Donald Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka Trump is finally, officially, a Republican, as she was quoted by The New York Times in a Monday interview as saying:
"I am a proud Trump Republican."
The White House aide opened up that she officially made the switch to Republican from Democrat on 22 October 2018, enabling her to vote for her father in New York’s GOP primary.
“I believe he’s broadened the reach of the Republican Party, which is really important to me,” Ivanka Trump was quoted as saying.
As she touched upon her political transformation, the US President’s daughter said she was not “going to speculate” on how others perceived her:
“In areas outside of my portfolio, I tend to agree more with the more conservative viewpoint more often than where the Democrats are today. No one person or party has a monopoly on good ideas.”
Twitter users weighed in on the news, with opponents of Donald Trump taking the chance to lash out at the US President’s daughter.
Some users made sarcastic comments regarding the “revelation”.
Some were quick to speculate on what the statement by Ivanka Trump might be hinting at.
Prior to their political shift, Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, also a White House aide, were registered Democrats who donated to Democratic politicians in their home state New York. The two did not vote in the 2016 primary election, having missed the October 2015 deadline to register as Republicans.
Jared Kushner, who also recently registered as a Republican, was cited by The New York Times as confiding to reporters at a campaign briefing in December 2019:
"I was not a Republican… Now I'm a Republican. I think the Republican Party is growing now that people like me feel comfortable being part of it.”
The couple are currently in campaign mode ahead of the elections in November, with Ivanka Trump headlining a spate of fundraising events for her father, and speaking out following his acquittal in the Democrat-launched impeachment process against him.
Ivanka Trump went on Twitter to urge the country to move forward "together" after the Republican-controlled Senate voted to acquit Trump on both articles of impeachment that he faced.