sources say Ivanka is well aware of the criticism levied at her, and that she's keen to prove her worth by bringing home a concrete win on policies that would bring financial relief to working families burdened by the cost of child care.
At the same time, she is "sometimes frustrated by the misunderstanding of the limits of her power," Politico says.
"From her newly renovated, all-white office in the West Wing, Ivanka Trump often fields messages from progressive friends pushing her to speak out on their pet issues," it reports. "Actor Leonardo DiCaprio messaged her ahead of the climate decision, begging her to do more to intervene."
Only time will tell whether she can use her moderating voice to good effect - or if she will continue to toe the Trump party line.
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