WASHINGTON _ Ivanka Trump says Tuesday's announcement that House Democrats will bring articles of impeachment against her father was "a predetermined outcome" and she is keeping her focus on advancing the White House agenda, which includes securing a vote on a trade deal with Mexico and Canada.
Within minutes of Democrats revealing two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump _ abuse of power and obstruction of Congress _ House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a news conference about House Democrats reaching a compromise with the White House on the trade deal.
"Do you think that's a coincidence?" the president's daughter said in an interview with McClatchy about the back-to-back announcements. "We focus on that which we can control. This was a predetermined outcome for the Democrats. What we can control is the work we're doing to advance the American people's agenda, creating jobs, creating a climate for growth, and that's where our energies are focused," she said.
"So, I can only speak to our priorities. But I think the Democrats' priorities are quite clear," said Ivanka Trump, who is a senior adviser to the president.
The White House was striving on Tuesday not to let the Democrats' impeachment announcement overshadow their victory on trade. A trade deal with Mexico and Canada would be President Trump's biggest legislative accomplishment since the 2017 GOP tax cuts.
"What's going on on the Hill on impeachment doesn't drive us into a bunker, doesn't send us into hiding, doesn't cut us off or restrict us from engaging on behalf of the president's agenda regularly on the Hill, through the executive branch and with the public, and we're going to continue doing that very aggressively," Eric Ueland, legislative affairs director to the president, told McClatchy.
"The fact that there's a partisan exercise underway that is flawed on the facts and flawed on the process and distracts from the ability of Congress to produce even more results on behalf of the American people and the president's agenda is a shame, but we're going to be engaged every way, every day that we can on behalf of his agenda," he said.
"And that includes working through, around, behind, over, above this impeachment storm that they continue to seed out there on the Hill," Ueland said.
The White House has been saying for weeks that a Democratic obsession with impeachment was keeping the trade deal from being passed in the House.
Ueland said Tuesday: "Congress is often a split-screen enterprise, where there are extraordinary items going on at the same time more regular order items are unfolding. It's not the first time this administration has faced one of those moments."
Ivanka Trump sought to drive home that point on Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning when she spoke at a gathering of Republican lawmakers while Democrats were announcing articles of impeachment.
She said she spoke to them about permanent reauthorization of funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which she said the administration is "cautiously optimistic" about, paid family leave and the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on trade.
"USMCA is an unbelievably important trade deal, and I can't overstate that," Ivanka Trump said in an interview shortly after Pelosi's news conference. "And it has sat there collecting dust for roughly a year. So the commitment to move this forward for a vote, which the American people want, is very significant."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Tuesday afternoon said the Senate would not take up the trade agreement before the conclusion of a Senate impeachment trial, which would not happen before the new year.
Some Republicans, such as Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, have voiced concern that Trump's trade deal is a giveaway to Democrats. "I'm going to want some assurance that he hasn't given away the store," he told reporters on Monday.
Ueland insisted that the White House wasn't appeasing Democrats at the expense of the core of the deal the president negotiated.
"So it's really not a giveaway at all. Again, USMCA reflects the president's agenda in toto," he said. "So not only do we not believe we gave away the store to Nancy Pelosi, we believe that on a very rational bipartisan basis, we've actually made a significant step forward on behalf of the president's priorities in this trade deal."
He said that the compromise with Democrats on labor enforcement provisions is only a portion of what is in the voluminous document and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will brief members of Congress. Lighthizer and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, went to Mexico this week to discuss the trade deal.
"We understand that as we work through explanations to members, they have questions, they have concerns, they have priorities. Ambassador Lighthizer will be back, we will walk through all the specifics, but as I said, these are the president's priorities that the speaker and congressional Democrats have agreed to, and not the other way around," Ueland said.
