Background Briefing: July 1, 2019
Ivanka Trump and the Embarrassing Amateurism of the Trump Family Foreign Policy
We begin with the video released by the French government which has gone viral of Ivanka Trump gate-crashing a private conversation between world leaders Prime Minister May, President Macron, Prime Minister Trudeau and the head of the IMF Christine Lagarde at the G-20 meeting, where Ivanka interjects with an inane comment that clearly puzzles and annoys the huddle causing them to disperse. Ambassador Cynthia Schneider, a professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University who served as U.S. Ambassador to The Netherlands joins us to discuss this case of nepotism gone wild as Trump places his daughter on the American side of the negotiating table opposite Xi Jinping and has her stepping into North Korea with him in what Ivanka describes as a surreal moment We will assess whether a majority of the American people will be sufficiently outraged by the embarrassing amateurism of this crass, classless and clueless family representing the United States abroad to vote them all off the island in 2020. Furthermore just the cost of the VIP accommodations for Trump’s adult children in London recently when they all visited the queen which set back the American taxpayer for $1,223,230, should surely get the attention of the American people, at least not those in the Fox News bubble.
According to a Fox News Host, Leading a Country “Means Killing People”
Then we speak with Adele Stan, a journalist based in Washington D.C. who is currently the editor of Right Wing Watch and a columnist at The American Prospect where she has an article “Trump and Bannon: Busting Up the World”. She joins us to discuss the latest book by Michael Wolff in which Wolff’s main source Stephen Bannon dismisses Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner as “a pair of grifters”. However the president’s daughter and son-in-law together nevertheless play an increasing prominent role in American diplomacy as major players in Trump’s family-style approach to foreign policy. We also respond to remarks by Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Sunday on Fox & Friends where he defended Trump’s praise for the North Korean dictator, saying part of leading a country “means killing people”.
Was There Some Substance Beyond the Photo Op on the DMZ?
Then finally we get an assessment of whether there was some substance beyond the photo op and the Trump family grandstanding on the DMZ with Kim Jong-un and speak with Stephen Noerper, the Korea Society senior director for policy at Columbia University who is a former State Department senior analyst and fellow at Korea’s Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security. He joins us to discuss Trump’s apparent comfort hanging out with despots at the G-20 and his “love” for the cruel young North Korean dictator with possibly the worst human rights record in the world.