From left: Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.Photo: Ivanka Trump/Instagram
Ivanka Trumpand her husbandJared Kushnerstepped out together on Saturday for a prestigious Washington, D.C. event amid theongoing controversyover Kushner’ssecurity clearance.
AlthoughPresident Donald Trumpregularly criticizes the media, Trump attended last year’s Gridiron dinner — where hejokedthat his wifeMelania Trumpmight be the next person toleave the White House.
Attending on her father’s behalf this year, Ivanka offered a few jokes while briefly addressing the assembled journalists. She got a laugh early on when she said her father asked her to appear “just this afternoon,” before clarifying that wasn’t actually “a joke,” according toNPR.
TheWashington Postreported that Ivanka got a “cringey laugh” when she joked about how hard it is being Trump’s daughter.
“The press seems to think it’s ironic that I, born of great privilege, think people want to work for what they are given,” she said, according to the outlet. “As if being Donald Trump’s daughter isn’t the hardest job in the world.”
Earlier in the week, Ivanka wascriticizedfor claiming during aninterview with Fox Newsthat “most Americans” didn’t want a “guaranteed minimum” wage — a resolution that’s part of Rep.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘s proposed Green New Deal.
“I don’t think most Americans in their heart want to be given something,” Ivanka said.
“I’ve spent a lot of time traveling around this country over the last four years,” she added. “People want to work for what they get, so I think this idea of a guaranteed minimum is not something most people want.”
Making a brief mention of her father’s absence at the event on Saturday, Ivanka pointed out how “the opportunity to poke fun at the media isn’t something he passes up lightly,” before adding, “for my father, every day is a Gridiron dinner,” according to NPR.
Ivanka and her husbandput on a united frontahead of the event on Saturday, posing for a smiling photograph together on Ivanka’s Instagram.
“Hot date!” she simply captioned the image.
Conspicuously absent from her dinner schtick was any mention of the ongoing firestorm over Kushner’s security clearance. Two days earlier, theNew York Timesreported that Mr. Trump ordered top-secret security clearance be granted to Kushner last year, ignoring concerns from intelligence officials. The revelation, if true, directly contradicts repeated Trump family statements to the contrary, including one from Ivanka herself.
During aninterview with ABC Newsgiven in January, Ivanka said her dad “had no involvement pertaining to my clearance or my husband’s clearance, zero.”
According to theTimes, the president’s move in May “so troubled senior administration officials that at least one, the White House chief of staff at the time, John F. Kelly, wrote a contemporaneous internal memo about how he had been ‘ordered’ to give Mr. Kushner the top-secret clearance.”
RELATED VIDEO: Nancy Pelosi Literally Clapped Back at Trump’s State of the Union- and the Internet Is Obsessed
From left: Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.Alex Wong/Getty
The question of Kushner’s pending security clearance drew scrutiny from the start amid larger concerns about the president employing two relatives in the White House, which critics say too closely blends the personal and political.
But the president has denied any role in the matter. As theTimesexplained Friday, he has the authority to grant security clearances to anyone, though as a matter of propriety it is usually not done directly.
“I was never involved with the security,” the president told theTimesin January. “I know that there was issues back and forth about security for numerous people, actually. But I don’t want to get involved in that stuff.”
In a statement to PEOPLE on Friday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said, “We don’t comment on security clearances.”
Carolyn Kaster/AP/Shutterstock
Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Kushner’s attorney, said in his own statement, in part, that Kushner’s clearance “was handled in the regular process with no pressure from anyone.”
“In 2018, White House and security clearance officials affirmed that Mr. Kushner’s security clearance was handled in the regular process with no pressure from anyone,” Mirijanian said. “That was conveyed to the media at the time, and new stories, if accurate, do not change what was affirmed at the time.”
White House counselorKellyanne Conwayreportedly defended Ivanka’s previous statement regarding Kushner’s clearance onFox NewsFriday, saying “IfIvanka Trumpchose to comment, then she probably has knowledge that some of us do not have.
source: people.com
