2018 is looking more and more like the year that Ivanka Trump successfully breaks into prison.
Ivanka has found herself at the center of negative scrutiny this year, receiving four rounds of bad news in the space of just one month.
NUMBER ONE
On March 2nd of this year, CNN reported that the FBI’s counter-intelligence division was investigating one of Ivanka’s international business deals. Specifically, they were “looking into the negotiations and financing surrounding Trump International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver.”
As CNN reported, this news is particularly relevant as the legal “scrutiny could be a hurdle for the first daughter as she tries to obtain a full security clearance in her role as adviser to President Donald Trump.”
NUMBER TWO
Less than a week later, Ivanka found herself at the center of more negative attention in the wake of her International Women’s Day tweet.
InternationalWomensDay.com reports that, “International Women’s Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.”
Ivanka took to Twitter to observe the holiday, tweeting: “Today we come together in recognition of women at home & around the globe. We celebrate women’s achievements, past & present, & pledge to empower women to reach their full economic potential for generations to come. When women thrive, we ALL succeed.”
As one might expect, Twitter was swift to respond, with thousands of responses criticizing her and her father for their horrible record on women’s rights.
Several of the responses criticized Ivanka’s business practices. Last summer, The Guardian posted an exposé of the horrors of the factory in Indonesia where Ms. Trump’s clothing line is manufactured. Worker’s interviewed agreed to talk only if the details about them were changed.
According to The Guardian, her workers are paid the lowest minimum wage in all of Indonesia — and quite possibly the lowest in Asia. They make 40% less than the workers in the Chinese factories. Aside from that, many workers are paid so little that they cannot afford to live with their children. They spoke about anti-union intimidation, and women actually being offered a bonus if they don’t take time off when they have their period.
Huffington Post reported that: “Her clothing brand’s merchandise is produced in foreign factories, where laborers ― both men and women ― receive low wages and have limited ability to advocate for themselves.”
NUMBER THREE
Earlier this week, social media exploded on Ivanka after her latest photo-op fail sparked an all-out Photoshop battle.
Time Magazine reported that: “First Daughter Ivanka Trump‘s photo ops have a way of turning into memes, so it shouldn’t have surprised anyone that when she donned a lab coat and safety goggles the internet would react.”
Since her father got into politics, the White House adviser has received mixed reactions from even fairly standard photo opportunities, whether it’s an Instagram with her husband in formal wear or an awkward hug with a senator.
The backstory itself received little attention in the USA, but Australia’s leading news portal, news.com.au, provided the following information:
The 36-year-old daughter of US President Donald Trump was visiting a job training and science centre in Iowa earlier this week when she was given the chance to carry out some “experiments”.
The mum of three donned a lab coat, latex gloves and safety goggles and tested the nicotine contents of “vape juice”, when the awkwardly contrived photo was snapped.
[…]
The photo was then shared on Ivanka’s official social media channels yesterday — and it didn’t take long for the jokes to start pouring in.
your lab coat and your gloves are both the wrong size, your gloves aren't tucked, your hair is loose in an environment with moving machinery and burners and you're holding a pour off at mouth level without any kind of a face shield, nice going science genius pic.twitter.com/PV4W97ejAL
— Goth Ms. Frizzle (@spookperson) March 20, 2018
NUMBER FOUR
The Nation dropped a pretty big bomb on Ivanka Friday morning in the form of an article discussing whether or not she should be indicted.
The article never directly answers the question, instead it details her possible crimes.
More importantly, the article essentially shreds her usual defense.
Amy Wilentz, a longtime contributing editor at The Nation and former Jerusalem correspondent for The New Yorker, offered the following assessment:
- Here’s how her defense goes: She’s not smart enough. She’s a mommy, she’s too busy with the kids. She only cares about women’s issues. But that’s not how Ivanka has always represented herself in her books. There, she’s a fully viable member of the Trump Organization, in fact sometimes solely in charge of various projects. I just don’t buy the stupid-Ivanka theory. She may not be the world’s greatest intellectual, but she is a woman who knows how to do business.
Here is the final exchange between Wilentz and Jon Wiener who conducted the interview:
- JW: Maybe she’s just inexperienced and has poor judgment about public life—since really all she knows about is the Trump Organization, and the rules that the Trump Organization follows are a little different from the rules that the White House should follow.
- AW: But that doesn’t work as a justification. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot because I’ve studied the development of kleptocracies in other countries in the world, and this is how it works. People come in, they look like a little bit shady; they seem a little bit different from the leaders who preceded them. Then suddenly you realize they’re using the office to advance their own business interests.
- JW: We used to say that Ivanka and Jared were moderating forces. We wanted them in the Trump White House because they were social liberals, and because they were a lot more reasonable than Trump himself.
- AW: And indeed they are social liberals, but so what? So what if they think it’s bad for Trump to support Nazis or to kowtow to the NRA? Are they stopping Trump from pursuing those goals? No, and nor do they think they will. They are showing a nice face while they suck money from the job. Ivanka may be the mom of the Instagrammable Arabella, the cutest girl who has ever lived; but Ivanka is also a shark. The way Ivanka and Jared mix their business interests with their government jobs is a grotesque abuse of power.
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