Chelsea Clinton has spoken about why she no longer counts Ivanka Trump as a friend, saying that she has “no interest in being friends with someone” who is “actively taking part in this administration’s everyday collision of cruelty and incompetence”.
On Thursday evening, Clinton appeared on American talk show Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.
During her appearance on the show, the 40-year-old was questioned by Cohen about her relationship with the eldest of the US president’s two daughters, with the presenter saying that the pair were previously described as “friendly, or friends”.
“What happened to that friendship and are you in touch at all? How would you characterise it?” Cohen asked.
In response, Clinton said that it has been several years since she was last in contact with Trump.
“I’ve not spoken to her since 2016,” Clinton said. “I have no interest in being friends with someone who is not only complicit but actively taking part in this administration’s everyday collision of cruelty and incompetence. So that’s the answer.”
Delving further into the women’s former friendship, Cohen asked Clinton whether they communicated with each other at all during the 2016 presidential campaign, when Clinton’s mother, Hillary Clinton, went up against Trump’s father, Donald Trump.
“We were in touch at the beginning of the campaign,” Clinton said.
“But it’s just really hard when there’s someone who’s actively embracing their candidate – whether it’s their father or not – who is trafficking in racism and sexism and antisemitism and Islamophobia and homophobia and transphobia and conspiracy theories and lies and is so fundamentally corrupt.”
Clinton added that while Trump and her father are not “the same by any standard”, she believes her former friend is “more than complicit as anyone who has worked for him for so long, by definition is”.
“I don’t want to be friends with someone like that,” she concluded.
Clinton has previously spoken highly of Trump, such as in a 2015 interview published by Vogue.
“She’s always aware of everyone around her and ensuring that everyone is enjoying the moment,” Clinton said of her former friend at the time.
“It’s an awareness that in some ways reminds me of my dad, and his ability to increase the joy of the room. There’s nothing skin-deep about Ivanka. And I think that’s a real tribute to her because certainly anyone as gorgeous as she is could have probably gone quite far being skin-deep.”
