Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez knocked Ivanka Trump for her attempts at diplomacy at the G20 meetings with world leaders: 'Being someone's daughter actually isn't a career qualification'

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez knocked Ivanka Trump for her attempts at diplomacy at the G20 meetings with world leaders: 'Being someone's daughter actually isn't a career qualification'

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Andrew Harnik/AP Images

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks with a reporter on Capitol Hill.

  • Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted White House adviser Ivanka Trump for attending the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan, taking to Twitter to note "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," she added. "The US needs our President working the G20. Bringing a qualified diplomat couldn't hurt either."
  • Ivanka's attendance at the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan and at a hastily-arranged private meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, sparked heightened criticism. 
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted White House adviser Ivanka Trump for traveling to Asia to meet with world leaders alongside her father. 

"It may be shocking to some, but being someone's daughter actually isn't a career qualification," the congresswoman tweeted on Saturday night. "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."

Ocasio-Cortez and others, including former US ambassadors, have criticized President Donald Trump for elevating his eldest daughter to some of the most influential positions in his White House.

Ivanka's attendance at the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan and at a hastily-arranged private meeting between the president and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, sparked sharp criticism. 

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Ocasio-Cortez and others pointed to a video of Ivanka jumping into a discussion at the G20 with several world leaders, including Theresa May, the outgoing prime minister of Britain, and Christine Lagarde, director of the International Monetary Fund, as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, stood by and listened. 

Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, have both received scrutiny for their influential, public-facing roles in the Trump administration.

"Ivanka Trump is not on the National Security Council - she is not an adviser on the issues being discussed," Michael McFaul, a former ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, told 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."

Read more: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemns Joe Biden for 'waxing nostalgic' about working with racist segregationists

Others argued that having the child of a president play diplomat makes it appear as though the US is being run by a royal family. 

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"It looks to the rest of the world like we have a kind of a constitutional monarchy," Christopher Hill, a former US  ambassador to South Korea who oversaw negotiations with North Korea under President George W. Bush, told The Washington Post.

 

Several prominent defenders of the administration hit back at Ocasio-Cortez over her criticism of Ivanka.

"Phoning it in @AOC is wasting your time on Twitter while destroying jobs in NY," Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who recently resigned as White House press secretary, tweeted on Sunday. "@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."

In a statement to the Times, a White House spokeswoman called criticism of Ivanka's video-taped discussion with foreign heads of state "absolutely pathetic." 

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