Ivanka Trump makes history — at the G20 summit, in North Korea and in #UnwantedIvanka parody memes
Last week, Ivanka Trump raised questions about how she had avoided the social minefield of mingling with anti-Trump administration celebrities like Katy Perry and Mila Kunis at the wedding celebration of her in-laws Karlie Kloss and Joshua Kushner.
Just a week later, Ivanka Trump stepped into an area surrounded by literal minefields: the Demilitarized Zone between South and North Korea, which the New York Times called “the highest-stakes negotiation site on earth.”
Donald Trump’s daughter and senior advisor accompanied the president on his historic steps into North Korea Sunday. She also attended a close-door meeting between her father and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, presumably to talk about Kim relinquishing his nuclear weapons, the New York Times added. In an interview before traveling to the Demilitarized Zone, Ivanka Trump told Bloomberg: “We are on the precipice of ushering in potentially a golden era for the Korean peninsula.”
It was the latest attempt by Ivanka Trump to shed her former identity as a real estate heiress, fashion brand entrepreneur and socialite who would once have been satisfied with rubbing shoulders with supermodels and movie stars at a celebrity wedding. Over the past week, at the G20 summit in Japan and in the visit to the Korean Peninsula, Ivanka Trump tried to position herself as a world-class diplomat who belongs at the table with the likes of Kim, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, French President Emmanuel Macron and other heads of state.
But the New York Times, CNN and other outlets reported that Ivanka Trump’s unusually prominent role during her father’s trip to Asia riled foreign policy and national security experts. One of those experts was Michael McFaul, the ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama.
“Ivanka Trump is not on the National Security Council — she is not an adviser on the issues being discussed,” said McFaul, a Stanford University professor of political science and international relations, to the New York Times. “So her presence undermines the professional look of the Trump delegation, both to other countries and to national security professionals in the Trump administration.”
Observers and critics also seized on a short clip posted by the French government to suggest that Ivanka Trump’s role in the U.S. delegation was inappropriate and that she might be out of her depth. “How much did Ivanka Trump embarrass herself at the G20 summit?” asked New York magazine.
Ivanka Trump appears to be trying to get involved in a talk among Macron, May, Trudeau and Lagarde (IMF head).
The video is released by French Presidential palace. pic.twitter.com/TJ0LULCzyQ— Parham Ghobadi (@ParhamGhobadi) June 29, 2019
The now viral video shows Ivanka Trump trying to join a conversation between Theresa May, the departing prime minister of Britain, and Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund managing director. Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are listening in.
Critics say it was clear that Ivanka Trump wasn’t a welcome participant. Nonetheless, she kept awkwardly trying to join the conversation. She found a moment when she said something about “the whole business” being “male-dominated,” and then breaking into a proud smile.
People focused on Lagarde’s reaction to Ivanka Trump’s comment, saying the IMF leader appeared to be annoyed, impatient or baffled, as she swiveled her head and blinked several times.
The video prompted Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Eric Swalwell to question why her relationship with her father should allow her to be engaging with world leaders at international diplomatic events.
“It may be shocking to some, but being someone’s daughter actually isn’t a career qualification,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a viral tweet, which garnered a defensive response from Trump supporters, including from former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders who claimed that the president’s daughter was “making America stronger on the global stage” with her efforts on behalf of workforce development.
Swalwell, a Democratic presidential candidate from Dublin, also tweeted, “The American people deserve to be represented by a qualified diplomat … not the President’s daughter.”
But while McFaul, Ocasio-Cortez and Swalwell offered up their professional objections to Ivanka Trump’s unprecedented role in American diplomacy, people on Twitter found another, more humorous way to register their concerns.
They launched a hashtag, #UnwantedIvanka, and edited photos to add Trump’s daughter into iconic moments throughout history, including the D-Day invasion, the first moon landing, the Beatles crossing Abbey Road, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on Washington speech and the Feb. 4, 1945 Yalta conference between President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Premier Joseph Stalin. Here are some that received the most likes and retweets:
Somebody please photoshop Ivanka the unwelcome interloper boxing way above her weight into the following:
– Megan Rapinoe’s goal celebration
– Nixon-Elvis meeting
– Beyoncé’s Coachella performance
– Curies’ lab
– constitutional convention
– cast of Big Little Lies— Erin *crosstalk* Ryan (@morninggloria) June 30, 2019
Yalta pic.twitter.com/cnFi4YxtPz
— Helen Kennedy (@HelenKennedy) June 30, 2019
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) June 30, 2019
The White House was upset by the outrage over Ivanka’s work at G20 so they decided to release these pictures of Ivanka showing her hard work for the her dad #unwantedivanka pic.twitter.com/E3FfK2IPJC
— will_opps (@will_oppss) July 1, 2019
— Ravin Boodram (@rvbdrm) July 1, 2019
Don't moon-shame Ivanka! #unwantedivanka pic.twitter.com/yoWVjKWq6j
— 491 days and counting (@MeThatYouKnow) June 30, 2019
All The Presidents Men #UnwantedIvanka pic.twitter.com/Zc8gumWW68
— badhatharry (@brewmasterbones) June 30, 2019
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) June 30, 2019
— Full Name (@usernameendgame) June 30, 2019
#Chernobyl #Unwantedivanka pic.twitter.com/rPmoj8FwKH
— Will Pulgarin (@wpulgarin) July 1, 2019
Oh man, this is fun. #unwantedivanka pic.twitter.com/layoefhyHj
— Cheryl Graham (@FreeTransform) July 1, 2019