Ivanka Trump wasn't interested in maternity leave until her employees pushed for it

Ivanka Trump has tried to burnish her credentials with women by pushing to make paid maternity leave a priority for her father's White House. 

But according to a new report, the first daughter hasn't always been the biggest supporter of paid leave.

In a new New York Times profile of the president's eldest daughter, reporters interviewed several former employees at Trump's fashion company. One former executive, Marissa Kraxberger, recalled a conversation she had with Trump when being offered a job in 2013. She was pregnant at the time and asked Trump about her company's maternity leave policy.

"Well, we don't have maternity leave policy here," Trump reportedly told Kraxberger. "I went back to work one week after having my child, so that's just not something I'm used to."

Kraxberger told the Times that she and others at the company had to push Trump to start offering paid maternity leave. Abigail Klem, the company's current president, tried to explain away the incident telling the Times that the company was still new when the issue first arose.

Donald Trump addresses Congress in Februrary.Jim Lo Scalzo/AP

During a joint address to congress earlier this year, Trump called for policies to "ensure new parents that they have paid family leave." The president was reportedly pushed by his daughter to adopt the policy.

But many have pointed out that Trump's maternity leave plan discriminates against low-income parents and unmarried mothers. Though the details of the plan are unclear, it appears that the latest iteration of the policy articulated by the White House would exclude single mothers from eligibility and offer only partial pay, making it harder for low-income Americans to make use of the plan.

While the eldest Trump daughter is supposedly the chief advocate for this policy within the White House, she may have to set those duties aside temporarily. On Tuesday she released her new book, aptly titled Women who Work, and while she can't officially promote it for ethics reasons, she's certainly making herself more available to the press.