Ivanka Trump: 'I'm Not a Surrogate' for Donald Trump

Ivanka Trump appeared to distance herself from her father's presidential run Wednesday, saying hours before Wednesday's debate that she is not a surrogate for Donald Trump or a "campaign mastermind."

"No, I'm not a surrogate, I'm a daughter," Trump said at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit in Dana Point, California. Her role is a private one, she said, at a time when sexual misconduct allegations have dragged down Donald Trump's poll numbers nationwide and reporters.

Ivanka Trump's husband, Jared Kushner, has been one of Trump's closest advisers, and she, two of her brothers and her half sister all spoke at July's Republican National Convention, and they are sometimes asked about his run for the White House.

At Wednesday's summit, in fact, Trump was asked what her father said to her about the lewd 2005 "Access Hollywood" tape that recently surfaced showing him telling Billy Bush he can do anything he wants to women because he is famous.

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Ivanka Trump, who has already called the comments offensive, didn't say what Trump told her in private, but said she's "certainly not sheepish" about sharing her personal opinions with her father.

Nevertheless, her involvement with the Trump campaign hasn't only been private. Besides her RNC speech, she helped roll out Donald Trump's child care policy, an issue she has long cared about.

But she said Wednesday that issue is the exception, and that she dismisses the idea she is a surrogate.

"I don't think it appreciates the role that I'm playing as my father's daughter," she said, adding, "I love him very much, and I'm very, very proud of what he's accomplished, and he's been a great dad to me. But I'm not, I'm not the campaign mastermind, as people love to portray and speculate."

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Trump's comments didn't stop her from speaking on behalf of her father on whether he would accept the outcome of the election — "my father is in this to win it," she said, but believes he will accept either winning or losing.

Published 30 minutes ago | Updated 12 minutes ago