Scarlett Johansson Calls Ivanka Trump ‘Cowardly’ After CBS Interview
Scarlett Johansson is “disappointed” by Ivanka Trump and the role President Trump’s daughter is playing in his administration.
In an interview with Arianna Huffington at the Women in the World Summit in New York on Thursday, the Ghost in the Shell star admitted she’s “been thinking a lot about Ivanka Trump … very recently.” Johansson — who recently impersonated Ivanka on Saturday Night Live — brought up the first daughter’s interview this week on CBS This Morning.
“It was kind of baffling, I have to say; it was really baffling,” Johansson stated. “You can’t have it both ways, right? If you take a job as a public advocate, then you must advocate publicly. … Yesterday, she said something that I found particularly disappointing, which is that she felt that the greatest change she was going to make … would be behind closed doors, and nobody would actually know she made this change.”
Johansson was referencing part of Ivanka’s interview in which she dismissed the idea that she was “complicit,” telling CBS’s Gayle King that she “speaks up frequently” to her father. “I don’t think that it will make me a more effective advocate to constantly articulate every issue publicly where I disagree,” Ivanka explained. “But I think most of the impact I have, over time, most people will not actually know about.”
Johansson quipped, “I thought to myself, ‘Well, that’s empowering!’”
She added, “How old-fashioned? This idea that behind a great man is a great woman. What about being in front of that person, or next to that person? It is such an old-fashioned concept that to be this powerful woman, you know, you can’t appear to be concerned, that someone is going to think that you are b****y or a powerful woman, you know. They get concerned with this idea that they are going to be seen in this unforgiving light and, you know, screw that. It is so old-fashioned, and it is so uninspired and actually really cowardly.”
Both Scarlett and Ivanka grew up in New York City and have met “several times.” The actress acknowledged the weird position Ivanka must be in as a daughter.
“I can’t imagine how complicated it must be to see your parent in this sudden position that he is in and know, deep down, that it is a position that he never really wanted,” Johansson said. “Now he is in this position, and he finds himself there, and I think it must be — as a daughter and someone that looks up to a parental figure like that — it must be a unique and strange thing, but she has an opportunity to really make a big impact just by being vocal.”
Johansson continued, “I have met her several times in the past, and many years ago, and we both grew up in New York, and we have some friends in common. And she is a very well-spoken and smart, intelligent woman, and I think engaging … but the whole situation baffles me.”
We have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of ScarJo on SNL.
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