French say oops on viral Ivanka Trump moment

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Nahal Toosi on politico.com on July 1, 2019. The French presidency is feeling a tad awkward after a video it posted of Ivanka Trump’s seemingly stilted interactions with foreign leaders went viral and spawned mockery, insisting that it “didn’t anticipate the reaction”. The video caught Ivanka Trump in a discussion with world leaders during her father US President Donald Trump’s recent visit to the G20 summit. And it has fuelled concern that the president’s daughter is having undue influence on US foreign policy. In the clip, Ivanka Trump is shown trying to engage in a talk with a handful of foreign leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and Christine Lagarde, chairwoman of the International Monetary Fund. It may be shocking to some, but being someone’s daughter actually isn’t a career qualification. It hurts our diplomatic standing when the President phones it in & the world moves on. The US needs our President working the G20. Bringing a qualified diplomat couldn’t hurt either. https://t.co/KCZMXJ8FD9 — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 30, 2019 The full context of the conversation is not clear, but at one point, British Prime Minister Theresa May says: “As soon as you charge them with that economic aspect of it, a lot of people start listening who otherwise wouldn’t listen.” “And the same with the defence side of it, in terms of the whole business that’s been, sort of, male-dominated,” Ivanka Trump then says, smiling. Lagarde, who had been nodding while May spoke, appears mystified by Trump’s comment and purses her lips. The IMF chief’s reaction alone has spawned numerous mocking tweets about the encounter. In a statement, an official with the Élysée – the French presidential palace – stressed that the French government often releases clips of such moments at summits. White House rows of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump get an airing This particular one, the official said, “took place in the leaders’ lounge right before the sessions on gender equality of which Ivanka was one of the keynote speakers, so it wasn’t anything more than a moment of exchange like there were 100 more [of] with other leaders.” The official noted, however, that the clip was released at a time of “a larger narrative in the US about Ivanka’s diplomatic role and that goes beyond us, of course”, but that it was not the French government’s intention to feed into that narrative. “We didn’t anticipate the reaction, and once again, we are not responsible for the use made of the clip,” the official said. Even before Trump took office, his oldest daughter – who is officially one of his advisers in the White House – has at times played the role of diplomat, travelling with her father and meeting with foreign leaders. In 2017, she stunned foreign policy observers when she briefly took the US president’s place at a meeting with other world leaders in Germany at the G20 summit, a gathering of the world’s largest economies But even for her, Ivanka Trump was unusually out front this past week during her father’s trip to this year’s G20 summit and then the Korean peninsula. She gave a video “readout” of the US president’s discussions with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And she popped up in group photos of meeting participants at the G20. Trump’s budget to include US$100m for Ivanka’s women’s fund Ivanka Trump also joined her father as he walked over into North Korean territory along the demilitarised zone (DMZ) to briefly meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. No sitting US president had ever been inside North Korea before. Ivanka Trump described the experience as “surreal”. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ivanka Trump’s omnipresence fuelled speculation about her future political plans – her father has suggested in the past that he would be willing to nominate her for top diplomatic posts. It also spawned intense criticism about whether she had the proper background for the role she was playing. I was clearly late to all of the primo #unwantedivanka memes... pic.twitter.com/OFUGB6nddF — Tim O'Brien (@TimOBrien) July 1, 2019 Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive and one of the most outspoken new members of Congress, tweeted out the video of Ivanka Trump with Lagarde, Macron and others. “It may be shocking to some, but being someone’s daughter actually isn’t a career qualification,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. Plenty of observers saw humour in Ivanka Trump’s many appearances. On Twitter, using the hashtag #unwantedivanka, critics have been posting Photoshopped pictures of historic – and fictional – events that now include Ivanka Trump. In one, she is in the water alongside the characters Jack and Rose in the movie Titanic. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/01/france-ivanka-trump-reaction-1392084

French say oops on viral Ivanka Trump moment

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} ‘We didn’t anticipate the reaction,’ official says after video released by French government fuels concern over role of Trump’s daughter in foreign policy

‘We didn’t anticipate the reaction,’ official says after video released by French government fuels concern over role of Trump’s daughter in foreign policy