All The Trappings Of An Autocracy

The Washington Post reported that Ivanka— beauty, according to Trump, to Pompeo’s beast— played a prominent role in the Trumpanzee excursion to North Korea. Ivanka also got a signed album from EXO, a top K-pop band. Did you know the presidential daughter is a high level diplomat. I guess if her dad qualifies to be president she can be Secretary of State or… whatever. Same for the talentless husband. CNN reported that “back in Washington, national security officials bristled at the large presence Ivanka assumed while overseas. But those close to the President described it as business as usual.”

EXO

The administration-- the East Wing, in particular-- has made it clear that Ivanka Trump is not the first lady. But Melania Trump, who accompanied the President on recent trips to Europe and Tokyo, skipped the visit to Osaka for the G20 summit and following trip to Seoul. Her communications director and now White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, declined to provide a reason for the absence. In turn, the first daughter asserted herself abroad this week in unique and unprecedented fashion as both a member of the US delegation and a member of the President's family.

Never before has a President's child had the proximity, influence and the marketing savvy to create a space in an administration, and that was on display from the G20 to the demilitarized zone as she appeared on equal footing with Cabinet-level officials. One sign of that: Her efforts to build relationships with world leaders at gatherings such as these.

Over the course of the four-day trip, Ivanka Trump attended multiple bilateral meetings at the G20 in Osaka. She was on stage for a women's economic empowerment forum with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, delivering remarks on her Women's Global Development and Prosperity initiative. The French government released a video of her trying to make conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, IMF chairwoman Christine Lagarde and British Prime Minister Theresa May.

She appeared on camera in a video published by the White House giving a readout of a trilateral meeting between the President, Indian President Narendra Modi and Abe, a responsibility traditionally carried out by a national security staffer in a written statement. In the video, Trump speaks directly to the camera about the "productive morning, to say the least," occasionally averting her eyes.

Trump also traveled with the delegation to Seoul, where she attended the dinner at the Blue House, had a discussion on women in the global economy with South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and visited the DMZ, where her father shook hands with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and became the first sitting US president to step into North Korea.

Trump's national security adviser was absent from the stop because an aide said he had already departed Korea for a scheduled visit to Mongolia to "discuss regional security, infrastructure and economic issues." And Pompeo remained largely in the background during the high-profile trip, only appearing on camera behind the President as he made closing remarks. But while her father met with Kim inside for approximately 50 minutes, Trump crossed the line into North Korea-- inside a blue shelter and away from the cameras-- while senior officials like acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney waited outside. Asked by a reporter in the traveling press pool how North Korea was, she replied, "Surreal."

Ivanka Trump previously raised eyebrows among Trump critics during her attendance at the 2017 G20 summit in Hamburg when she briefly sat in for her father during one of the meetings with world leaders. She has since become more neatly tailored to issues of women's economic empowerment and workforce development. Yet she still advises her father on a myriad of issues internally. She has been one of his longest and most-trusted advisers, starting with her time in the family real estate business.

Former Obama State Department spokesperson, Pentagon press secretary and CNN analyst John Kirby said that her outsized role during the trip raises "legitimate concerns" regarding the transparency of Trump's responsibilities as a White House official, and, subsequently, her lack of accountability mechanisms as an unelected staffer.

"It raises real questions about what policy issues does she have a stake in and does she have authority to speak for the United States on," Kirby said to CNN.

To him, her visibility is an "optics problem" for the administration.

"I found it fairly stunning that she had a seat at so many tables and was involved in so many bilateral policy discussions," he said. "It certainly doesn't help America's standing on the world's stage as a democratic representative government because she wasn't elected by anybody and hasn't been formally appointed to any position."

…"If she ever wanted to run for president," Donald Trump said in an interview with The Atlantic earlier this year, "I think she'd be very, very hard to beat."

Meanwhile one of Trump’s other top-advisors, Tucker Carlson, defended his effusive praise of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, saying part of leading a country “means killing people.” Who knew? Putin, of course. Carlson added “Not on the scale the North Koreans do, but a lot of countries commit atrocities, including a number that we are closely allied with.”

We all love a parade

Hopefully Trump isn’t planning to kill anyone to show what a strong leader he is. He just wants tanks in his parade Thursday. He wanted them last year too. But the Pentagon talked him out of it. Yesterday, Rolling Stone reported that his “Salute to America” extravaganza, really a salute to Señor Trumpanzee, extravaganza on the National Mall “is poised to be one of the gaudiest, most over-the-top displays of jingoism in American history. President Trump wouldn’t have it any other way. [Trumpanzee himself] “has advised on just about every aspect of the event’s aesthetics, which, if he gets his wish, will feature ‘tanks or other armored military vehicles’ stationed around the National Mall.” No one will say how much this is going to cost or how much damage the tanks will do to DC streets. And as far as that idiot's parade... according to a new Monmouth poll, just 20% of Americans have heard anything about it. Among those who have heard about it-- and are presumably aware of the controversy surrounding this decision-- just 37% approve and 56% disapprove.