On the same day the first daughter represented the United States at the G20 in Hamburg, President Donald Trump suggested Ivanka Trump should be pitied. “If she weren’t my daughter, it would be so much easier for her,” Trump claimed. “It might be the only bad thing she has going if you want to know the truth.” This is not the first time that Trump has made such a silly statement. In 2006, Trump told The View that, “if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I would be dating her.”

Commenting on his statement, the president also said that his daughter’s life is “far from sunshine and rainbows everybody thinks it is.” In an interview with portal KnowMyRepublican.com, President Trump also argued that being rich “is not as easy as it seems,” as well as that “it is 10 times as difficult to be born rich as the son or daughter to rich parents than it is to be born poor and then have to work hard to become rich.” “Most people think these things get easier with time; that couldn’t be farther from the truth,” Trump said.

“As a matter of fact, rich people’s kids suffer way more than any other kids, and that includes homeless people and all that,” he continued. “And I know what you’re going to say: what is this guy on about, is he for real? I’m telling you, when you have nothing, then you have no reason to fight, or argue, or bicker amongst yourselves and with other members of your family. Poverty makes you more connected to your loved ones and strengthens family bonds. Wealth, on the other hand, I’m telling you, it’s more of a curse than a blessing.”

“Take Ivanka, for example. She’s the apple of my eye, but she’s not had an easy life. She has suffered a lot, primarily because of the fact that she’s Donald Trump’s daughter,” Trump said. “There’s a lot of responsibility and obligations that come with being Donald Trump, and there’s no way you can protect your kids from all that. As a matter of fact, sometimes I feel sorry for Ivanka because I look at her and all I can see are those poor Syrian children that are struggling with losing their homes and parents because of the war. That goes especially for refugees; I see what they’re going through and how they’re forced to move along, to forget what little roots they’ve learned they had, and grow up over night.”

“When I think about how much Ivanka had to travel around the world when she was little just so she could spend time with me, it breaks my heart. I remember, I had to overcompensate for my absence by throwing tons of material things at her, things I knew deep down she didn’t want. But I guess that’s what a father does when he’s reduced to his work and nothing more. Make no mistake – my daughter has suffered tremendously even though she grew up well taken care of. But she spent just as much time traveling around, if not more, as those refugee children from Syria. She is one with them because she too lived in over a dozen different countries by the time she was 15. It was not an easy life and that’s why she deserves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the important work she’s doing for me today,” Trump concluded.