President Donald Trump addressed media controversy Monday morning about the fact that his daughter Ivanka briefly sat in for him at meetings with foreign leaders at the G-20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany last week.
Ivanka, a White House adviser, accompanied Trump to the meetings and took his seat at the table during sessions when he left the room for brief one-on-one meetings with individual heads of state.
Several other world leaders also allowed advisers to take their places at the table briefly.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended Trump at a news conference where Ivanka Trump’s role was raised: ““The delegations themselves decide, should the president not be present for a meeting, who will then take over and sit in the chair,” Merkel said, according to Bloomberg News. “Ivanka Trump was part and parcel of the American delegation so that is something that other delegations also do. It’s very well known that she works at the White House and is also engaged in certain initiatives.”
Trump tweeted early Monday: “When I left Conference Room for short meetings with Japan and other countries, I asked Ivanka to hold seat. Very standard. Angela M agrees!” He later added: “If Chelsea Clinton were asked to hold the seat for her mother,as her mother gave our country away, the Fake News would say CHELSEA FOR PRES!”
The positive coverage given to Chelsea Clinton has been a frequent point raised by conservative critics of the mainstream media, and now by President Trump as well.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.