• Ivanka Trump on Thursday said she did not believe the press is the “enemy of the people,” breaking with public statements made by her father regarding the media.
  • Trump said she believes there have been stories about her that are false but still wouldn’t go as far as saying the press is the “enemy.”
  • President Donald Trump has repeatedly described the media as the “enemy of the American people.”

Ivanka Trump on Thursday said she did not believe the press is the “enemy of the people,” going against public statements made by her father regarding the media.

“No, I do not feel that the media is the enemy of the people,” she said at an event hosted by the news website Axios.

Trump, the eldest daughter of the president and an assistant to him, said she believes there have been stories about her that are false but wouldn’t go as far as saying the press is the “enemy.”

President Donald Trump has repeatedly described the press in such terms.

On Sunday, for example, he caused a firestorm when he tweeted about a meeting he had with the publisher of The New York Times.

"Had a very good and interesting meeting at the White House with A.G. Sulzberger, Publisher of the New York Times," he wrote. "Spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, 'Enemy of the People.' Sad!"

The president has also habitually lambasted the press at his rallies. Some of his supporters made headlines at his latest rally after heckling CNN's Jim Acosta at an event in Tampa, Florida.

The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, on Wednesday addressed the incident, saying the Trump administration supports a free press. But she went on to bash the media for what she described as putting lives in danger by reporting on classified intelligence. In the process, she cited an urban myth about reporting on Osama bin Laden in the 1990s.

Ivanka Trump on Thursday also seemed to distance herself from the president on the issue of immigration, saying the recent news of family separations at the US-Mexico border was "a low point" for her.

"I felt very strongly about that, and I am very vehemently against family separation and the separation of parents and children, so I would agree with that sentiment," she said. "Immigration is incredibly complex as a topic. Illegal immigration is incredibly complicated."

She added that she is the daughter of an immigrant - her mother, Ivana Trump, is from the Czech Republic - and that she is sympathetic to these issues. But she made clear she believes immigration laws should be upheld.

"We are a country of laws," Ivanka Trump said, adding: "We have to be very careful about incentivizing behavior that puts children at risk of being trafficked, at risk of entering this country with coyotes or making an incredibly dangerous journey alone. These are not easy issues; these are incredibly difficult issues. And like the rest of the country, I experienced them in a very emotional way."

The Trump administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy saw thousands of migrant families separated at the US-Mexico border in recent months, sparking widespread public outcry. Under mounting pressure, the president signed an executive order in June designed to keep families together. Since then, thousands of families have been reunified, though hundreds of children are still in government custody.