Later, she accompanied Mr. Trump as he crossed the Demilitarized Zone, stepping into North Korea and meeting Kim Jong-un, an experience she described at the time as “surreal.”
At the Doha Forum, a Middle East conference, Ms. Trump was interviewed onstage by the State Department spokeswoman, Morgan Ortagus, who came under criticism for asking her questions about her pet project on female entrepreneurship while ignoring the White House’s Middle East policy.
In Davos, Ms. Trump was careful not to pick a fight with one of the other most prominent female figures attending the World Economic Forum, the Swedish climate activist, Greta Thunberg. Her father implicitly criticized Ms. Thunberg, saying that climate activists, with their pessimistic messages, were the “heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers.”
“I am fundamentally a believer in the power of optimism,” Ms. Trump said in a phone interview, echoing one of her father’s lines.
But she added of the 17-year-old Ms. Thunberg, “I’m not going to criticize anyone who’s bringing their energy and voice. That’s not my style. I think she’s elevated awareness and that’s a positive thing.”
Early in the administration, it looked as if Ms. Trump was embracing at least some of Ms. Thunberg’s urgency about climate change. During the presidential transition, she brought in former Vice President Al Gore to discuss the issue with Mr. Trump and sat down with Leonardo DiCaprio, who gave her a copy of his documentary, “Before the Flood.”
But after she and her husband, Jared Kushner, lost an internal debate about withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, she has gone quiet on the issue. In the interview, she placed the emphasis on finding solutions rather than raising alarms.