Sarah Sanders Defends Ivanka Trump After Ocasio-Cortez’s Not ‘Qualified Diplomat’ Dig

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump depart from the White House in Washington on June 1, 2018. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

Former press secretary Sarah Sanders has defended Ivanka Trump after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) criticized the first daughter for accompanying her father at the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan.

Ocasio-Cortez took issue with Trump on Twitter on June 29 after a BBC reporter posted a video of the president’s daughter participating in G-20 discussions alongside her father with French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Theresa May, and other world leaders.

“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 freshman congresswoman wrote in response to the video.

“The US needs our president working the G-20. Bringing a qualified diplomat couldn’t hurt either,” she added.

Ivanka Trump, who is an adviser to the president, represented the United States in several meetings with world leaders over the two days. She was also invited to speak at a special women’s empowerment event during the summit.

Ivanka has been focused on women’s education and economic empowerment and had helped launch the administration’s Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative earlier in the year. She has also toured parts of the world to promote the economic initiative for women.

Many people quickly came to Trump’s defense, including Sanders who took the opportunity to remind Ocasio-Cortez that she needed to spend less time on Twitter and criticized her for “phoning it in” and “destroying jobs in New York.”

“Phoning it in AOC is wasting your time on Twitter while destroying jobs in NY,” Sanders wrote.

“@realDonaldTrump & @IvankaTrump actually created millions of new jobs and continue to make the US stronger on the global stage but thank you for reminding Americans everyday why they elected Trump,” she added.

Ocasio-Cortez was previously blamed for her role in Amazon’s decision to withdraw from building parts of its second headquarters in Long Island City, Queens. For months, the New York Democrat encouraged local activists to push back against the tech giant’s expansion plans in the city. She was particularly critical of the city’s decision to offer $3 billion in subsidies—a tax incentive that the city would provide only after Amazon had built its headquarters and created the 25,000 jobs, according to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio at the time.

In a statement on Feb. 14, Amazon said they decided not to move forward with their plans because “a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City.”

Similar to Sanders, other prominent figures pushed back on Ocasio-Cortez’s criticism by reminding the Democratic socialist congresswoman of Trump’s achievements that had benefited many Americans.

“IvankaTrump is an accomplished businesswoman & working mom. She helped pass criminal justice reform & the Pledge to America’s Workers has secured job training for 9M Americans. It may be shocking to some, but a socialist bartender might not know how to keep this economy booming,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Elizabeth Harrington wrote in response.

Meanwhile, British journalist and television personality Piers Morgan also stood up for Trump while criticizing the congresswoman in a series of tweets and an op-ed for the Mail Online.

Morgan called out Ocasio-Cortez for criticizing Trump for her lack of experience by reminding her that “she herself was still working as a bartender when she won the New York 14th congressional district primary election a year ago.”

This prompted Ocasio-Cortez to reply by doubling down on her comments. She said: “Actually, that would make government better—not worse. Imagine if more people in power spent years of their lives actually working for a living.”

Morgan then pointed out in his op-ed that Trump had “worked very hard all her life.”

“Ivanka enjoyed a successful modeling career before joining her father’s business—working for Versace, Thierry Mugler, and Tommy Hilfiger, and appearing on myriad magazine covers,” Morgan wrote.

“She could have carried on doing that, or chosen to do nothing at all. She had no financial need [to] work at all. But instead, she devoted herself to becoming a top businesswoman,” he added.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in May job growth went up by 75,000 jobs, which fell below economists’ expectations, while the unemployment rate remained at 3.6 percent—the lowest since December 1969.

Petr Svab contributed to this report.