Ivanka Trump, how dare you?
At one point during John McCain’s funeral service today, the television camera panned to Ivanka Trump, who was in the audience. While her hands couldn’t be seen, she was looking down at a forty-five degree angle, and her arms were moving in a way that appeared to be consistent with someone who was texting on their phone. This set off quite a bit of controversy on social media, as people debated whether she was indeed texting during McCain’s funeral. But that wasn’t the real outrage.
Here’s the real problem: what was she doing there to begin with? John McCain couldn’t have been more clear about the fact that he didn’t want Donald Trump at his funeral. The last three U.S. Presidents, from both parties, were invited. Hillary Clinton was invited. But Donald Trump was not to be allowed anywhere near the building. Ivanka Trump should have understood that this included her too.
During the election, Donald Trump mocked John McCain for being a prisoner of war. After Trump took office, he continued to inappropriately mock McCain. After McCain revealed that he was dying, Trump still mocked him and tried to humiliate him. It was an attack on a American war hero for being a war hero. Throughout all of this, Ivanka Trump did nothing to try to push back against her father’s grotesque behavior toward McCain. She certainly had no right to be there today.
We don’t know the particulars of whether Ivanka Trump received a cursory invitation to John McCain’s funeral (there are unconfirmed claims out there that Lindsey Graham invited her), or if she simply invited her way in. But even if she was invited, she should have understood that it was only because it might have been seen as rude not to invite her. If she’d had any decency, she’d have stayed away. Instead she showed up and tried to connect herself to someone she never once stood up for while he was alive. Whether Ivanka was texting at McCain’s funeral or not, she shouldn’t have been there to begin with.
