Politics - News Analysis

Ivanka Trump Attended Private G20 Event Meant For World Leaders Only — And Twitter Is Furious

Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner joined her father Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump on the world stage Friday night, taking part in a meet-and-greet with the Argentina president at an event that was solely for world leaders (not their children.)

It was Donald Trump who invited his daughter and son-in-law to join him and his wife at the official meet-and-greet with Argentina President Mauricio Macri and his wife Juliana Awada.

It all took place at the Teatre Colon, which is considered one of the ten best opera houses in the world and one of the the five best concert venues in existence.

It wasn’t the first time Ivanka’s presence at a G20 summit raised eyebrows.

Back In July 2017, Ivanka took her father’s place at a meeting with other world leaders at the G20 summit in Hamburg Germany.

A photo of the first daughter sitting next to Chinese President Xi Jinping, British Prime Minister Theresa May, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and German Chancellor Angela Merkel was first tweeted by Svetlana Lukash, who identifies herself on Twitter as a G20 Russian sherpa, a title given to people who help international delegations at large summits.

According to the Guardian, it’s not uncommon for a leader’s seat to be filled by an aide when they step out, but the optics of the aide also happening to be a family member with no prior experience in politics was what raised eyebrows.

“It’s completely inappropriate,” Zerlina Maxwell, Hillary Clinton’s former progressive media director told MSNBC at the time. “What qualifications and experience does Ivanka Trump have in her background that should put her at the table with world leaders like Theresa May and Vladimir Putin?”

Trump is an unpaid senior adviser in the West Wing, and has taken on labor and family policy issues like paid family leave and child tax credits — though not much has been said about her projects since the summer. Policy-wise, she generally aligns with the president, except on a few notable occasions like family separation, and toward the beginning of his term when he began calling the press the “enemy of the people.

Twitter quickly called her out:

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