Ivanka Trump defends father, brushes aside groans in Berlin

BERLIN (AP) — Ivanka Trump brushed aside groans and hisses today over her father's track record and defended his attitudes toward women as she made her first international outing as a White House adviser.

Trump pledged to push for "incremental, positive change" for women in the U.S. economy and told a Berlin conference on women that she's still "rather unfamiliar" with her role as first daughter and adviser to President Donald Trump.

The scattered groans and hisses came as she described her father as "a tremendous champion of supporting families."

Trump's one-day visit, at the invitation of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, gave Merkel and other officials face-to-face access with the president's influential daughter at a time when world leaders are still trying to discern where his policies will lead.

Merkel and Trump were part of a high-powered panel discussion today at the W20 Summit, a women-focused effort within the Group of 20 countries, entitled "Inspiring women: Scaling up women's entrepreneurship." They were joined by Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde and the Netherlands' Queen Maxima, among others.

The 35-year-old Trump, who stepped away from both running her fashion brand and from an executive role at the Trump Organization to become an unpaid White House adviser, said she is still finding her feet in her new role.