Trump Defends Seat Switch With Ivanka at G20 Summit

'Very standard,' he says
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 10, 2017 7:41 AM CDT
Trump Defends Seat Switch With Ivanka at G20 Summit
President Trump and daughter Ivanka arrive for a working session at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 8.   (Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa via AP)

It's another busy morning for President Trump's Twitter feed, and one issue to which he's devoted tweets is a defense of daughter Ivanka. The Trumps caused a stir over the weekend at the G20 summit in Germany when Ivanka took her father's seat at a formal meeting. Critics called it improper, but Trump disagrees. "When I left Conference Room for short meetings with Japan and other countries, I asked Ivanka to hold seat," he tweeted. "Very standard. Angela M agrees!" The latter refers to German leader Angela Merkel, who told reporters asking about the seat switch that Ivanka "was part and parcel of the American delegation, so that is something that other delegations also do," per the Hill.

President Trump also accuses the media of a hypothetical double-standard. "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!" he tweeted. The seat switch, during a meeting of world leaders on Africa, left Ivanka between Britain's Theresa May and China's Xi Jinping, notes the Washington Post. One of the prominent critics of the move was former NATO ambassador Nicholas Burns, who has served under presidents of both parties. Seat switches may be common, he said, but he thought it should have been the secretary of state filling in. “Authority is not conferred upon family members because of the president’s position,” he said. One thing Trump has yet to address Monday: Son Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer during the campaign. (More Ivanka Trump stories.)

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