Donald Trump, whose support among women is historically low, will outline tonight his childcare and maternity leave policy, partially designed by his daughter Ivanka.
Trump’s plan is to let parents deduct child-care expenses from their income tax, according to a policy memo obtained by The Washington Post. The deduction would not be allowed for couples earning more than $500,000 or individuals earning more than $250,000, and would be capped at the “average cost of care” in the state. The policy would also include additional deductions and rebates as well as six-weeks of maternity leave paid through unemployment insurance for those parents whose employers don’t offer the benefit.
Ivanka, whose speech at the Republican National Convention promised that her father would lighten the burden on working mothers like herself, has been pushing her father to reveal the details of his plan, according to The Post. She will join her father during the announcement in Philadelphia.
The Trump campaign has emphasized that many sit in the leadership of Trump’s companies and the candidate himself has boasted that his companies offer on-site childcare for its employees—which an AP investigation showed was untrue, and that said facilities were for clients or patrons, and not for workers.
Some also have pointed to the hypocrisy of Trump’s appeal to working mothers, considering many disparaging statements about women in the workplace that he has made in the past.
Once, a lawyer who was deposing Trump in a lawsuit over a failed real estate venture asked for a medical break to pump breastmilk for her 3-month-old baby. Trump and his lawyers insisted the deposition go on. When she put her pump on the table, Trump said to her “You’re disgusting,” and stormed out of the session.
In 1994, Trump famously compared his wives to buildings, and said he had mixed feelings about them working. “I have days where I think it’s great. And then I have days where, if I come home—and I don’t want to sound too much like a chauvinist—but when I come home and dinner’s not ready, I go through the roof,” he said of his then-wife Marla Maples.