Ivanka Trump, in her role as senior advisor to the president, joined her father and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos this week in urging American K-12 schools to reopen and allow students to physically return to classrooms, even as COVID-19 cases surge to more than 3 million around the United States and the death count rose to more than 131,000.
President Donald Trump and DeVos demanded schools reopen by threatening to cut off billions of dollars in federal funding, much of which goes to low-income schools, Politico reported, while Ivanka Trump weighed in with a special appeal tweet to the concerns of single, working mothers.
“Single mothers will disproportionately bear the burden of school closures in the form of lower pay, less job security and general overwhelm in part because work in jobs without the option of telecommuting. We must prioritize safely reopening America’s schools,” she Tweeted.
Experts agree that single mothers face extra levels of stress during coronavirus lockdowns, and for some of the reasons Ivanka Trump mentioned. However, Ivanka Trump’s message rang hollow for many on Twitter, given that she is the multimillionaire daughter of a president who has been widely criticized for his response to the pandemic and for appearing to be mostly concerned about his political standing.
Twitter users saw Ivanka Trump as also trying to politicize the concerns of families in the midst of health crisis. Both Ivanka Trump and her father were blasted for suggesting that Americans should be fine sending their children back to school, especially to low-income public schools, while they send their kids to elite private schools and would have the means to hire people to home school them if necessary.
A response to Ivanka Trump’s tweet from conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin was typical of those calling her out for hypocrisy.
Send your kids to public schools and go for it!
— Jennifer Truth Over Phony Balance Rubin 🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@JRubinBlogger) July 8, 2020
Trump Wednesday criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “impractical” and “expensive” guidelines for reopening schools. He also sought to politicize the issue by tweeting: “The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U.S. schools open before the November Election, but is important for the children & families.”
DeVos, meanwhile, denounced “fear mongering” and people “making excuses” for keeping schools closed, in an interview with Fox News Tucker Carlson Tuesday night, Politico reported.
“Barron” also was a top trending topic on Twitter Wednesday, with a number of people asking whether the president and First Lady Melania Trump would send their son, Barron, back to school. While he attends a private school in Maryland, author and scholar Reza Aslan asked if they would consider sending him to a Washington D.C. public school:
https://twitter.com/rezaaslan/status/1280645228928499712
Someone responded to Aslan’s tweet by linking to the site for Barron’s school, St. Andrew’s Episcopal School. The school site said it is working on several scenarios, ranging from providing distance learning to reopening but with a number of health and social distancing measures in place.
Writer Amee Vanderpool said it wasn’t likely that St. Andrew’s would reopen, reporting that it had just received a government loan under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which is designed to help small businesses stay afloat and avoid layoffs during the pandemic.
“We should all watch very closely to see if Trump sends Barron back to school, or if any of the GOP send their kids to a public school in the fall. Spoiler, they wont!,” another Twitter user wrote.
With Ivanka Trump, users also asked if she really cares about the concerns of single, working mothers. The MeidasTouch political organization retweeted its #ByeIvanka attack ad, which accuses her of nepotism, conflicts of interest and being tone deaf and out of touch, especially when it came to her response to Black Lives Matters protests in Washington D.C. over the killing of George Floyd.
You know who the last person on earth single mothers need to hear from right now is? You. #ByeIvanka pic.twitter.com/iVHdOmqKVY
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) July 7, 2020
Someone else tweeted: “There are single mothers working at your daddy’s golf resorts and he clearly doesn’t give a (expletive) about them working during a pandemic. Also you and your husband need to give back the PPP money you took from small businesses who by way happen to have single mothers working for them.”
This user is referring to U.S. Treasury Department data showing that businesses tied to Jared Kushner, also a White House senior advisor, and his family received several million dollars in PPP loans.
The parody account “Devin Nunes’ cow” tweeted that if the Trump administration was genuinely concerned about single working women it should “support them financially until this is over instead of sending them to jobs and their children to schools where they can catch a deadly virus. Do you want to orphan these children?”
Mostly, people were annoyed with Ivanka Trump’s ongoing efforts to portray herself as working hard in the White House to promote the public’s welfare.
“Good grief! How can anyone be this feckless and this annoying?” the user Khashoggi’s Ghost tweeted. “No one thinks you have ever contributed anything worthwhile. Seriously, stop embarrassing yourself.”
Good grief! How can anyone be this feckless and this annoying?
Go away, little girl. Stop pretending. You will never be president. Everyone laughs at you behind your back. No one thinks you have ever contributed anything worthwhile.
Seriously, stop embarrassing yourself. pic.twitter.com/UCJ9mB7yMj
— Khashoggi’s Ghost 🇺🇦🌻 (@UROCKlive1) July 8, 2020
Meanwhile, Ivanka Trump earlier this week posted a series of photos to Twitter and Instagram of her family vacation, presumably in Wyoming. Her photos and videos showed her with her children, Arabella, Joseph and Thedore, and her wearing pigtails, watching a rodeo, proclaiming her love for America, and riding a horse.
Lots of love and memories as the sun sets on this 4th of July weekend! 💛🧡❤️ pic.twitter.com/tgkMjowtXf
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) July 6, 2020
Hello, Sunday! Chin up. Heels down. 💙 pic.twitter.com/va4y6zDYyn
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) July 5, 2020
