Donald Trump’s first political gaffe came the day that he announced his candidacy when he said the following about Mexican immigrants: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
More than a year later the GOP nominee’s daughter, Ivanka, has addressed the heavily criticized comments. Ms. Trump’s clarification came as part of her deposition in a legal dispute sparked by her father’s controversial speech. After hearing it celebrity chef Geoffrey Zakarian pulled out of a restaurant lease at a Trump property in Washington, D.C. The legal proceedings are meant to determine whether or not he was justified in doing so.
It was reported last year by New York magazine that Ivanka Trump had drafted a statement clarifying Donald Trump’s comments about Mexico, but she refused to comment at the time. “I had suggested a clarification because I felt that his comments were being misconstrued,” BuzzFeed reports she said in her deposition. She added that she never asked her father for a retraction, but she “felt that it was very important that he clarified.”
She said that his comments were “mischaracterized as being a categorical attack on Hispanics,” and that the media had spun it into a statement “about Hispanic people generally, as opposed to illegal immigrants.” Trump said that she had drafted a statement to clarify what her father had said, but it was never used and she doesn’t still have it.
In Donald Trump’s own deposition he said that he doesn’t remember having a conversation with his daughter about clarifying the comments.
Trump’s campaign could not immediately be reached for comment.
